the prompt this whole guide is built on
I'm writing a paper for [class] on [topic]. Don't give me sources. Instead, give me 10 search terms and phrases I could use in Google Scholar or my library's database, a few key ideas or debates I should look up, and the kinds of sources my professor would probably want.
You asked AI for sources and got a perfect list: real sounding titles, real sounding authors, even page numbers. Then you looked one up and it doesn't exist. Neither do the next three.
AI is shaky at handing you sources and good at helping you search. So split the job. Let AI give you search terms and ideas, then find the actual papers yourself in Google Scholar or your school library, where everything you find actually exists.
How to do it
- Send the prompt above. You get search terms and ideas instead of a list of citations to trust.
- Search those terms in Google Scholar or your library's database. On a campus network, Scholar shows links to your library's copies when it has them.
- Open each source and read at least the abstract, the short summary at the top of a paper. Keep the ones that actually fit your argument.
- When you find a great source, click Cited by under it in Google Scholar to see newer papers that cite it.
- Cite only what you found and opened yourself, in the citation style your class requires.
Spot a fake citation
- Search the exact title in quotation marks in Google Scholar. A real paper almost always shows up.
- If it has a DOI, a code that starts with 10., put it after doi.org/ in your browser. A real DOI takes you to the paper.
- Check that the author has actually written about this topic and that the year makes sense.
- Make sure the source says what the AI claimed it says. Real papers get misquoted too.
Check a list you already have
Here's a list of sources: [paste it]. For each one, tell me exactly what to search to check that it exists. Don't tell me whether it's real, I'll check myself.
that's it. go try it tonight.
