Can we let someone build materials alone? If we average eight skills, slick persuasion masks holes in sourcing. We draw the line not by an average but by one floor that must never be broken, and trace why that floor is needed through real deviation cases.
Like an airport screening — no passing by average
Picture an airport baggage check. Even if a bag is beautifully packed, it does not pass if one blade is inside. We do not average "tidiness: perfect, blade: just one" into a pass. If one dangerous point exists, we stop it however good the rest is. This is the idea of a "non-compensatory gate." Non-compensatory means the hole cannot be made up for (compensated) by other strengths. Remember: compensation means patching a hole with other merits.
When we decide who may build materials alone — the leaflets and explanatory documents handed to doctors and patients — we are tempted to score every skill and average them. Good design, clear explanation, fast delivery. Add and divide these merits and you get a nice-looking total. But if a single danger — the habit of shifting facts away from the source — hides inside that average, the average conceals it instead.
A cook's tasting — skill and safety are different rulers
When hiring a cook, you cannot take someone who uses the same board for raw and cooked meat, however superb the taste. Taste (skill) and hygiene (safety) are different rulers, and hygiene cannot be covered by taste. Building materials is the same: "reaching the reader" (delivery) and "fidelity to facts" (grounding) are separate axes. Grounding means every claim written can always be traced back to its source — the trial result or the package insert. Delivery is the skill of designing so it reaches the reader correctly.
Multiply these two and four types appear. The table below shows at a glance why we must not decide by average.
| Type | Fidelity (grounding) | Delivery design | How it looks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dangerous amateur | Low | Low | Clumsy and off the facts. Easy to spot |
| Right but not reaching | High | Low | Stiff but safe. Can be trained up |
| Dangerous sell | Low | High | Persuasive yet off the facts. Most dangerous |
| The main road | High | High | Right and it reaches. Can be trusted |
The fearful one is not the lower left but the lower right, the "dangerous sell." A clumsy person's errors are caught by readers too. But when a skilled explainer shifts the facts, the very skill makes the misreading look genuine. By an average, this lower right turns into a high score.
A reported case — the floor breaks locally
The MHLW monitoring report lists makers' deviations with company names withheld. Reading them, most take the shape "the whole is correct, only here." For example, a case where the product information summary (the official briefing document) kept the graph's vertical axis normal, but only the explanatory slide stretched part of the axis to make the drug's difference look larger. In another case, a survival curve that should start its axis at 0.8 was started at 0, making two drugs look the same. They did not falsify everything. Just one slide, just one axis.
This "only here" is the trap. Because the person builds the whole correctly, they have no sense of lying. This is called local rationalization. "Just one slide," "just this time," "emphasize only here." The floor does not break on the whole average; it breaks at one such local point. So watching by average, you lose sight of the broken floor itself.
The floor does not break by average. It breaks at a single local point. So measure not by the average but by the weakest single point.
From case, to psychology, to the stopping skill
Why do ordinary makers break the floor? Behind it lie fixed mental circuits. In the table below, the reported cases, the psychology working underneath, and the skill that should have stopped each one. Not to condemn — so that makers can notice the same circuit within themselves.
| Reported deviation | Psychology underneath | Skill that should stop it |
|---|---|---|
| Only the slide stretched the axis to stress a difference | Local rationalization (just here) | Self-review (doubt yourself before release) |
| Hid the primary endpoint, explained only the significant secondary one | Sin of omission (just not saying) | Balance design (put the lead first) |
| Claimed "a difference shows" with none; when flagged, "the professor said it's fine" | Externalizing blame (escape to authority) | Source grounding (return to the source) |
| Claimed effect on 9 cases (4 vs 5) with no statistics | Motivated reasoning (the desired conclusion comes first) | Misreading prediction (foresee the reader's leap) |
Every deviation is a single point that sinks under an average. If the person who shows a 9-case graph makes other documents look polished, the total comes out high. But the floor of "can you return to the source" is broken at that one point. What we must look at is not the person's top score but their weakest floor.
