A shared language for evidence.

This glossary uses terms as they appear in the FactAPI.com guides. Status labels describe the illustrative local contract, not a universal standard. Follow each topic link for the relevant context, limitations, and research reference.

Abstention

A deliberate decision not to assign a factual conclusion when the evidence or task definition is inadequate. In a proposed review workflow, abstention should have a reason—such as ambiguous wording or missing support—rather than appear as an unexplained failure. Explore the guide ↗

Assessment

A documented judgment about the relationship between a specific claim and specified evidence. An assessment belongs to a scope and a particular check; it should not be confused with the source document itself or a guarantee about every possible source. Explore the guide ↗

Atomic claim

A statement small enough to be assessed independently while retaining the context needed for its meaning. Atomic does not mean stripping away attribution, a date, or a qualifier. A sentence can produce several claims when its parts have different evidence. Explore the guide ↗

Attribution

The connection between a statement and the person or source said to have made it. Checking that someone made an assertion is different from checking whether the assertion is correct. Preserve that distinction when extracting claims or paraphrasing a source. Explore the guide ↗

Bibliographic identity

The question of which work a reference identifies. Titles, authors, publication details, versions, and identifiers help establish a match. An identity match does not show that the work supports the nearby claim or that its research methods are valid. Explore the guide ↗

Citation coverage

In an evaluation rubric, the extent to which claims that need evidence have identifiable citation support. Define which claims count and what constitutes adequate support before measuring coverage; a citation marker alone should not automatically satisfy the requirement. Explore the guide ↗

Citation support

The relationship between a cited passage and the assertion it is supposed to justify. The passage must address the actual wording, including scope and qualifications. Topic similarity and a real bibliographic record are useful checks but do not settle support. Explore the guide ↗

Claim

A statement presented for inspection or assessment. Using this term avoids implying that extracted text has already been verified. A useful record retains the wording, context, attribution, and period that determine what the evidence would need to establish. Explore the guide ↗

Contradicted

One of the local assessment labels used in our examples. It means relevant evidence conflicts with the specific claim under the defined scope. It should remain separate from processing failures and from cases where the available material simply does not resolve the question. Explore the guide ↗

Correction notice

A notice indicating a change to previously published material. Read the notice and identify the affected part rather than assuming every claim in the work needs the same revision. In a source watch, preserve its identity, scope, and downstream review outcome. Explore the guide ↗

DOI

A digital object identifier associated with a work or other object. In citation checking, an identifier helps locate and distinguish the intended record. Its presence does not establish that the source supports a claim, and not every legitimate source has one. Explore the guide ↗

Entity resolution

The process of determining which person, organization, project, or other entity a name refers to. Similar names can refer to different subjects. Preserve uncertain matches rather than letting a normalization step silently select the most familiar candidate. Explore the guide ↗

Evidence boundary

The set of sources and scope within which a check is performed. A review against supplied documents answers a different question from an open-source investigation. State the boundary so readers understand what supported and unresolved labels actually describe. Explore the guide ↗

Evidence locator

A reference to the passage, paragraph, section, table, or other part of a source used in an assessment. A locator should remain resolvable for the relevant source version. A link to a long document alone may not identify the supporting material precisely enough. Explore the guide ↗

Fact API

An interface described as returning factual records, published reviews, or evidence-oriented assessments. The term can cover different jobs, so the data contract should make its actual operation explicit. Retrieving a record is not automatically the same as completing a verification. Explore the guide ↗

Fact extraction

Identification of statements within unstructured material for later inspection. Good extraction preserves original text, context, and source locations. It can identify what a document says without deciding whether the document’s assertions are accurate. Explore the guide ↗

Insufficient evidence

The local example status for a claim that the available material cannot resolve. It does not mean the claim has been disproved. The response should explain the gap and distinguish missing support from a technical failure to access the intended source. Explore the guide ↗

LLM evaluator

A language-model component used to propose assessments under a defined rubric. Its output should remain inspectable against the actual evidence. Model confidence or agreement with another model is not an independent source establishing that a claim is correct. Explore the guide ↗

Provenance

Information about where a record came from and how it was produced. For an evidence workflow, useful provenance connects sources, processing steps, versions, and responsible reviewers or systems. It helps a later reader reconstruct the basis of an assessment. Explore the guide ↗

Retrieval

The stage that finds candidate documents or passages for a question. Retrieval relevance and evidentiary support are different checks: a passage may discuss the right topic without addressing the precise claim, time period, entity, or comparison. Explore the guide ↗

Retrieval-augmented generation

An answer-generation workflow that uses retrieved material as part of its context. In the proposed approach here, the system maps claims to inspected passages and checks the final wording again. Supplying retrieved text does not eliminate the need to evaluate actual citation support. Explore the guide ↗

Source watch

A monitoring workflow that identifies source changes and connects them to dependent claims. A useful watch distinguishes substantive notices from access failures, assigns review ownership, and preserves the reason for any correction. It is more than checking whether links still load. Explore the guide ↗

Supported

The local example label indicating that the specified passage supports the exact claim within the stated evidence boundary. It should carry a source relationship and rationale. It is not a universal certification that every relevant source has been examined. Explore the guide ↗

Versioned assessment

An assessment record preserved with a history rather than silently overwritten. A later source update or reviewer correction can supersede an earlier decision while keeping its basis recoverable. Explicit links between versions help prevent older results from being presented as current. Explore the guide ↗