Reviewed: 9 October 2026. The notices, desk and enquiry in this guide are entirely fictional. They form an original source-comparison exercise, not a real campus policy or a reproduced library worksheet. Verify actual rules with the responsible organisation.
Start with a question that evidence can answer
Research skills include finding material, but they also include deciding whether that material supports the question you are asking. A fast search can return a newer document that concerns a different audience, an old document that remains relevant or an undated status whose meaning is uncertain. None should be treated as a complete answer merely because it appears first.
Cornell University Library's information-evaluation guide discusses relevance of authorship, date, evidence, audience and coverage. It also cautions that publisher reputation alone does not guarantee quality. This is a narrow attribution; the original example below is not its checklist or an adaptation of its guide. A source's useful currency depends on the question it is being used to answer.
State a concrete question before collecting sources. “Is the service open?” may conceal separate questions about visitor access, staff procedures and temporary closure. Decide which audience, location and time your answer needs to cover. Then read the supporting document's body, not only its title or search snippet.
Original exercise: three documents about one desk
A fictional enquiry asks: “Can visitors collect materials from the North Desk on Thursday afternoon?” The exercise supplies three documents. Their contents are invented solely for practice, and Thursday has no real-world calendar date here.
| Document | Supplied content and limits |
|---|---|
| New staff notice | Dated Monday; addressed to staff; says staff should use a new internal logging form from Wednesday. It says nothing about visitor opening hours. |
| Archived visitor poster | From an earlier term; says visitors may collect materials at the North Desk on Thursday from 14:00 to 16:00. Current validity is not stated. |
| Maintenance-status entry | Undated; says “North Desk maintenance in progress.” It gives no completion time, visitor-access rule or responsible contact. |
The staff notice is the newest dated document, but it concerns an internal logging process. It does not automatically withdraw the visitor hours on the earlier poster. Equally, the earlier poster's explicit hours do not establish that those hours still apply. The maintenance entry raises a relevant uncertainty but does not establish that the desk is closed on the particular Thursday.
There is no contradiction that can be resolved simply by choosing the newest date. The documents have different scopes, and two leave important timing information missing. Record those differences before writing a confident opening-hours answer.
Separate assertions from conclusions
For the staff notice, the supported assertion is that it directs staff to use a named internal form from Wednesday. A conclusion that visitors must now complete that form would be unsupported. The notice's audience is staff, and no visitor requirement is supplied.
For the archived poster, the supported assertion is that the earlier term's visitor notice stated Thursday collection hours of 14:00–16:00. A conclusion that visitors can collect materials this Thursday would require evidence that the poster remains valid. Archival availability shows that the document can be read; it does not prove that its rule continues.
For the maintenance entry, the supported assertion is that an undated entry reports maintenance in progress. A conclusion that maintenance is happening now or that all collection is suspended would need further evidence. The words might refer to an earlier period, a partial restriction or something else the packet does not explain.
This distinction is the core of the exercise. Copying an assertion accurately is only one step. You must also examine whether it answers the intended question without adding an audience, time or consequence the source does not supply.
Write a useful provisional response
An original response to the enquiry could be:
“I found an earlier-term visitor poster listing Thursday collection from 14:00 to 16:00, but its current validity is unconfirmed. A newer notice concerns staff logging and does not state visitor hours. An undated entry mentions maintenance without saying when it applies or whether collections are suspended. The packet does not establish that visitors can collect materials this Thursday afternoon. I would seek confirmation from the responsible desk before giving a definite time.”
This response provides the specific historical hours and their limitation. It does not replace uncertainty with a fabricated answer. It also avoids the opposite error of announcing closure when the maintenance entry does not support that conclusion.
In this exercise, seeking confirmation is a proposed action. No enquiry has been sent and no desk has replied. A research note should preserve that state. Describing a drafted request as “confirmed with the organisation” would invent an event.
Ask the question that resolves the gap
A proposed enquiry could say:
“Please confirm whether visitors may collect materials at the North Desk this Thursday afternoon and, if so, the current collection times. I found an earlier-term poster listing 14:00–16:00 and an undated maintenance entry. Does either apply to this Thursday? The recent staff logging notice does not specify visitor access.”
The request names the exact audience and time, identifies the relevant documents and asks about their continuing scope. It does not demand that a contact endorse the researcher's preferred interpretation. If a real response addresses only staff logging, it still would not resolve the visitor-hours question.
For a real enquiry, identify the responsible organisation's actual contact through its official channel. Do not assume that any author or reposting account has authority to confirm a service rule. Keep the date and scope of the reply in your record so that later readers can see what was answered.
Update the conclusion only as far as new evidence permits
Consider a fictional alternative reply: “Maintenance ends before Thursday, but visitor collections this Thursday are by appointment only.” That would resolve the maintenance concern for the specified Thursday while introducing an appointment requirement. It would not confirm unrestricted collection during the archived poster's hours.
A revised response would say that the new reply supports appointment-only collection on that Thursday and that the actual appointment arrangements remain to be checked. This is a hypothetical variant, not a real reply. Its purpose is to show how you revise a conclusion without retaining an outdated assumption from an earlier document.
Another variant is a reply saying only “the staff form changed.” That repeats the internal-process fact without answering visitor access. More recent text is not necessarily more relevant text. Ask for the missing scope instead of treating every response as complete confirmation.
Avoid counting reposts as independent confirmation
Suppose three community pages reproduce the archived visitor poster. They may help locate the poster, but if all three derive from that same document, they do not independently establish current hours. Follow the claim back to its source and inspect what the source actually says.
Likewise, a reputable organisation can publish a notice that is irrelevant to your question. Reputation may inform why you examine a source, but the supported claim still depends on its body and scope. An official staff notice cannot answer an unmentioned visitor rule merely by being official.
Record the minimum necessary source details: where you obtained the document, its stated date, intended audience, relevant passage in your own brief paraphrase and the uncertainty that remains. Avoid collecting personal information or redistributing material you are not entitled to share. This exercise supplies no private documents or personal data.
Make the research record easy to revisit
Keep a version of the provisional answer alongside the later confirmed answer, if confirmation actually arrives. Explain which new fact changed the conclusion. A note such as “updated” is less useful than a precise statement that a responsible reply addressed visitor access for the particular Thursday.
For a learning-choice application of these distinctions, see the career risk assessment guide. For designing an alternative while approval remains pending, see the creative problem-solving guide. The important shared practice is matching a conclusion to its actual evidence, rather than manufacturing certainty from an incomplete packet.
Frequently asked questions
Is the newest document always the best source?
No. Check whether it concerns the intended question and audience. In this example, the newest dated notice concerns staff logging rather than visitor hours.
How many sources do I need?
There is no fixed number established here. One authorised, relevant current confirmation may address a specific rule better than several reposts of the same old poster. Examine independence and scope.
Can I conclude that a service is closed from a maintenance entry?
Only if the actual entry and other relevant evidence support that conclusion for the intended time and audience. The undated fictional entry here does not.