RMP.1:4 - Solution
Start with the receiving question and attempt a sufficient answer from existing material. Use the four membership conditions when a knowledge question remains unresolved. Return the answer in the current exchange or work product; create a ResearchQuestionBrief only when all four conditions pass.
RMP.1:4.1 - Pattern-Use Unfolding
- Fix the receiver and use. Name who needs an answer, the exact claim, model, corpus contribution, or explanation that could change, the action or later inquiry for which it may matter, and the owner of that later decision. Keep the proposed evidence use separate from permission, release, safety, policy, maintenance, or adoption authority.
- Find what existing material can answer. Reuse an applicable source answer when one is available. Otherwise follow §4.3 from the question and accessible texts: locate relevant passages, recover their meaning and applicability, and show what they change in the answer. Compare alternatives when their differences could change that answer or the need for a study.
- Try the source-answer stop. If the material resolves the receiving question within its intended scope, return the answer with the sources and limits needed to use it, and stop. Use the remaining steps when a research question survives.
- Form the candidate episteme change. State what exact claim or corpus contribution could be retained, narrowed, rejected, qualified, or added. Name the phenomenon, unit, case, population or corpus, relevant relation or contrast, constraints, and smallest useful answer. A topic, task label, desired conclusion, or data-collection plan is not yet a research question.
- Apply the four conditions independently. Establish unresolvedness, non-routine choice under genuine uncertainty, a systematic criticism-ready trace, and a bounded communicable episteme return. All four must pass. Record why the nearest plausible non-member does or does not fit.
- Name the criticism demand, answer condition and work stops. Identify the error or rival that a useful answer must be able to expose, without choosing a design family. State what the evidence must establish for this use, which result would defeat or narrow the proposed claim, and what remains outside the inquiry. Separately state when the present work can finish with uncertainty, refusal or a missing-input return, for example because further inquiry lacks value or authority. Such a stop preserves any unmet answer condition.
- Return one exact disposition.
- return the already-sufficient source/result and stop;
- return the adjacent non-research Work and its expected result to its direct owner;
- return a research-boundary hold naming the unavailable source or owner result and retry condition; or
- when every condition passes, return a ResearchQuestionBrief to RMP.2.
- Preserve later authority. The brief says why an episteme change may matter. It does not choose the receiving action, select a design, authorize Work, or promise that the answer will support the desired decision.
RMP.1:4.2 - Four-Condition Research-Membership Test
| Condition | Passing question | Does not pass | Reopen cue |
|---|---|---|---|
| unresolved relative to a qualified frame and named use | Could a materially different answer or criticism revise, retain, reject, narrow, or add an exact episteme used by the named receiver? | The fact is merely new to the performer, the topic is interesting, or qualified retrieval/current-best work already supplies the answer. | A current source gap, serious rival, source limitation, or changed receiving question makes the exact episteme unresolved again. |
| non-routine design, interpretation, synthesis, or credibility choice under genuine uncertainty | Is the answer or defensible route not predetermined, and must a non-routine choice be justified against alternatives? | The Work executes an already qualified Method with supplied variables, criteria, and interpretation; only schedule, process variance, or execution risk is uncertain. | Method fit, an underlying mechanism or validity claim, or a materially new case becomes unresolved and can change the criticism logic. |
| systematic and criticism-ready | Can a critic recover the sources, premises, intended and performed moves, evidence, deviations, limits, and stops, and defeat or narrow the claim? | A checklist is completed, measurements are repeated, or records are stored without an inspectable question-to-return chain. | A recoverable trace and a defeasible claim can now be formed for the unresolved question. |
| bounded communicable episteme contribution | Is the intended result an inspectable claim or corpus contribution with applicability, limits, and a named return? | The only intended result is an immediate control action, compliance token, product acceptance, institutional recognition, private belief, or unbounded “knowledge.” | A bounded episteme change is stated separately from the later action or recognition. |
These are assurance questions for membership. Recognition cues—such as an experiment, a literature review, a laboratory, a surprising graph, an academic affiliation, or the word “research”—cannot substitute for any row.
RMP.1:4.3 - Answer from Existing Sources before Starting a Study
Use this route when the question has arrived before a suitable source answer. A supplied answer can be used directly when its question, sources and applicability fit the present use. The purpose here is to establish what remains to be investigated.
RMP.1:4.3.1 - Find and interpret the relevant material
- Say what answer is needed. Restate the difficulty in the receiver’s terms and say how an answer could change the next action. Use the texts and search facilities available; consider time or specialist help when they limit what you can resolve. Clarify a difference in the question before spending effort on the wrong one.
- Locate passages that can answer it. Start with the available texts, their contents and their own terminology. Search the words used in the question and likely synonyms; follow a relevant passage to its definitions, conditions, examples or cited basis when they affect the answer. Use F.1 to choose sources by what their claims or limitations contribute. If one identified source already answers the question, use it directly.
