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.
| Available starting point | First route and likely blind spot |
|---|---|
| A cited source or passage address | Obtain that edition and open the passage. A reference alone may expose no body, and a later edition may have changed the relied condition. |
| Words likely to occur in accessible text | Search the bodies for the object, action, result or distinguishing condition. A single phrase may miss another language, earlier name or differently worded explanation. |
| Unfamiliar terminology but a recognizable concern | Browse a relevant contents area or example, then use the source’s wording for further lookup. A published classification can place the contribution in another area. |
| A relevant inspected source | Follow a reference or neighbouring passage that could supply the missing contribution, rival or limit. Its references can favour its own lineage. |
| A search, assistant or summarized view | Use returned candidates to choose what to inspect. Its declared fields or representation can omit body conditions; a score cannot establish their absence. |
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.