Two people edited the same committee report independently. Most of their
edits combined without incident, which is the ordinary case and not
interesting. Three did not.
Resolve three conflicts
Two people edited the same committee report independently. Most of their edits combined without incident. These three did not. For each one, choose what the merged document should say and write the reason. The reason is required. The widget will not record a resolution without one, on the grounds the lecture gives: the merged file preserves what survived and nothing about why.
Conflict 1 · Paragraph 2, opening sentence
<<<<<<< version A
The committee met on 14 March and reviewed the tender submissions.
=======
The committee met on 14 March, and reviewed the four tender submissions received before the deadline.
>>>>>>> version B
0 / 15 characters minimum
mechanicalCompatible. One side added detail the other did not contradict: the count, and the qualification about the deadline. Nothing has to be discarded, and a keep-both resolution is legitimate here in a way it is not below. The conflict exists because both edits landed on one line, not because the versions disagree.
Conflict 2 · Paragraph 4, finding
<<<<<<< version A
The committee reviewed the findings and accepted them without amendment.
=======
The committee noted the findings and deferred a decision to the April meeting.
>>>>>>> version B
0 / 15 characters minimum
substantiveIncompatible, and about a matter of fact. Accepted without amendment and deferred to April cannot both be what happened. Keeping both produces a document that contradicts itself; splitting the difference produces a record of a meeting that did not occur. This one cannot be resolved from the text at all: it needs the minutes, and the correct resolution may be to mark it unresolved and say what evidence would settle it.
Conflict 3 · Paragraph 7, recommendation
<<<<<<< version A
We recommend the proposal proceed, subject to the funding conditions set out in Annex B.
=======
We recommend the proposal proceed.
>>>>>>> version B
0 / 15 characters minimum
defensible either wayBoth versions are defensible and the choice has consequences. The longer one is precise and binds the recommendation to conditions a reader must go and find. The shorter one is a clean recommendation that quietly drops the conditions. Whichever you kept, a reader lost something: either the conditions, or the ability to read the recommendation on its own. This is the kind of decision the assessment's rationale exists to record.
Your merge and rationale
Filled in as you record each resolution. This is the shape the assessment asks for: the document, and the reasoning that produced it, as two separate things.
It will not record a resolution until you have written a reason. That is not
a formality bolted on to make the exercise longer. A merged document has no
field for why, so a resolution that is never written down survives only in
the memory of whoever made it, and the file that results is indistinguishable
from text nobody ever argued about. Requiring the reason is the only way the
reasoning enters the record at all.
One of the three cannot be resolved from the text you are given. Keeping both
versions produces a document that contradicts itself, and choosing between
them means asserting something about a meeting you did not attend. The
resolution there is to mark it unresolved and name the evidence that would
settle it. An unresolved conflict, stated as unresolved, is a finding. A
conflict closed by picking whichever version read better is a fabrication.
Classify each of the three as mechanical, substantive, or defensible either
way, and check your classification against the note the exercise reveals
after you record. Then read your own three reasons together. The transcript
the exercise produces is exactly the form the
Merge Conflict, In Writing
assessment asks for: the merged text, and the reasoning that produced it,
kept as two separate things.
The spec
What you bring to the session. Written so a reader can tell whether it has been met without asking you.
all three conflicts recorded, each with a written reason
each conflict classified as mechanical, substantive, or defensible either way
the conflict that cannot be resolved from the text identified, with the evidence that would settle it named