The difference between an evidence gap and a documentation gap

A distinction that took me a while to internalize, and that I think would help other people reading this: sometimes what looks like a weak criterion isn't actually a weak underlying achievement, it's a weakly documented one — and those need completely different fixes. An evidence gap means the underlying thing genuinely isn't strong enough yet — you haven't actually done enough work that meets the standard, and the fix is doing more of that work (winning a real award, publishing more, taking on a genuinely bigger role). A documentation gap means the underlying achievement is real and strong, but the file doesn't currently prove it well — the fix there is better documentation, not more achievement. I spent real time worrying I needed to "do more" for a criterion that, on closer inspection with a friend in the field, was actually fine substantively — I just hadn't documented the award's selectivity and standing well enough for someone outside my field to understand why it mattered. That was a documentation fix, not a "go achieve more things" problem, and correctly diagnosing which one you're facing saves a lot of wasted effort.