RESEARCH METHODS / 09

Record counterexamples and failures

Mismatches, unresolved cases and unscorable cases are research material too.

About 3 min
Study notes & citation

Record counterexamples and failures. Institute of Chinese Mantic Arts. https://www.manticarts.com/en/handbook/negative-cases

01

Research focus

Define mismatch and unscorable conditions in advance. Distinguish absent outcomes, vague statements, missing data and procedural errors.

02

Procedure and example

Preserve the original dated judgment. Treat a revised explanation as a hypothesis for a later round instead of rewriting the initial claim.

03

Output and review

Deliver an all-outcome table with reasons for exclusions. Success-only displays prevent assessment of selection bias.

Resources and methodological references

The procedures and exercises are editorial teaching suggestions. These resources provide textual, collection or open-research access; links imply no affiliation or endorsement.

Chinese Text Project · Introduction ↗
Resource information for text search and locating words and editions.

International Dunhuang Programme ↗
Manuscript collections, images and catalogue access.

Editorial study material · 2026-09-28