# ESC Process Notes: Claim Evaluation vs. Syntheses

Forgive me if some of this is repetitive, I can’t remember what I’ve written in which draft and what’s actually been published, much less tell what’s actually novel. Eventually there will be a polished master post describing my overall note taking method and leaving out most of how it was developed, but it also feels useful to discuss the journey.

When I [started](https://acesounderglass.com/2019/10/24/epistemic-spot-check-the-fate-of-rome-round-2/) taking notes in [Roam](http://roamresearch.com) (a workflowy/wiki hybrid), I would:

1.  Create a page for the book (called a Source page), with some information like author and subject ([example](https://roamresearch.com/#/app/AcesoUnderGlass/page/j8L_oJTRK))
2.  Record every claim the book made on that Source page
3.  Tag each claim so it got its own page
4.  When I investigated a claim, gather evidence from various sources and list it on the claim page, grouped by source

This didn’t make sense though: why did some sources get their own page and some a bullet point on a claims page? Why did some claims get their own page and some not? What happened if a piece of evidence was useful in multiple claims?

Around this time I coincidentally had a call with Roam CEO Conor White-Sullivan to demo a bug I thought I had found. There was no bug, I had misremembered the intended behavior, but this meant that he saw my system and couldn’t hide his flinch. Aside from wrecking performance, there was no need to give each claim its own page: Roam has block references, so you can point to bullet points, not just pages.

When Conor said this, something clicked. I had already [identified](https://acesounderglass.com/2019/10/17/what-comes-after-epistemic-spot-checks/) one of the problems with epistemic spot checks as being too binary, too focused on evaluating a particular claim or book than building knowledge. The original way of note taking was a continuation of that. What I should be doing was gathering multiple sources, taking notes on equal footing, and then combining them into an actual belief using references to the claims’ bullet points. I call that a Synthesis ([example](https://roamresearch.com/#/app/AcesoUnderGlass/page/Dnx6lN8tk)). Once I had an actual belief, I could assess the focal claim in context and give it a credence (a slider from 1-10), which could be used to inform my overall assessment of the book.

Sometimes there isn’t enough information to create a Synthesis, so something is left as a Question instead ([example](https://roamresearch.com/#/app/AcesoUnderGlass/page/SQ2XyFrEv)).

Once I’d proceduralized this a bit, it felt so natural and informative I assumed everyone else would find it similarly so.  Finally you didn’t have to take my word for what was important- you could see all the evidence I’d gathered and then click through to see the context on anything you thought deserved a closer look. Surely everyone will be overjoyed that I am providing this

Feedback was overwhelming that this was much worse, no one wanted to read my Roam DB, and I should keep presenting evidence linearly.

I refuse to accept that my old way is the _best_ way of presenting evidence and conclusions about a book or a claim. It’s too linear and contextless. I do accept that “here’s my Roam have fun” is worse. Part of my current project is to identify a third way that shares the information I want to in a way that is actually readable.