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How to use AI for research and check its sources
Use AI to find sources, compare evidence and write a research summary you can check. Follow a real NASA example, then try a question of your own.
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Why is Venus hotter than Mercury?
Use AI for research with a question you can check
An AI research assistant can help find original sources, summarize findings and organize a comparison. Start with a specific question and decide what evidence would answer it. Then open the cited pages and check the relevant passages. In this Gab AI example, Arya helped turn a question for a homeschool club into a source-linked handout.
Why is Venus hotter than Mercury?
Mercury is closest to the Sun, but Venus is hotter. Here is the final handout from the Arya conversation, with its source links. The original answer needed corrections to a quotation, a temperature label and citation placement; the checking steps follow below.
Actual final handout: Mercury and Venus
| Planet | Distance from Sun | Mean Surface Temperature | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mercury | ~36 million miles | 333°F (167°C) | |
| Venus | ~67 million miles | 867°F (464°C) |
The explanation
The claim is wrong: though Mercury is closest to the Sun, it is not the hottest planet (NASA Temperatures). Mercury features a thin exosphere instead of a heat-retaining atmosphere (NASA Space Place). Venus possesses a dense greenhouse atmosphere that drives temperatures far higher (NASA Venus Facts).
Two quotations from the sources
- "making it the hottest planet in our solar system" — https://science.nasa.gov/venus/venus-facts/
- "Mercury gets extremely cold at night." — https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/temperatures-across-our-solar-system/
Research, check and revise
Use this process for a question with original evidence you can inspect.
Research, check and revise
Define the claim and source boundary
Name the question, acceptable original sources, date range if relevant and required output. Decide how you will check the answer before requesting it.
Enable Web Search in Chat
Choose a compatible text model, open the composer’s plus menu and turn Web search on. Check the Search chip. Ask for a URL for each factual claim and say when a source cannot be checked.
Read the original evidence
Open the response’s citations and Sources. Check exact quotations, units, dates and what the source actually measured. A working URL is only the beginning.
Ask for a focused revision
Describe the checked error and its source. Preserve correct facts, links and unknowns. Review the whole result again, including any constraint you did not ask to change.
See the first draft and what changed
The first answer reached the right conclusion but included a mismatched quotation source and an unsupported maximum-temperature label. Compare the original request and answer with the final handout. Numbered references belong to the original reply’s Sources.
Read the original research request and answer
The original text is preserved, including the errors discussed below.
For a homeschool club, research this claim: “Mercury is the hottest planet because it is closest to the Sun.” Use web search and only official NASA webpages. Compare Mercury and Venus in a short table, explain what the evidence supports and what the claim gets wrong, and give two short exact quotations (at most 10 words each) with their original source URLs. Cite a source for each factual claim. Keep the explanation under 200 words. Do not invent quotations or citations; say when a source cannot be checked.
Planet Distance from Sun Mean Surface Temperature Max Temperature
Mercury ~36 million miles [0] 333°F (167°C) [0] 800°F (430°C) [0]
Venus ~67 million miles [0] 867°F (464°C) [0] ~900°F (482°C) [5]
Evidence & Analysis
The claim is correct that Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun [0], but wrong in concluding it is the hottest [2]. Proximity alone does not dictate temperature; atmospheric composition plays a decisive role [2]. Mercury has a very thin atmosphere, allowing heat to escape and causing drastic night-side drops [0]. Conversely, Venus has a dense carbon dioxide atmosphere that traps heat via a runaway greenhouse effect, making its surface hotter than Mercury's [1, 5].
Exact Quotations
1. "Venus is the hottest planet in our solar system." (8 words) — https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/temperatures-across-our-solar-system/ [0]
2. "Mercury gets extremely cold at night." (6 words) — https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/temperatures-across-our-solar-system/ [0]How to fact-check AI citations and quotations
Open the original URL and find the passage behind the claim. Check the publisher, date and exact wording, including punctuation. Match each figure to its unit and definition: a mean temperature is different from a maximum. If a passage is missing or inaccessible, leave the claim unverified and ask for another original source. These checks help identify AI hallucinations and citation errors.
