Citation check
A citation check confirms that a cited source exists and actually supports the specific claim it is attached to.
What it means
A citation can fail in three common ways. The source may not exist, the link may be broken, or the source may exist but say something different from the claim. The third case is the hardest to catch because the reference looks legitimate. A proper check opens the source, finds the sentence or table that backs the claim, and records whether the number, date and scope all match.
Hypothetically, an AI report says a category grew 12 percent in 2025 and cites a trade association PDF. The citation check finds the PDF, locates the figure and sees that it measures unit shipments for 2024, not revenue for 2025. The claim fails even though the citation is real. Manual teams can run the same check with a spreadsheet of claim, source, quoted passage and verdict.
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Cite this entry
https://aimarketresearchtools.com/glossary/citation-check/