Method
Every case study on this site follows the same sequence: pick sources by who issued them, search with operators that reach the record, verify each claim against a locator, then export the whole chain so anyone can re-check it.
Step one
The organisation that created or holds the record: a national archive, statistics office, court, parliament, ministry, space agency or central bank. A claim is only marked Verified when a tier 1 document supports it.
A judgment read on the court's own reporting site rather than a summary of it.
Museums, universities, national libraries and official history programmes that describe a record they hold or curate. Used for context and for locating tier 1 material.
A museum collection page describing an object, used to find the accession record.
Reference works and reporting. Used only to build a search path or to flag a disagreement, never as the sole support for a published answer. Where a page still leans on tier 3, the case study says so in its limitations.
A reference article that gives an approximate date, prompting a check against the register.
The starting points are listed on the official source directory.
Step two
| Operator | What it is for | Example |
|---|---|---|
| site: | Restrict a search to one institution's domain so results cannot drift to aggregators. | site:gov.gh district assembly establishment instrument |
| "exact phrase" | Pin wording that would appear in the record itself rather than in a retelling. | "Legislative Instrument" "District Assembly" 2018 |
| filetype: | Reach the primary document — gazette, statute, report — instead of a page describing it. | filetype:pdf annual report reserve bank opening 1914 |
| -excluded | Strip a dominant but wrong result that swamps the first page. | voyager launch date -"voyager 1" |
| intitle: / inurl: | Find index and register pages that list records rather than discuss them. | intitle:index district assemblies list |
| Date-limited search | Separate contemporaneous reporting from later commentary when a date is contested. | Results restricted to the month of the event. |
Step three
The published answer must be supported by at least two sources that do not derive from each other. If only one exists, the page says so and the status stays partial.
Each claim records where in the document it was found — page, clause, section, table or paragraph — so a reader can re-open the same place.
Every source carries the date it was opened. Live pages change; the record states when the wording was read.
Where sources conflict on a date or a name, both readings appear with their sources, and the reason for preferring one is stated.
If a plain search exposed the answer directly, that search is logged and flagged. A benchmark that a snippet answers is a weak benchmark, and the log shows which ones were rewritten because of it.
No quotation, page number, figure or source is written unless it was opened. Gaps stay visible as gaps.
Step four
Open any case study and use the audit download in its header. The Ghana local authority page additionally exports its full search log as CSV or JSON, with the filters applied at the time of export recorded inside the file.
Honesty