What to check in a research answer
| Problem | What to check |
|---|---|
| Correct conclusion, flawed details | Check the supporting facts too. The first answer correctly identified Venus as hotter, but its quotations and temperature labels still needed corrections. |
| Quotation linked to the wrong page | Find the exact words and punctuation on the cited page. Check any word-count requirement as well. |
| Unsupported maximum temperature | Use the source’s definition. Keep the two mean temperatures from the same NASA comparison article; leave out a maximum the source does not establish. |
| Details lost during a revision | Compare the whole answer with the checked version. Keep both temperature units, avoid repeated quotations and retain links beside the table rows and explanatory claims. |
| Several pages from one publisher | The NASA pages support this example. For independent confirmation, look for separate underlying evidence rather than counting more pages from the same institution. |
Revise the answer without losing its evidence
Give the checked source and the specific correction, then ask the model to keep the supported facts and links. Recheck the complete answer. In this conversation, follow-ups restored Celsius figures, removed a repeated quotation and brought back missing citations. The full requests are available below.
Read the four actual correction requests
The first source check and three smaller follow-ups are retained exactly. Each new answer was reviewed for changes beyond the requested correction.
Revise the handout after these source checks. Your first quotation is nine words, not eight; it appears in the Surface section of https://science.nasa.gov/venus/venus-facts/ rather than verbatim on the temperature page you linked. The Mercury night quotation does appear on the temperature page. The Night Sky Network page gives about 900°F but does not label it a maximum, so remove the maximum-temperature column. Keep the comparison focused on the two mean surface temperatures reported by https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/temperatures-across-our-solar-system/, with units and source links for each row. Describe Mercury as having a thin exosphere, following https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/all-about-mercury/en/. Use plain language for the homeschool handout, keep two exact quotations of at most ten words with the correct source URL and no word-count labels, and stay under 160 words. Preserve the correct conclusion; avoid adding unsupported facts.
Make one final clean handout. Keep the corrected conclusion and the small comparison table. Include both Fahrenheit and Celsius for the two mean temperatures from the NASA temperature article: Mercury 333°F (167°C), Venus 867°F (464°C). Keep the source links for each row. Describe Mercury’s thin exosphere accurately and explain that it lacks a thick heat-retaining atmosphere. Keep the two checked quotations only once each, in the closing quotation list, with their correct NASA source URLs; do not repeat a quotation inside the explanation or add word-count labels. Keep the entire handout under 160 words, preserve the verified facts, omit the maximum-temperature column, and do not add new claims.
The facts and quotation URLs now check out, but the explanatory paragraph lost its citations. Deliver the final handout again, changing only citation placement and the needed connecting words. Keep the current table, Fahrenheit/Celsius figures, conclusion, and two quotation lines. Add a directly relevant NASA source link to each explanatory sentence: use the temperature article for the closest/hottest comparison and lack of heat retention, NASA All About Mercury for the thin exosphere, and NASA Venus Facts for Venus’s greenhouse atmosphere. Use clickable full-URL links so the reader can trace each claim; a Sources list alone is insufficient. Keep quotes only once each, do not reintroduce maximum temperatures or word-count labels, and stay under 160 words.
Add only one Source column to the existing two-row table. In both rows, put a clickable link labeled NASA temperature article to https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/temperatures-across-our-solar-system/. Preserve the planet names, distance figures, Fahrenheit/Celsius means, explanatory paragraph and its links, and both quotation lines exactly. Do not add new facts or repeat the quotations. Return the complete handout, still under 160 words.
Turn research into a comparison table
Use consistent definitions across the rows. Ask for the claim, supporting passage, original URL, source date and uncertainty. Both mean temperatures in this example come from the same NASA comparison article. Keep missing facts visible, and compare independent evidence when the question calls for corroboration.
Choose sources that can answer the question
Start with original material suited to the claim: an official specification, the underlying dataset or study, a transcript, or the document being discussed. Original does not automatically mean correct; inspect the relevant passage and what the source can establish. Commentary can explain context but may repeat someone else’s evidence. Match source dates to the question, and distinguish the date a page was published or updated from the date you checked it. When publishers disagree, compare definitions and methods before choosing a conclusion.
Source-selection checks
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Original evidence | Find the document, data or record underlying the claim. Check the relevant passage and its limits, rather than relying only on a summary. |
| Commentary | Trace quotations and reported figures back to their original material. Several summaries of one study do not create several independent findings. |
| Dates and scope | Check the publication/update date, relevant product version, population, time period or definition. Older evidence may still be useful, but label it accurately. |
| Independent publishers | Check whether sources collected separate evidence or repeat the same underlying source. Multiple NASA pages in our example belong to one publisher family. |
| Uncertainty | Keep inaccessible sources, missing dates, unresolved disagreements and unsupported claims visible. State what evidence would resolve the gap. |
Try the method on another research task
Adapt one of these practice briefs to find an original quotation, compare official documentation or examine conflicting claims. Replace the placeholders, inspect the sources and send the focused revision after your checks.
