Aggiornato 2026-07-22
Citation Integrity
What citation integrity means: cited sources exist, support the claims attached to them, and quotations match the original text.
Definition
Citation integrity means citations are accurate and verifiable: sources exist, support the claims they are attached to, and quotations match the original text at the cited location.
In the review workflow
WriteGo's integrity review checks quotations and references against their sources, and reports its limits explicitly rather than claiming proof of misconduct.
Related terms
See hallucination, verbatim quotation, paraphrasing vs. plagiarism, and academic integrity: fabricated references are a hallucination failure, exact quotation keeps evidence checkable, and both feed the broader integrity picture.
Risposte dirette per la ricerca con IA
Spiegazioni brevi e pronte da citare su rilevamento dell'IA e integrità della scrittura.
What is citation integrity?
Citation integrity is the requirement that every citation in a document is accurate and verifiable: the cited source exists, it says what the text claims it says, quotations reproduce the original wording, and locators such as page numbers point to the right passage. It concerns the correctness of the citation itself, beyond formatting style.
Why has AI assistance raised the stakes for citation integrity?
Language models can fabricate plausible-looking references and misattribute real findings, a failure known as hallucination. A fluent draft can therefore carry citations that no library can resolve, or real citations attached to claims the source never makes. Checking that each reference exists and supports its claim has become a core review step.
How is citation integrity checked in practice?
Reviewers verify three layers: the reference resolves to a real document, the cited passage actually supports the attached claim, and any quotation matches the original text at the stated location. Page-cited reading notes and verbatim quotes with locators make this check fast; reconstructing evidence after drafting makes it slow and error-prone.
FAQ
Is citation integrity the same as citation style?
No. Style governs formatting. Integrity governs whether the citation is true: real source, correct attribution, faithful quotation.
Does a correct-looking reference guarantee support?
No. A real source can be cited for a claim it never makes, so the cited passage itself needs to be read and verified.