What always needs checking
- Numbers, dates, prices, statistics and legal or medical facts.
- Quotes, citations, book or paper titles, and links.
- Anything recent (after the model’s training cut-off).
- Anything you will publish, submit for marks, or act on with money or health.
A 4-step checking routine
- 1
Ask where it came from
Ask “What is your source for this?” With web search on, ask for links you can open.
- 2
Open the sources
Click every important link. Fake or broken links, or pages that do not say what the AI claimed, are a red flag.
- 3
Cross-check once
Confirm the key fact in one independent, trustworthy place: an official website, the original document, or a textbook.
- 4
Ask it to find its own mistakes
“List anything in your answer you are not certain about.” Models are often good at flagging their weak points when asked.
Red flags
- Very specific numbers or quotes with no source.
- A citation that looks perfect but cannot be found anywhere.
- The answer changes when you ask the same question again.
- It agrees with whatever you suggest, even when you push back with something wrong.
Use the right tool for facts
For fact-heavy research, use an assistant with web search and citations turned on, or give the AI the source document and tell it to answer only from that document. Both approaches dramatically reduce made-up answers.