- Repair the reading where needed. When a search misses expected material, try another expression or source. Read a found passage with the surrounding context needed to interpret it; F.0.1 helps recover a consequential expression’s local meaning. A correctly understood passage may concern a different population, setting or use. State that difference and seek the material needed for this question. Show the corrected answer so the receiver can tell what the repair achieved.
- Return what the sources support. Explain the answer and point to the passages and editions on which it depends. Keep omissions and uncertainty that affect its use visible. A.10 supplies the claim-bound source and provenance relations. If the answer is sufficient, stop. The explanation already being used may carry the whole result; a separate retrieval log is needed only when reproducing or diagnosing the search is itself part of the work.
A missing text, unknown edition or unresolved applicability limits the conclusion that depends on it. Preserve the answerable remainder and say which source or competent contribution would resolve the remaining question. Further search is useful when its possible answers could change the receiving use; the presence of an unanswered question alone does not prescribe a new study.
RMP.1:4.3.2 - Compare alternatives when their difference matters
Use this branch when existing sources offer materially different answers, or when the receiver needs the best-known current answer. Begin with the working question and the criteria that matter for its use.
Select sources by their answer-changing roles in F.1. When the result claims a best-known current answer, apply the stricter source comparison in F.1:4.2.1 and E.8:11, including serious alternatives, relevant failure evidence and application effort. A recent publication or a history of adoption can help identify a source without establishing that preference.
For each proposed answer, recover its assumptions, conditions and support. When an approach claims an improvement over earlier work, compare the limitation it repairs with those it retains. Consult the earlier source when that comparison needs it; keep historical influence distinct from evidence that the present answer works. State a trade-off when the answers improve different characteristics. The comparison may finish by identifying a question whose answer would distinguish the alternatives.
Say what this comparison changes: the answer, its applicability, the remaining research question or the useful stop. If establishing a new conclusion from a body of research requires appraisal and synthesis, use RMP.7 with its needed question and design. F.0.2 applies when the actual work is conceptual synthesis for a framework-authoring decision. A broader G.2 pack is useful when its declared CG-Frame and repeated-refresh use is needed. These are conditional continuations; a sufficient comparison can finish here.
RMP.1:4.4 - Nearest Non-Members and Exact Returns
| Nearest non-member | Exact return | Reopen RMP.1 only when |
|---|---|---|
| routine engineering qualification, verification, or validation under a qualified Method and supplied criteria | Return the test or qualification result to the domain engineering or assurance owner and the choice to its receiving authority. | A qualified frame exposes an unresolved mechanism, validity, transfer, or evidence question requiring a new criticism-bearing design. |
| routine monitoring or measurement against established variables, thresholds, and response rules | Return the observation or current-state result to Operations or the domain monitoring owner. | An unexplained pattern, rival causal account, invalid measure, or transfer question changes the epistemic task. |
| troubleshooting, incident response, or fault isolation aimed at restoring one operating result | Return the diagnosis and recovery result to the domain engineering, service, or Operations Method. | A knowledge question survives the recovery, matters beyond the episode, and passes all four conditions. |
| audit, compliance assessment, programme evaluation, or product acceptance against supplied criteria and authority | Return the verdict, evaluation, or acceptance result to the audit, governance, assurance, evaluation, or receiving-domain owner. | The validity of criteria, causal interpretation, transfer, or evidence claim itself becomes unresolved. |
| source retrieval, currentness checking, or bounded cross-source comparison sufficient for the use | Return the answer and the source, applicability and comparison limits needed by its receiver, using §4.3. | A material source gap or a new question changes what that answer can establish. |
| application of an already qualified professional Method to produce its ordinary domain result | Return the Work to that Method and domain owner. | Method fit, an underlying claim, or a materially new case creates the four-condition question. Repair of reusable Method identity, qualification, fit, trial, worth, or variants remains with Method Engineering. |
For adjacent Work or a missing result, carry forward the exact question, available material, expected result kind, owner, and reopen condition so useful Work can continue. A supplied answer returns to its receiver as a completed answer; it does not need a next owner task.
