Verify Sources and Citations

Use the draft, original source documents, jurisdiction and relevant date. Return a citation audit with assertion, source identifier, exact passage and locator, verification status and open question. Formatting a citation and checking its substance are separate tasks.

Checks before use

1. Open the actual official authority or source document. Confirm identity, court or issuer, date and version. If access fails, record that failure; do not replace it with a model-generated summary.

2. Read the cited passage in context, including qualifications and relevant amendments. Check whether it supports the proposition, and check current status or subsequent treatment through the appropriate authoritative source.

3. Reconcile quotations, numbers and page references with the final draft. Mark unsupported assertions unresolved and pause any conclusion depending on them. Assign missing research to the responsible reviewer.

Synthetic worked example and correction

Synthetic source R1 says “The payment date was not decided.” A draft says “R1 confirmed payment was overdue.” The reviewer removes that assertion and records that the point remains undecided. A real-looking citation would not cure the mismatch.

Next step

• Citation and Quotation Verification
• Audit Citations and Quotations