Not supported, because we have no evidence that the transcript-reading approach involves a greater number of cases. Although this approach involves reading transcripts “during a certain time period,” we have no idea whether the number of cases from that time period must be greater than the number of cases evaluated by the policy capturing approach.

The author doesn’t suggest that evaluating transcripts will help a researcher focus more “directly” on issues a plaintiff is concerned about. This approach does identify different kinds of variables, but we have no reason to think the variables identified by the transcript-reading approach focus more “directly” on issues than the variables identified by the policy capturing approach.

We don’t have any basis to think that the approach in the last two paragraphs involves information that’s more recent. Although it involves evaluating transcripts during a “certain time period,” we have no reason to think this time period must be more recent than the time period of the opinions evaluated by policy capturing.

Supported, because the approach discussed in the last two paragraphs involves reading transcripts. Transcripts are a record of everything said in court. The policy capturing approach, however, involves evaluating judges’ opinions, not the transcripts. The transcript-reading approach can assess things that aren’t specifically mentioned in the opinion, because we have no reason to think a legal opinion captures everything that’s in a transcript.

We have no reason to think the approach discussed in the last two passages can eliminate bias from the researcher. A researcher who evaluates transcripts might still bring in their own biases to how they interpret the transcript.