Citation check
The step of confirming that a cited source exists, matches its details and supports the sentence it is attached to.
What it means
A citation check asks three questions. Does the paper or page exist? Do the authors, year and title match? Does the passage actually say what the sentence claims? AI tools fail on each of these, and the failures often look confident. A reference can look complete and still point to a paper that was never written.
Do the check by hand for any claim that matters. Look up the title in Crossref or Google Scholar, open the link, and find the passage. Some tools help by showing how other papers cite a work. Scite's Smart Citations, for example, show whether citing studies support or contradict a claim. Automated checks help, but they do not replace reading the source yourself. Record what you checked, so a colleague can repeat the check.
Continue this reading path
Cite this entry
https://bestaiforresearch.com/glossary/citation-check/