Research definitions
Every research article carries labels that tell you how to calibrate what you are reading: what kind of document it is, how strongly its claims are validated, how fast its subject matter moves, and which jurisdiction (if any) it speaks to. This page is the reference those labels link to.
Validation status
How strongly the load-bearing claims on a page are validated. We never imply outside endorsement that does not exist: proprietary method content is labelled as internally reviewed, not peer-reviewed.
- Peer-reviewed sources
- Load-bearing claims trace to externally peer-reviewed scholarship cited in the article.
- Externally corroborated
- Checked against authoritative external sources (statutes, official reports, primary documents) but not itself peer-reviewed.
- Internally reviewed
- Proprietary method content reviewed under Apatheia Labs editorial discipline — not externally peer-reviewed.
- Unreviewed
- Not yet through review. Treat as provisional.
- Proposed
- Design or roadmap stage — there is no validated result to report yet.
Peer-reviewed is reserved for literature-review, comparative, and reference articles that cite their sources. A framework or applied page describing our own method can never claim it.
Article kind
What sort of document this is — which determines what kind of warrant its claims carry.
- Framework
- Original SAF/S.A.M. methodology — proprietary, not externally peer-reviewed.
- Applied
- Worked trace applying the framework to a real or illustrative document.
- Comparative
- How S.A.M. compares to other established methodologies.
- Synthesis
- Literature review of published scholarship that informs the framework.
- Reference
- Domain reference material such as practitioner statutes or bibliographies.
- Proposed
- Research design or roadmap stage — work proposed but not yet completed.
Lifecycle status
Where the article sits in its life. Current means actively maintained and reflecting present canonical terminology. Draft and proposed are not yet finished or not yet started. Living is continuously updated. Deprecated and superseded pages have been retired or merged and now redirect to their successor.
Volatility (staleness risk)
How quickly the underlying facts go out of date, which sets the review cadence. High-volatility articles carry a visible currentness note.
- Low volatility
- Rests on established scholarship that changes slowly. Annual review.
- Medium volatility
- Depends on evolving practice or standards. Semi-annual review.
- High volatility
- Tracks fast-moving law, regulation, or market conditions. Quarterly review.
Jurisdiction
The legal jurisdiction a page is scoped to. Anything other than general carries a not-legal-advice notice, because describing the law of a place is not the same as advising on it.
- general — General (non-jurisdictional)
- UK — United Kingdom
- US — United States
- EU — European Union
- international — International
Claim types
- Empirical
- A statement about what is observed or measured; warranted by cited studies or data.
- Methodological
- A claim about how the method works; warranted by the framework specification, not external proof.
- Normative
- A claim about what ought to be done; warranted by stated values, openly argued.
- Interpretive
- A reading of a source or case; warranted by the text it interprets, and falsifiable against it.
Legacy terms
Retired brand names. A current page may only use them where it is explicitly tracing lineage (and declares them in its front matter); otherwise the current replacement is used.
- S.A.M. → the adversarial-scrutiny mode of Prosoche v2
- Systematic Adversarial Methodology → the adversarial-scrutiny mode of Prosoche v2
- Sovereign Analyst Framework → Prosoche v2
- Sovereign Analyst Method → Prosoche v2
- SAF → Prosoche v2
- Aletheia Forensics → Apatheia Labs
- Forensic Analytical Cortex → Phronesis
- Apatheia Analytical Engine Prototype → Phronesis
- Phronesis Platform → Phronesis