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

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.