So draw the line at the floor — separate necessity from excellence
Recall a driver's license. However artistic the parking, you do not license someone who cannot stop at a red light. "Being able to stop" is not skill (excellence) but the minimum condition (necessity) for being allowed to drive. Working alone on materials has the same structure. "Being able to return to the source" (grounding) is not excellence but the floor for whether someone may be trusted alone.
So judge pass/fail in two stages. The first stage is the floor — the necessary condition. Can they return to the source; do they avoid shifting facts even locally. If this is broken, no solo work however excellent the rest. The second stage is the total — excellence. Among those above the floor, look at delivery design and persuasion quality to decide how hard a job to entrust. Reverse the order, average excellence first, and you reward the lower-right "dangerous sell." Floor first, average later. This is the single principle running through this series.
Who Can Draft Unsupervised ── Map of all 10 episodes
- Vol. 1 (this episode): How to Tell Who Can Build Materials Alone — Don't Judge by the Average of Skills ── Readiness to work alone is decided not by the average of eight skills, but by a floor: can the person return to the source.
- Vol. 2: Bending the Facts Is Far Heavier Than a Plain Mistake ── A persuasive piece that creates a false impression does far more harm than a dull but correct one.
- Vol. 3: The More Skilled the Communicator, the Less Their Misleading Slips Get Noticed ── Skilled presentation makes misleading framing look reasonable, so the most fluent creators are the ones whose errors slip through.
- Vol. 4: Fail One, Fail All ── Appeal Cannot Patch a Hole in the Facts ── Set the bar for independent work as a non-compensatory floor, not an average — strong appeal can never fill a gap in the source.
- Vol. 5: Demand One Thing Above All: Can They Return to the Source ── Tracing every claim back to its source is the floor that persuasion can never fill in for.
- Vol. 6: Making It Look Good and Making It Right Are Two Different Things ── Visual polish and fidelity to the source are different skills. Judging correctness by beauty lets the most dangerous errors slip through.
- Vol. 7: People Who Are Sure Their Own Material Is Fine Cannot Be Trusted Alone ── Measure the gap between self-assessment and actual skill as a separate, independent gate from persuasive ability.
- Vol. 8: Four Gates — Draft, Self-Review, Source-Check, Balance-Check ── Tell whether someone can release materials alone by whether they pass four gates in order.
- Vol. 9: Judging Three People by One Standard: The Persuader, the Precise Craftsperson, and the Quiet but Trustworthy ── A story that lines up three character types against one floor (can they return to the source) and decides pass or fail by a non-compensatory gate, not by an average.
- Vol. 10 (final): The Judge's Responsibility — Line Up the Reference Cases, and Let a Person Make the Final Call ── The person who decides pass or fail must anchor the standard with real reference cases, not just words, and make the final call under their own name rather than leaving it to a checklist or a machine.
Whether someone may work alone is not decided by the average of eight skills. The average hides holes in sourcing behind slick persuasion. What to watch is not the top score but the weakest floor — can they return to the source, do they keep facts straight even locally. If the floor is broken, hold off on solo work however excellent the rest. Floor first, average later. This order alone we apply equally to every maker, and to ourselves.
- Don't judge by average. Adding and dividing eight skills lets slick persuasion hide holes in sourcing. Readiness for solo work is drawn at a floor that must never break, not at an average.
- The most dangerous is high-design, low-fidelity. Readers catch clumsy errors, but when a skilled explainer shifts facts, the skill makes the misreading look real. A floor is needed to stop it.
- The floor breaks locally. Local rationalization — "just here," "just one slide" — breaks the floor. It is invisible in the whole average, so measure by the single weakest point.
- Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Compliance and Narcotics Division (commissioned project). Report on the Monitoring of Promotional Information Activities for Prescription Drugs (March 2024 and prior years). Flagged cases are published with company names anonymized; the deviation patterns cited here are generalized from this report.
- Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. Guidelines on Promotional Information Activities for Prescription Drugs. Principles for fair presentation of primary endpoints and safety information.
- Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association. JPMA Code of Practice. Principles of accuracy, fairness, and balance in information provision.
- Lievens, F. & Sackett, P. R. Situational, patterned behavior description, and conventional structured interview questions. Methodological background for non-compensatory evaluation (separating necessary conditions from overall scores).