Question Screening in Practice
Last updated 10/7/2026
This lesson turns the earlier intake boundary into a decision record. Its job is to decide what happens before a cast: continue, narrow, refer, or stop.
The screen is a UAYA practice workflow. It does not claim that a chart can repair a vague, invasive, repeated, or high-stakes question after casting.
The four decisions
The question is specific, live, private to the asker, and no decision will depend on the result.
Remove extra subjects, separate bundled outcomes, or shorten the time horizon before reconsidering it.
Use the relevant record, institution, qualified professional, current data source, or direct conversation.
The question is repeated to chase an answer, third-party-private, high-stakes, or cannot be made both narrow and low consequence.
Fill the intake record
For each prompt, write these fields before choosing a decision:
| Field | Test |
|---|---|
| Exact subject | Is there one matter rather than a bundle? |
| Ownership | Is the asker examining their own action or record? |
| Requested output | Is it reflection, or a real-world fact, verdict, permission, or instruction? |
| Stakes | Could acting on the output affect health, safety, rights, money, livelihood, travel, or another person’s agency? |
| Evidence owner | Who or what actually determines the fact? |
| Prior cast | Is this a repeat whose only new input is dissatisfaction? |
| Decision | continue, narrow, refer, or stop |
Four labelled exercises
These are invented screening exercises. They have no charts and no outcomes.
- “Which of my two optional study blocks should I review first as a practice exercise?” No later choice will depend on the result. Record
narrowuntil one block is selected, thencontinueif it remains self-owned and low consequence. - “When will the document arrive, and will an unrelated application be approved?” The prompt bundles two externally determined matters. Record
stop; do not cast. Splitting the sentence does not make approval or a consequential deadline suitable for the capstone. - “What diagnosis explains these symptoms?” Record
referandstop. No chart interpretation follows. - “What is a private third party secretly planning?” Record
stop. Rewording surveillance as curiosity does not restore consent or ownership.
Repetition and changed facts
A materially different situation may require a fresh intake record. A new object, new decision owner, or genuinely new event is not automatically the same question. A changed mood or dislike of the first result is not new evidence.
Do not use this distinction to reopen a high-stakes or externally owned matter. The screen runs again from the beginning; it does not grant an exception.
Stop condition
If you cannot write one low-consequence, self-owned task for which no decision depends on the result, stop before casting. Save the completed intake record. Refusal is the artifact.
Scope note: continue | narrow | refer | stop and the exercise scenarios are UAYA teaching workflows based on the intake and domain-routing lessons in this course. They are not presented as a quotation or universal historical taxonomy.