READING TOOL
Keep the context beside the statement
A short note should help you find the original passage again, without turning your interpretation into a fact.
A source is more than a sentence
The National Library of Medicine’s evaluation checklist asks readers to consider a site’s provider, funding, information quality and privacy. It also includes currency and the origin of the information. These are questions to investigate, not a score that this publication awards to a website.
For your own reading, start with the specific page you opened. A site’s homepage and an article inside it can give different kinds of information. Keeping the article title and its address together makes it easier to return to the exact text rather than a loosely related search result.
An original four-line format
Page: the title and address of the page I actually read.
Date: the publication or update date displayed there, or “not stated”.
Passage: the short part that prompted my question, kept in its context.
Question: what I still want explained.
This format is an editorial suggestion. It does not verify a medical claim, replace source evaluation or turn an unknown statement into reliable guidance. You can change the headings if another arrangement is easier for you to use.
Notice when a summary adds meaning
Consider this fictional sentence: “The article describes several questions that a reader might raise.” A note saying “The article gives the questions everyone must ask” adds two things: a requirement and a universal audience. Neither appears in the original sentence.
A more faithful note would preserve the limited description: “Several possible questions are described; I want to know which, if any, are relevant to my conversation.” The change does not answer the question. It simply makes the difference between the source and your uncertainty visible.
The example is about language. It is not a real study, a patient account or guidance about a health condition. On an actual page, surrounding paragraphs may change what a sentence means. Keep enough context to avoid treating an isolated phrase as the entire argument.
Keep dates distinct
The date you opened a page is not necessarily its publication date. A date beside a reference may belong to the reference rather than the article. Write down the label you can see, and use “not stated” when you cannot find one. Do not manufacture a date from a search result or the current year in a footer.
Leave a question when something is missing
An empty source field can be an honest record of what you have not found. It is not proof that a claim is false, and it is not permission to fill the gap with a likely answer. If the question matters for your own care, bring the original information to an appropriate health professional rather than treating this note as an assessment.
Use the question-note tool to turn the uncertainty into a concise prompt. The worked article shows how the source and question can sit together without either becoming a diagnosis.