What can the source actually show?
Different sources establish different things. An official document shows what it says; an election authority shows procedures and results; a court decision shows the ruling within its jurisdiction; scholarship offers synthesis and interpretation; reporting documents recent events; and a movement’s or government’s own website shows its stated position, not independent verification of its wider claims.
Party documents are useful precisely as statements of position, as long as they are read that way. Documents from opposing sides of the same dispute can describe the same history very differently, so read them together and check them against independent sources.
When sources disagree
Disagreement is common and often informative. Published turnout for Scotland’s 1997 referendum differs by a few tenths of a point between sources, and accounts of the KDP’s founding differ on where and by whom it was formed.[1][2]
Casualty estimates can differ by an order of magnitude. For Bougainville, scholars reject widely quoted figures of 15,000–20,000 as baseless.[3]
Second-hand accounts
Check whether a source saw events itself or is relaying others. An independent monitor’s account of the 2026 Western Sahara talks, for instance, rested partly on media reports, which it said openly.[4]
How this atlas uses sources
Every factual statement on a case page links to a claim with its sources, locators and a label showing each source’s perspective, such as scholarly work, journalism, government or movement organisation. Where sources disagree the page says so and attributes each account. Corrections and their dates are public.
Sources for this page
Each number marks a specific claim. Notes give the source, its locator and how it relates to the claim.
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1.
Claim: Published turnout figures for Scotland’s 1997 referendum differ slightly: 60.1% on the first question in the Scottish Parliament’s account, and 60.4% in an academic analysis.
- Scottish Parliament, The path to devolution (Scottish Parliament) link, Referendum results, para. 3. Government perspective or primary official source Source record
- Pattie, Charles; Denver, David; Mitchell, James and Bochel, Hugh, The 1997 Scottish Referendum: An Analysis of the Results, Scottish Affairs (Winter 1998) link, PDF p. 4. Source record
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2.
Claim: Accounts of the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s founding differ: the BBC says Mustafa Barzani formed it in Iraq in 1946, while a think-tank essay says a KDP was first formed in Iranian Kurdistan that year. Disputed — see the text for the competing accounts
- BBC News, Who are the Kurds? (BBC, First published 21 October 2014; updated 15 October 2019) link, section on Iraq. Source record
- International Centre for Defence and Security, A Hundred Years of Attempts to Create an Independent Kurdistan (International Centre for Defence and Security (Tallinn), 19 December 2017) link, note 5. Source record
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3.
Claim: For Bougainville, Braithwaite and colleagues reject widely publicised death tolls of 15,000–20,000 as baseless and treat an estimate of perhaps several thousand deaths as the most authoritative. Disputed — see the text for the competing accounts
- Braithwaite, John; Charlesworth, Hilary; Reddy, Peter and Dunn, Leah, Reconciliation and Architectures of Commitment (ANU E Press, 2010), ISBN 9781921666681 link, pp. 86–87. Source record
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4.
Claim: An independent Security Council monitor described the 2026 Western Sahara talks partly on the basis of media reports, noting that no official results had been reported. Attributed to Security Council Report (April 2026)
- Security Council Report, Western Sahara, April 2026 Monthly Forecast (Security Council Report, 1 April 2026) link, recent developments section. Source record