Separating Fact, Claim and Interpretation Changes the Conversation

There are times when gathering a lot of material does not make the writing any clearer. The reason may be that sentences of different natures are mixed in one paragraph. Splitting "what you verified", "who said it that way" and "how I read it" changes the reliability of a record.

Split into three lines

When taking notes, mark them like this.

• Fact — something that can be checked again: a date, a document, a photo, a transcript
• Claim — the position a person or a source takes. Do not conclude right or wrong on the spot
• Interpretation — the judgement or meaning the writer draws from the record

For example, "the meeting opened at 2 p.m. on 14 September" is a fact. "The attendees said they had not been told about the schedule change" is the speaker's claim. "It looks like the change notice stayed on a single channel, which appears to be the source of the confusion" is an interpretation.

All three sentences are needed, but writing them with equal weight leaves the reader unable to tell what to believe and what to check. Mark the scope of a judgement in interpretations with phrases like "it appears" or "with the material I currently have".

Leave the location of the material

Write the source and the time checked next to the note so you can verify it later. A filename, a page number, the date of a conversation — any clue another person could find is enough. When a source cannot be published, remove the personal information and judge separately what can be published.

As records pile up, sentences that lower your certainty turn out to help more. "Not confirmed" differs from "did not exist". "I could not find it in the material" differs from "it never happened". Guarding these small differences protects people and keeps a post alive longer.