investigation

Establish the question

Interpret the request in its available context. Distinguish the result sought, the work authorized, and the choices the request fixes or leaves open. Support each consequential interpretation through the request and applicable rules. Use established dependencies to identify constraints and missing prerequisites within the authorized work. Determine separately what the result must accomplish and how it is to be presented.

For an example or comparison, identify the relationship it illustrates or the claim it challenges and the scope the request assigns to it. Establish which features affect the required result. For a proposed term, method, or arrangement, determine whether the request adopts it, requires its examination, or permits alternatives.

Compare readings that would change the result or authorized work against the available context. Investigate a missing fact; make a delegated choice within its stated constraints; obtain clarification for a remaining difference that changes what is required or permitted. Continue work whose validity is independent of that unresolved difference.

Establish the question to answer, its intended use, and the subject, conditions, and distinctions on which the answer depends. Determine which sources, observations, and methods the task permits or requires. Establish an adopted choice through the authority that made it. Give a proposed choice its proposed status.

Identify the claims that would answer the question and the premises they require. Establish what evidence would support, qualify, or contradict each claim. Derive that basis from the question, applicable rules, and domain knowledge independently of the conclusion being examined.

Select the next examination

Identify competing answers or explanations through the facts and relationships that would make them differ. Determine which observations or source passages could distinguish them. Include an alternative that could overturn or narrow the proposed conclusion where the available information permits it.

For a proposed search, inspection, calculation, or experiment, identify the unresolved question it addresses and how its possible findings could change the answer. Select examinations through that relationship, their feasibility, and the consequences of leaving the question unresolved.

Use the relevant discipline's methods to determine what the examination can establish. Identify its assumptions, scope, and possible errors. Obtain missing methodological information where it affects the conclusion, or keep the affected conclusion unresolved. Keep collection and intervention within the task's authority and the applicable access conditions.

Obtain and inspect evidence

Use available records to locate evidence already obtained. Inspect the underlying material needed for the current claim and seek further evidence where its support or coverage remains unresolved.

Identify who or what produced each source or observation, what was examined, and under which conditions. Preserve the version, context, and location needed to recover the evidence and assess its use. Distinguish a source's own record or observation from its reports of another source.

Inspect the passages, methods, results, or performed actions on which the conclusion depends. Assess the source's access to the subject, the method by which it obtained its information, and the limitations bearing on the claim. Determine what a partial inspection establishes and what requires unavailable material. Identify missing access or failed retrieval as limits on the inquiry.

Trace repeated accounts to their underlying evidence. Assess independent support through how the information was obtained. Preserve disagreements and counterevidence with the context needed to compare them.

Keep the inspected evidence and its attribution recoverable through the references or records required for the task. Distinguish a retrieved record, an observation made during the inquiry, and a proposed examination awaiting execution.

Determine what follows

For each conclusion, connect the supporting evidence to the asserted result. Identify the assumptions needed for that connection and examine whether they hold under the stated conditions. Compare the conclusion's subject, scope, and certainty with those the evidence supports.

Distinguish an observation from an explanation for it. Compare explanations through their differing predictions and the observations available. Identify accounts the evidence leaves possible. Determine which comparisons, controls, or additional observations are needed to attribute a difference to a proposed cause.

For a claim of absence, determine where and how the thing would have been observable and whether the examination covered those conditions. Establish the scope of the supported absence through that coverage. Preserve the difference between absence in the examined material and absence beyond it.

Compare conflicting evidence through the claims, conditions, methods, and underlying sources responsible for the difference. Obtain evidence that could resolve the conflict where the task requires it. Preserve a remaining dispute with its supported alternatives and their consequences.

Use an institution's authority to establish the rule or decision it adopts within its jurisdiction. Assess claims about observed behavior or consequences through evidence bearing on those claims. Establish the scope of a formal result through its premises, derivation, and correspondence to the question. Keep those different grounds for a conclusion distinguishable.

Form and examine the answer

Answer the question with the scope, attribution, conditions, and uncertainty established by the evidence. Identify a conclusion conditional on an unresolved assumption through that assumption. Distinguish a contradicted claim from a claim whose support remains unestablished.

For each consequential assertion in the answer, locate its support in the inspected evidence or derivation. Reconstruct the connection using the information available to the intended reader. Check that references identify the material actually inspected and that its context supports the asserted meaning. Compare the answer with the question and applicable requirements to identify omitted work.

Examine counterevidence, competing explanations, and limitations that could change a required conclusion. For an established discrepancy, locate the responsible question, source interpretation, observation, assumption, inference, or scope of the answer. Correct that decision within the authorized work. Re-examine the affected conclusions and their dependencies after a correction or new evidence.

Determine completion

Continue investigation for an unresolved question whose answer could change the required result. Choose further work through the evidence it could supply, the consequences of error, and the task's constraints.

Compare the completed examinations and their findings with the original question and applicable requirements. Determine whether remaining uncertainty belongs in the requested answer or prevents establishing a required result. Identify unfinished work through the missing evidence, capability, or authority and the conclusion it prevents.

Deliver the investigation as complete when the answer and its examinations satisfy those requirements. Base that judgment on the evidence obtained and the work performed.