F.1:4.2 - Source-selection method

Step 1 — State the receiving question and use. Say what answer is needed, what later use it serves, and which source difference could change that answer.

Step 2 — Name candidate sources by exact edition. Use identified sources whose relevant claims can be inspected. A discipline or domain-family label may help discovery but is not a source.

Step 3 — Inspect the answer-changing role of each candidate. Ask what claim or limit from that edition can change the answer. If that role depends on a disputed expression, pause selection only long enough to use F.0.1’s ordinary branch: name the exact source, edition, and passage, and say in plain language what the expression means there. Then return to source selection. Do not run this branch for every candidate. Look deliberately for intended-use contributions, rival explanations, action-changing counterexamples, transfer limits, and material non-fit. One source may serve several roles.

Step 4 — Take the smallest sufficient cut. Retain sources that cover distinct answer-changing roles. Exclude a candidate when no inspected claim from it changes the stated question or use. Do not optimize for a fixed count, diversity score, canonical status, or exhaustive appearance.

Step 5 — Record exclusions, gaps, limits, and reopen conditions. Name deliberate exclusions and why they do not change this answer. State a load-bearing source gap rather than treating an unavailable source as irrelevant. Say which question, use, edition, rival, counterexample, or transfer-boundary change would reopen the cut.

Step 6 — Return one SourceCutNote. Identify it under C.2.1 by three values: the ClaimGraph produced by Steps 1–5, the exact receiving question from Step 1 as EntityOfConcern, and the named effective ReferenceScheme that resolves the question, cited editions, and role claims. Keep the intended use in the ClaimGraph. Use a one-screen representation when it helps the receiver hold the result in view. Detailed source analysis stays with the receiving comparison, synthesis, or evidence method. Step 7 — Recover only the meanings the work needs. After the cut is stable, create an F.17 local-sense cell only for a retained expression that later reuse, a claim, a named receiver, or an actual relation needs. Do not postpone a meaning needed by Step 3 to this stage, and do not manufacture a cell for every retained source.