Inspect evidence

Evidence is the link between a canon claim and the source material that supports it.

Why evidence matters

Without evidence, a canon graph becomes another summary. With evidence, each important claim can be checked against the manuscript.

Evidence helps answer:

• Where did this claim come from?
• Is the source explicit or inferred?
• Does the excerpt support the exact claim?
• Is the claim still true after revision?
• Should this item be accepted, rejected, or left in review?

What to inspect

When reviewing an entity, relationship, or continuity item, look for:

• source file or chapter;
• nearby excerpt;
• named entities in the excerpt;
• relationship direction;
• confidence or warning state if available;
• whether the item was generated, edited, or accepted by a human.

Strong evidence

Strong evidence usually has these traits:

• the excerpt directly names or identifies the entity;
• the relationship or fact is explicit in the text;
• the source location is clear;
• the claim does not depend on a long chain of inference;
• the same claim is supported consistently elsewhere.

Weak evidence

Weak evidence may still be useful, but it should not become stable canon without review.

Treat evidence as weak when:

• the excerpt is ambiguous;
• pronouns could refer to several entities;
• the claim is inferred from mood, implication, or context;
• the source chapter is missing;
• the item has no clear source reference;
• the claim conflicts with another source.

Practical review pattern

For each important item:

1. Open the evidence.
2. Read the source excerpt.
3. Compare the exact claim to the text.
4. Decide whether the claim is canon, wrong, or uncertain.
5. Record or preserve that decision.

The goal is not to remove every uncertainty. The goal is to keep uncertainty visible.