Sources and citations

A citation is a route to evidence, not evidence by appearance; it must exist, support the claim, and fit the context. This principle matters because an AI system produces likely output from the context and instructions it receives; it does not automatically know the organization’s current facts, private policy, unstated intent, or acceptable risk.

Use the following sequence for this page: open every consequential citation; confirm author, date, version, and publication context; locate the passage that supports the exact claim; seek primary or authoritative sources when available. The sequence is a guide, not a ritual. Skip a step only when its question truly has no effect on the outcome, and strengthen it when mistakes would be costly.

Return to the opening case: A research summary includes plausible journal titles and links, but one link is unrelated and another source says the opposite of the summary. Begin by rewriting the request as a small contract. Name the intended reader or user, the authoritative material, the operation to perform, the required output, and the review owner. If current information is required, identify where it will come from. If exact calculation or action is required, assign that step to a deterministic tool or an approved system rather than relying on prose generation.

A useful instruction could follow this shape:

Goal: help [reader] accomplish [outcome]. Use only [named sources or supplied material] for factual claims. Perform [specific operation] and return [format]. Mark missing information as TBD or ask a focused question; do not guess. Before the result is used, [named person or role] will check [criteria].

• Counting citations instead of evaluating them. This hides an important assumption or removes a review point. Replace it with an explicit rule, a source check, or a human decision.
• Using a search snippet as the complete source. This hides an important assumption or removes a review point. Replace it with an explicit rule, a source check, or a human decision.
• Assuming a real source supports the model’s interpretation. This hides an important assumption or removes a review point. Replace it with an explicit rule, a source check, or a human decision.

Turn Sources and citations into a template you can reuse this week: job statement, required evidence, failure mode to catch, and reviewer. Store it next to your other spot wrong answers notes. When the job changes, rewrite only the job statement and re-run the same failure-mode list — do not invent a new workflow from scratch. Role of this page: Evidence practice.