tinyhumansai Evidence Review
Read what was gathered. Record what it supports — not what the line of inquiry would like it to support.
When to use
- A
sourcesrow is ingathered. - A finding cites something nobody has read end to end.
Steps
- Read the thing itself, not its abstract, not its summary, not the article about it. Abstracts overstate; that is what they are for.
- Find the actual claim and the actual support for it — the method, the sample, the data. A conclusion with no method behind it is commentary whatever the venue.
- Write
establishesnarrowly. "In one cohort of 40 over six months" is the finding; "X causes Y" is what somebody will cite it for. - Note what it does not establish, particularly where it is likely to be over-read.
- Flag contradictions rather than resolving them. Two sources that disagree are the most informative thing the lab has today; smoothing them is the failure this step exists to prevent.
- Move the row to
read, and record or revise thefindingsrow it bears on, with the source id inrefs.
Output
The sources row moved to read with an honest establishes, plus any
findings row it creates or changes. Sources that turn out not to say what they
were fetched for are discarded with that as the reason — expensive knowledge,
and expensive to learn twice.