RMP.1:4.5 - Record the Result
A passing ResearchQuestionBrief contains these positions:
| Result position | Required content |
|---|---|
| receiver and use | Named receiver, proposed bounded evidence use, affected decision or practice, and the authority that remains outside research. |
| intended episteme change | Exact claim or corpus contribution that could be retained, narrowed, rejected, qualified, or added. |
| bounded question | Answerable question with phenomenon, unit, case, population or corpus, relation or contrast, constraints, and effective horizon where material. |
| qualified current frame | The source answer prepared through §4.3 or supplied for the same use, with its source editions, relevant alternatives, omissions and applicability limits. |
| membership account | Separate pass reasons for all four conditions and the nearest non-member considered. |
| criticism demand | Principal error, rival, invalid source use, dependence, bias, missing context, or unsupported transfer that a defensible answer must expose. |
| constraints and owner results | Domain criteria, safety, ethics, rights, confidentiality, access, instrument, authority, resource, or other conditions already supplied or still external. |
| answer condition | What the evidence must establish for an adequate answer to the bounded question, including applicable uncertainty and scope. |
| work-stop and reopen conditions | When the present work can finish with that answer or with a refusal, retained uncertainty or missing-input return; which unmet answer condition remains and what could reopen inquiry. |
| source and result limits | What the supplied source results establish, what they do not establish, and any source/result that must be returned rather than improvised. |
| continuation | Compatible brief and frame for RMP.2. No selected design, protocol, authorization, or receiving decision is implied. |
When a supplied result already answers the current use, return that answer with the source, applicability and limitation information the receiver needs to use it correctly. The current exchange or existing work product may already contain the whole result. Stop with that answer: no ResearchQuestionBrief, unused card answers, separate form or justification for omitting a study is required.
If someone will rely on the answer later or for a different use, retain the exact source/result and the scope, currentness or uncertainty that can change that receiver’s reliance. Reuse an adequate existing explanation; add only the missing limitation or reason needed for that use.
For an exact non-research return or research-boundary hold, make the following relations recoverable from the available material or a short return:
| Return position | Required content |
|---|---|
| current question | The unresolved wording that arrived, without silently rewriting it into a different owner problem. |
| disposition basis | Supplied-answer sufficiency, nearest non-member, or named missing/stale source or owner result. |
| available material | Exact current results and limits worth carrying to the receiver or owner. |
| return target and expected result | Direct owner or supplier interface and the result kind needed next. |
| effect and retry | What stops now, what can continue, and the condition that would reopen RMP.1. |
RMP.1:4.6 - Frascati Criteria Mutated for This Boundary
The OECD Frascati criteria are a valuable cross-sector comparator for R&D. RMP.1 adapts them for holder-neutral, criticism-ready research practice; it does not copy a statistical classification or institutional gate.
| Frascati criterion | RMP.1 use |
|---|---|
| novel | Adapt: unresolved relative to a qualified current frame and named use. New-to-the-performer information is insufficient; global firstness, patent novelty, and publication priority are unnecessary. |
| creative | Adapt: a non-routine question, design, interpretation, synthesis, or criticism choice is required. Prestige originality and artistic creation are not required; routine protocol execution does not pass. |
| uncertain | Adopt with precision: the answer or defensible route is not predetermined. Schedule uncertainty, ordinary process variance, or execution risk without an unresolved knowledge claim is insufficient. |
| systematic | Adopt: preserve an inspectable question-to-return chain of sources, premises, intended and performed moves, evidence, deviations, limits, and stops. Repetition or checklist compliance alone is insufficient. |
| transferable and/or reproducible | Adapt: return a communicable criticism-ready contribution with bounded applicability and enough trace for another critic to inspect or reuse the reasoning. Do not require universal generalization, recurrence, or new-data replication from every historical, qualitative, field, citizen, or other inquiry. |
RMP.1:4.7 - First-Hour Qualification Card
Start with prompts 1–3, using the question and available material. If prompt 3 yields a sufficient answer, return it under §4.5 and finish the card there. Prompts 4–8 apply only while a research-membership question remains unresolved. A sentence or compact row is enough where an answer still needs to be made explicit.
- Who needs what answer for which bounded use, and who retains the later decision?
- What do the available sources already answer? Use §4.3 when the answer still needs to be recovered or compared; retain the sources and limitations that matter for this use.
- Does that source answer resolve the receiving question? If yes, return it with the sources and limits needed for this use, and stop here.
- What exact episteme could change, and what phenomenon, unit, case, corpus, relation, or contrast bounds it?
- Why is the question unresolved relative to the frame rather than merely unfamiliar?
- Which non-routine choice and genuine uncertainty prevent ordinary Method execution from being enough?
- How could a critic inspect and defeat or narrow the claim?
- What would make the answer adequate for this use? Separately, when should the present work finish with uncertainty or refusal, and what would reopen it?
If an answer still needed to decide the current branch depends on an unavailable source or owner result, name that hold immediately. If a nearest non-member fits, return it immediately. An unused later prompt is neither a missing input nor a reason to reopen a completed answer.
RMP.1:4.8 - What Changes in Practice
The practitioner stops asking, “Is this activity called research?” and asks, “What exact episteme remains unresolved for this use, why does it need a non-routine criticism-bearing route, and what is the cheapest honest stop?” The output either closes the request from current evidence, moves ordinary Work to its real owner, exposes a precise supply gap, or gives RMP.2 a question it can actually design for.