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.