Building an evidence shelf before you write the claim

Most evidence gaps are created in the drafting order. Writers compose a confident results section, then hunt for annexes that almost match. The annexes arrive late, thinner than the claim, or not at all.

Invert the sequence

Before the narrative leaves outline form, list every material claim you intend to make: numbers served, prior project outcomes, partner capacities, policy citations, and dataset references. Beside each claim, name the document that will carry it — or mark the claim as unsupportable this round.

That list is your evidence shelf. Claims without a shelf space should not appear in the draft. It is easier to write a smaller, supported proposal than to decorate an ambitious one with footnotes that lead nowhere.

What counts as support

A chart without a methods note rarely satisfies a careful reader. A news clipping is not an evaluation. An internal monitoring spreadsheet may be acceptable if you explain collection methods and limitations; unexplained printouts are not.

In evidence gap assessments, we rate severity by how central the claim is to eligibility or to the primary outcome. Peripheral colour can survive a thin citation. Core impact numbers cannot.

Leave a margin

If a letter from a data holder is still pending, write the claim in a form that remains true if the letter never arrives — or cut it. Applications that depend on documents “expected next week” often file with the claim intact and the annex empty. Auditors will mark that pattern every time.