Check claims and evidence
A polished answer can contain a wrong total, an unsupported promise or a convincing-looking reference. Checking means finding the evidence for each factual claim and deciding what that evidence actually allows you to say.
In this module, you will audit a short answer for the fictional Willow Team. You will use supplied records, a calculator and one original public webpage. Your finished work will show which claims are supported, which need correction and which must remain unresolved.
What you will learn
By the end, you will be able to:
- Separate checkable factual claims from suggestions and statements of uncertainty.
- Inspect an original source, including its creator, date, context and relevant passage.
- Recognise that confident wording, a citation or a working link does not establish a claim.
- Check quantities, units, arithmetic, ambiguous dates and conflicting records.
- Record a supported, contradicted or unresolved verdict and prepare a source-faithful correction.
Before you start
Complete Modules 1 to 3 first, or check that you can use fictional input safely, give a clear brief, preserve conditions when rewriting and connect a statement to a labelled source paragraph.
Use an approved ordinary text-chat assistant, a browser, a basic calculator and a notebook or text editor. You do not need a paid plan, an integration, an uploaded file, code or an AI browsing feature. You open the public source yourself in your browser. No account settings need changing.
Use only the fictional workshop records supplied here. The public help page is the one real-world source. Do not enter real participant details or workplace records. Do not send a message, book anything or contact the fictional people.
Plan for about 105 minutes:
- Five lessons and demonstrations: 40 minutes, 8 minutes each
- Guided practice: 30 minutes
- Independent assignment: 25 minutes
- Self-check and solution review: 10 minutes
These are planning estimates, not measured completion times. Short lesson pauses are included in the lesson times.
Continue the workshop scenario
The fictional Willow Team is preparing a community workshop. The coordinator needs an accurate internal briefing and wants to know where evidence is missing.
Every exercise is a separate labelled snapshot. Dates inside those records belong to that invented snapshot; they are not upcoming appointments. Do not combine packs or carry a fact from one exercise into another.
All sample AI answers are illustrative teaching examples. They are not records of live model runs. If a chat tool is unavailable, use the supplied answers and complete the human checks. If the public webpage is unavailable, you can practise using its evidence capsule, but record that the live-source step remains incomplete.
Read the diagram explanation
Isolate one factual claim, separating suggestions and combined claims. Inspect the original source, its creator, date, status, context and relevant passage. Check numerical inputs, units and arithmetic when needed. Evidence that backs the exact claim leads to supported: keep its conditions. Conflicting evidence or a different checked result leads to contradicted: correct and recheck. Missing, ambiguous, inaccessible or unresolved conflicting evidence leads to unresolved: show the gap, remove the claim or identify needed evidence. Finally review the whole corrected draft before accepting it.