F.1:4.4 - Find candidate material when sources or terminology are uncertain

Use this branch when the current question lacks material that can be inspected: its source, wording, location or available finding route is uncertain. Begin with the means you have. A paper catalogue, available files, a source’s references, a colleague or a search service can supply a route. An already identified sufficient source can be used directly.

F.1:4.4.1 - Keep the question and bound the available material

Keep the original question, what an answer would change, and any unresolved condition. A plain concern can start finding; it need not yet have the independent identity required for a SourceCutNote. Separate that concern from the words tried in a search. If you add an interpretation, mark it as a hypothesis to test against the material.

Source reading can change what you understand the question to be. Keep the original receiving concern and explain what the new material changes: a different needed result, a mistaken premise or an additional condition. Use B.5.PI:4.4 when that inquiry needs reconstruction, then return with the revised question. A query variant tries another way to find material for a question; a revised question can require different material.

Establish what can actually be inspected: which publications, collections or archive portions, which editions, and what access they provide. Full bodies, titles, excerpts and an index have different reach. Record a consequential missing collection or unavailable original. This boundary makes a later no-hit result interpretable and prevents an available subset from silently standing for the whole repertoire.

F.1:4.4.2 - Choose an attainable first route

Choose a route that could reach the needed material at acceptable effort. Use a known address or a cheap direct text lookup when it can answer the question. When terminology is uncertain, use a likely contents area, an analogous case or an inspected passage to obtain words the source itself uses.

These are alternative starting points. Choose an additional route only when a consequential gap remains and that route could recover material the first route could not reach. For example, a body search can bypass a title-only index; an older term can bypass a current-name catalogue; a referenced original can expose a condition missing from an excerpt. Repeating the same limited representation with another tool does not repair that limit.

Keep a material search aid’s policy recoverable in ordinary wording: searched corpus and editions, route, relevant filter or model, and how its output is interpreted. Retain a score’s scale or threshold when it changes what is inspected. No special record is required for an ordinary lookup.

F.1:4.4.3 - Try question-preserving variants and repair a blind spot

Form variants from the concern: the object being worked on, needed action or result, failure, and condition that changes the answer. Start with the parts likely to occur in the available text. Trying every detail as one phrase can miss a passage that explains the needed relation in different words.

Keep the original question alongside each consequential variant. Terms suggested by a colleague, an assistant or a promising source remain search hypotheses until their local use is inspected. If a variant drops a constraint to broaden discovery, restore that constraint while reading candidates. Broadening the query permits finding more material; it does not broaden what would answer the question.

After an unhelpful result, ask what that route could have missed. Change the particular term, scope or access path responsible for the suspected omission. When no available route can inspect a load-bearing original, return that access gap rather than inventing its content. Add another route for a reason, not to satisfy a fixed number of searches.

F.1:4.4.4 - Inspect the source around the candidate

Open the candidate with its enclosing heading and the definitions, conditions, examples or dependencies needed to understand the passage. Say how its content could contribute to the current question. A useful candidate can supply a direct answer, an operation, a rival, a counterexample or a limit. Mere word similarity supplies none of those roles.

Compare the material obtained with the contributions the next use needs. New wording, another search route or a different document can still repeat the same contribution. When several aspects matter, identify the one still unsupported and why its absence could change the receiving answer; seek material for that gap. Several documents elaborating one aspect do not supply another. Keep an unresolved aspect visible when its source cannot be inspected. A brief statement of the remaining need suffices.

Check what was actually obtained. Distinguish an inspected body passage from a title or reference to an inaccessible original. An excerpt can be returned as inspected material with its missing context stated; it cannot supply an uninspected original’s omitted conditions. Recover the source and edition as far as access permits, and retain an unresolved edition identity when it affects use. If a source-role judgement turns on a disputed term, use the ordinary F.0.1 source-local reading and return here or to :4.2.

For a candidate FPF Method, retrieve the relevant complete pattern and the conditions needed for its use through the available publication. Material finding supplies that text; E.11.PUR judges a proposed use and E.11.PUA guides application of a selected pattern. A promising fragment can be enough to continue finding while remaining insufficient to perform the Method.

F.1:4.4.5 - Return useful material, its limits and the next move

Return the inspected candidates with source/edition and passage locations, the reason each matters, and any missing condition or access limit. A passage with a short explanation can be enough. Keep inaccessible leads and uninspected candidates visibly separate from material already inspected. State the searched scope and consequential route limits when they affect what the receiver may conclude.

Choose the continuation from the receiving need:

• Use a sufficient identified source directly for the subject question. Finding creates no source-cut obligation.
• Use :4.2 when several inspected sources could change the answer and a justified source cut is needed. Source selection then returns its own SourceCutNote.
• Use the relevant subject method for truth, applicability, synthesis, reliance or assurance. When the inspected contributions still leave an obtaining way unexplained, C.39 develops that connection or returns its precise gap. For proposed FPF uses, continue with E.11.PUR only when such a judgement is current.
• Return the exact missing material or access condition when the next use cannot yet be supplied.

Stop finding when the next use has the material it needs, or no affordable available route could presently change that result. Judge another search by the missing contribution it could supply, not by the availability of more terms or documents. A limited search with no useful hit returns “no useful material found by these routes in this accessible scope”, with the remaining gap. It establishes no claim of universal absence or completeness.

Reopen the affected finding when the question, needed result, source edition or access changes. Reuse a passage whose contribution and conditions still hold. A renamed file or new edition number alone does not require repeating the whole search; a changed relied passage or newly accessible original can. If a search representation changes, check whether it now reaches or hides material needed by the question before changing the received result.