# The Case of the Margin of Error

Strip: The Margin of Error
Meta: 6 panels · 3 across × 2 down · LEAD: TRACY GRANT · present tense throughout

<b>Lead: Dr. Tracy Grant.</b> Present day and <b>entirely present tense</b> &mdash; one night, end to end. No flashback, no time tags, no double frames anywhere on this page.

Radio script at <a href="radio-margin-of-error.md">radio-margin-of-error.md</a>; radio show at <a href="radio-margin-of-error.html">radio-margin-of-error.html</a>.

> **This is the source.** The build is `comic-margin-of-error.html`, generated from this file
> by `rake comedy:build`. Write here; the build is disposable and gets overwritten.
>
> Format: `##` opens a row · `**PANEL n · tone**` opens a panel · `>` is a
> balloon, one per line · `!` is the art note · `` `backticks` `` are
> on-screen text · everything else is a caption. They render in the order
> written, and captions number themselves (CAP 1/2, CAP 2/2). Blank line
> between blocks; a caption or balloon may wrap onto unmarked lines.
>
> Tones: `noir` `arena` `turn` `product`, plus `flashback` and `wide`. A tone
> carries forward, so write it only where it changes; the first panel must state
> one. Modifiers never carry: `wide` describes one frame, not a run.
> `Layout: widerow` under a row heading merges it to one frame, whose beats are
> then `### BEAT n` blocks each holding their own captions.

---

## Row 1 &mdash; the case (full noir · one night)

**PANEL 1 · noir**

Ninety-four people. Twelve weeks apiece. Got 'em all through our revolving door in eighteen months. One primary outcome: a pain score, zero to ten, once a week.

And a difference between the two arms you could hide behind a decimal point. Null.

**PANEL 2 · noir**

It was time to get serious. I put the file under the bare lamp. Worked it over. I demanded the pain score by arm. By week. By site, by age, by which clinic did the intake.

But I couldn't make it sing. It made its statement in month four and was sticking to it.

**PANEL 3 · noir**

> Those diaries come in on paper. Somebody typed ninety-four people's handwriting into your columns.

> Double entry would have caught it.

> And you think I didn't do double entry?

She was right. And she was also wrong. Took me until three that morning to untangle the knot.

## Row 2 &mdash; the break (hinge, then the product)

**PANEL 4 · turn** <!-- 4 — HINGE -->

`⚠&nbsp;&nbsp;12 PARTICIPANTS ADDED COMMENTS · NONE REVIEWED`

Double entry will catch a seven that was really a one. Or a nine that was really a four.

What it can't catch are the things that happen outside the lines.<br><br>And that's exactly what I found, two floors down at three in the morning.

**PANEL 5 · product** <!-- 5 — CLIMAX -->

Participant thirty-one. Scribbled in the margin because it couldn't fit anywhere else:

<em>Still hurts. But I got to the post office and back on Tuesday.</em><br><br>Twelve of the ninety-four said the pain was the same, but their lives were different.

**PANEL 6 · product** <!-- 6 — BUTTON -->

Twelve margins isn't a finding. It goes in the next protocol as a real outcome, measured on purpose. The only one lost to follow-up was me.<br><br>You do the eighteen months. You sweat the box until it talks. What you got still isn't a conviction.<br><br>But it's a lead.