P
Peshat / Plain
What does it literally say? Numbers, dates, named claims. Recompute every figure. Most errors die here and most readers never run this pass.
PARDES is a reading method: four passes over the same text, each asking a different question. It was built for scripture and it works on annual reports, government studies, press releases and pitch decks. This is the training, and it is not satire.
What does it literally say? Numbers, dates, named claims. Recompute every figure. Most errors die here and most readers never run this pass.
What does it point at without saying? Omissions, hedges, the comparison not made, the year not shown.
What must be true for this to hold? Mechanism, incentives, who benefits, and the strongest argument against your own reading.
What emerges from the four together that none showed alone? Only accepted when it survives the previous three.
A required fifth seat: argue the document's case as well as its author could. A reading that cannot survive this is not finished.
Every claim leaves with a confidence level and a source, or with an explicit mark that it has neither.
Four passes taught on one document your team brings. Ends with a written verdict produced by the participants, not the trainer. Up to 12 people, on site or remote.
The method plus the failure modes: fabricated citation, uncomputed figure, narrative coherence mistaken for evidence. Includes a live audit of a real published document.
We run the four passes on your document and return a numbered defect list with sources, before the internet does it for you.