# Stage 3: research sources and permission

**Outcome:** a source ledger. **Time:** 1 to 3 hours.

## Explain and inspect

Authority is why a source supports a claim. A licence concerns reuse. Access
concerns who can retrieve it. Freshness concerns when it may become unsuitable.
Provenance records origin and transformation; it makes weakness visible rather
than making a weak source strong. In [Explorer](../../explore/), inspect a
record's source, status and time. A blank field is a finding, not permission to
guess.

## Do and check

For every source, record its owner and locator, supported claims, authority,
licence or permission, access class, observation and stale dates,
transformation method, gaps and risks. Prefer the responsible publisher.
Preserve source bytes or a digest when change affects reproducibility.

Remove credentials and personal data. Test links. Decide whether each source
may be included, linked only, kept local or excluded. AI output is not a
primary source.

## Retrieve and reflect

Explain why “available online” does not mean “safe to reuse”. Record one
source you rejected and why.

Next: [model concepts and links](04-model.md).