Source Authority Ladder

Rank authority for the specific claim

Start with the organization that owns the fact: a product behavior belongs to current provider documentation, a standard to its issuing body, a law or regulation to the responsible government source, and a measured result to the underlying data and method. Use reputable analysis to interpret primary material, discover disagreement, or add context—not to replace a more direct source.

Authority is claim-specific. A vendor is authoritative about its documented interface, but not automatically about comparative quality. A source can be credible yet stale, outside the relevant region or version, based on a different population, or too indirect to support the sentence you want to write.

Record a source decision

Do not paste restricted documents or personal data into an unapproved AI product. Record a safe label and retrieve protected evidence through an authorized workflow.

Claim: [ONE MATERIAL CLAIM]
Source: [TITLE AND URL OR SAFE INTERNAL ID]
Owner or issuer: [ORGANIZATION]
Source type: [PRIMARY | SECONDARY | AGGREGATOR]
Directness: [DIRECTLY STATES | SUPPORTS INFERENCE | BACKGROUND ONLY]
Scope: [PRODUCT, VERSION, REGION, POPULATION]
Published or updated: [DATE IF AVAILABLE]
Verified on: [YYYY-MM-DD]
Independence: [INTEREST OR CONFLICT TO CONSIDER]
Decision: [USE | CORROBORATE | BACKGROUND | REJECT]
Reason: [WHY THIS SOURCE FITS THIS CLAIM]

Expected evidence and verification

The expected evidence is a traceable source set in which every material claim has at least one source that directly supports it, volatile claims use current owner documentation, and important uncertainty or disagreement remains visible.

Open every cited source, locate the supporting passage, confirm version and date, and test whether the sentence says more than the source. For consequential or contested claims, seek independent corroboration and document why sources disagree before drawing a conclusion.