Reusable evidence-table structure — a practice template
| Claim | Original URL | Source date | Supporting passage | Uncertainty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [claim to check] | [original URL] | [publication/update date; date checked] | [relevant passage or location] | [missing facts, limits or disagreement] |
Find the original source of a quotation
Practice brief to adapt
Find the original source of this quotation: [quotation]. Search for its exact wording and identify the original publication or speaker record. Give the URL, date and surrounding passage. Separate a primary record from later quotations of it. If the original cannot be verified, say so; do not supply a plausible attribution.Revise the attribution using only [checked original URL and passage]. Preserve the exact quotation, identify the publication date and explain any remaining uncertainty. Remove unsupported claims about who said it.Compare dated official product documentation
Practice brief to adapt
Compare [product A] and [product B] for [one specific task]. Use their official documentation and current published plan pages. Make an evidence table with claim, original URL, publication or update date, supporting passage and uncertainty. Distinguish an advertised capability from a tested result. Mark unknown features or dates rather than treating them as absent.Update only the rows contradicted by [checked URLs and passages]. Keep the supported rows, preserve plan/version conditions and source links, and explain any date mismatch. Do not declare a winner without evidence for the task.Organize conflicting published claims
Practice brief to adapt
Review the conflicting claims [claim A] and [claim B] about [topic]. Find original evidence from relevant publishers. For each claim, give the URL, date, supporting passage, what was measured and uncertainty. Identify sources repeating the same underlying evidence. Explain where the disagreement remains instead of inventing consensus.Revise using the checked passages [passages with original URLs]. Separate differences in dates or definitions from a real contradiction. Keep both supported positions and citations; state what further evidence would resolve the question.Know what the evidence supports
A useful AI fact-checking process connects each important claim to evidence you have read. A real link can still support the wrong sentence, and a rewrite can lose a citation. This small astronomy example is not a complete literature review. For important decisions, use relevant original evidence and appropriate expert review.
Start your research in Chat
Sign in, choose a compatible text model and enable Web search. The Web Search guide explains the controls, account access and usage.
Questions about research and citation checking
Use the original evidence to decide what the answer supports, then keep that evidence attached while revising.
How do I find the original source of an AI quote?
Open its URL, search for the exact words and read the surrounding passage. Check punctuation and whether it is a direct quote, paraphrase or attributed claim. If the wording is absent, label it unverified and request a traceable original source.
Why does AI make up sources or citations?
Generated text can supply plausible references or mismatched links without supporting evidence. Web retrieval adds sources but does not ensure the answer uses them correctly. Check each consequential claim and ask for corrections tied to passages you have read.
How can I avoid AI hallucinations during research?
Use a narrow question, original sources, explicit uncertainty and claim-level citations. Read the sources yourself and recheck every revision. These checks reduce reliance on unsupported output; they do not guarantee an error-free answer.
Can I use this prompt for a different topic?
Yes. Replace the claim and source boundary, decide what evidence would answer it, and preserve missing facts. The practice below is a new task, not another executed result.
Guides and resources
Find more detail and choose your next step.
Your turn
Research a claim and check its citations.
Try the Mercury and Venus question below, or replace it with a small question of your own. Ask for original sources, inspect the cited passages and revise any unsupported claim. Aim for a short answer with traceable facts and source links.
Write a draft and review the checklist.
Your draft saves in this browser. You can leave and come back.
Ask your question in Chat
Copy your question, open Chat and paste it into the composer. Choose a compatible text model, turn Web search on and send it when ready. The button opens Chat; it does not send your draft or enable search for you.
Open ChatWeb Search controlsCheck the sources, then send one correction
Open the cited pages and find a passage that supports or contradicts a claim. Fill in the source check below and send it in the same conversation. This is a practice template; the requests from the handout example remain above.
Revise the answer using this source check:
Claim to correct: [paste the claim from the answer]
Original source URL: [paste the URL you opened]
Supporting passage: [paste the relevant passage]
Correction needed: [explain what the source supports]
Change only the unsupported parts. Keep the verified facts, units and source links. Mark anything still uncertain, and return the complete revised answer with a source for each factual claim.Read the entire revised answer. Check that the correction is supported, the original figures and units still match, and the source links remain beside the claims. If no correction is needed, summarize what you checked and leave unsupported details out.
Open Chat to continue