A published error is distinguished from a reported correction
Identify conflicting source accounts, explain the basis for choosing among them or retaining uncertainty, and make the narrative’s degree of precision agree with that decision.
Unbroken
Laura Hillenbrand · 191 weeksA published error is distinguished from a reported correction
SHORT SOURCE EXCERPT“Newspaper reports in which Reading was interviewed confirm that it was Almond.”
A footnote says that two published accounts identify Reading as the person killed by a shark. It gives the author’s basis for choosing Almond instead: newspaper reports that interviewed Reading.
The note identifies the disagreement and the particular evidence that resolves it in the author’s account. This is a more inspectable editorial decision than silently choosing a name or merely listing both sources.
The source in context.
Accounts of lost airmen, operational hazards and survival conditions widen the view beyond one crew. Notes sometimes state how the author resolved conflicting published accounts.
Open this chapterWhat this example supports
The note identifies the disagreement and the particular evidence that resolves it in the author’s account. This is a more inspectable editorial decision than silently choosing a name or merely listing both sources.
Its limit
The study verifies that Hillenbrand states this reasoning, not the underlying newspaper reports. It is a source-selection example, not certification of every detail in the reconstructed incident.
Source & edition
Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken, inspected Random House electronic text, copyright 2010, eISBN 978-0-679-60375-7; LF anchors in OCR-damaged extraction.
Supplied text, lines 1280–1280. The short quotation is checked against the source.
Read the complete whole-source AI synthesis and ordered segment section summaries, checked every numbered chapter heading against the supplied contents and body, inspected selected openings/endings, and directly checked the narrative and source-note contexts of all admitted examples. Draft overclaims and part-boundary errors were corrected. This is a source-checked editorial pass, not a second complete reading or independent-model review.
Inspected Random House electronic text: copyright 2010, eISBN 978-0-679-60375-7, file version v3.1. Filename’s 2014 paperback label is not treated as edition evidence.