Section 03 // Factual Alignment

Source Grounding

"An appeal is only as strong as the record that carries it. To check a story, we must inspect the anchors."

Core Skill: Triangulating Public Records

Writers often use authoritative placeholders like "records indicate" or "research suggests" to skip showing actual evidence. A rigorous researcher learns to look past these placeholders to check if the claims match the cited reports.

Source Grounding is the process of cross-referencing a narrative's assertions directly against original, primary sources (such as county logs, school board charts, or official transit studies) to identify omissions or embellishments.

Interactive Lab: Audit the Reference Placeholders

Click on a placeholder below to analyze its hidden assumptions:

Placeholder A: "“Experts warn that local park water systems are facing imminent strain...”"

Placeholder B: "“Studies show that student transit delays have doubled since last semester...”"

< Record Cross-Examiner > READY

Select Public Report Case

Module Milestones

Verify Cited Documents Learn to pull up referenced public reports instead of relying on summary descriptions.

Spot Summary Embellishment Detect when a writer turns narrow local findings into sweeping general claims.