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  • Chapter 2.2 - What Evidence Should You Collect?

  • from Part 2 - What’s Warrant for Singular Causal Processes and Why
  • Nancy Cartwright, University of Durham, Eileen Munro, London School of Economics and Political Science, John Pemberton, London School of Economics and Political Science
  • Book:
    Causal Processes and their Warrant
    Published online:
    30 April 2026
    Print publication:
    14 May 2026, pp 201-204

  • Summary

    Practical constraints such as cost place limits on evidence collection so that priorities should be established in the light of available budget and resources. Our evidence-role maps can aid this prioritisation by highlighting the significance of particular pieces of evidence with respect to investigated claims. These maps may also identify gaps within the available evidence – the importance of these should be recognised in light of the weakest link principle. We suggest prioritising the collection of evidence in proportion to this significance and to the difficulty of its collection. Following Van Evera, we suggest using assessments of evidential significance conventionally employed in process tracing whereby pieces of evidence may provide ‘hoop’ tests, ‘smoking gun’ tests, ‘straw in the wind’ tests or ‘doubly decisive’ tests.