| name | verifying-before-citing |
| description | Use when about to cite a source, statistic, or quote - forces verification against the actual source before the claim leaves your hands |
| kind | discipline |
| audience | anyone |
| ai-tools | any |
| complexity | simple |
| time | 1-3 min per claim |
| version | 1.0.0 |
| source | bundled |
If you were dispatched as a subagent for a specific task, skip this skill and complete your assigned task. The parent already invoked discipline.
Verifying Before Citing
What this does
Forces every cited claim, statistic, quote, or attribution to be verified against the actual primary source before it appears in writing. Eliminates "secondhand citation drift" — the failure mode where a claim is true at the start of a citation chain but mangled by the third repetition.
When to use
- About to publish, ship, or send anything that cites a source
- About to attribute a quote to a person
- About to cite a statistic, percentage, or numeric finding
- About to summarize what a source "says" without having opened it recently
- Whenever pulling from memory, AI output, or a secondary source
What you bring (Inputs)
- The claim and its proposed citation
- Access (or lack of access) to the primary source
What you get (Output)
A claim that you have personally verified against the primary source, OR an explicit hedge ("according to X, who cites Y, which I have not verified") OR the claim removed.
How it works (Steps)
This is a discipline. The behavioral structure is: a non-negotiable rule (below), an excuses-and-counters table to defeat rationalizations, warning signs to spot the moment of risk, and a hard gate that fires before publishing. Apply the gate at every citation; verify, hedge, or cut.
The non-negotiable rule
Every cited claim, quote, statistic, or attribution must be verified against the primary source — opened, read in context — before it leaves your hands. If you cannot, you must hedge explicitly or remove the claim.
Excuses and counters
| If you think... | Reality |
|---|
| "I remember reading this" | Memory drifts. Open the source. |
| "I've cited this before" | The source may have updated, or your prior cite may have been wrong. Open the source. |
| "An AI told me this is from X" | AI-attributed quotes are routinely fabricated or misattributed. Verify or remove. |
| "It's a famous quote, everyone knows it's from X" | Famous quotes are misattributed at the highest rates. Especially these. Verify. |
| "I'm short on time" | The cost of a wrong citation lasts longer than the time to verify it. Verify. |
| "It's a small detail" | Small wrong details destroy credibility for the rest. Verify. |
| "The secondary source seems reliable" | Even reliable secondaries get details wrong. Open the primary. |
| "I'll mark it for fact-check later" | "Later" doesn't happen. Verify now or hedge now or cut now. |
Warning signs
- The phrase "I think it was X who said..." and you proceed to attribute
- A quote that's elegant, pithy, and very on-the-nose for your point (often misattributed)
- A statistic without a recent date attached
- A finding that "everyone knows" but you can't immediately name a source for
- An AI-generated draft contains a citation you didn't put there
- You're about to round a number for "readability"
Hard gates
Before every citation in your final draft, ask:
- Did I open the primary source for this specific claim in this writing session?
- Does my paraphrase match the source in context (not just in isolated sentence)?
- If a quote: is the wording exact?
- If a statistic: is the year, denominator, and definition correct?
If any answer is no — verify now, or hedge explicitly, or remove. No exceptions.
Quality bar
- Every quote is verified verbatim
- Every statistic has a year and source and matches the source
- Every attribution names a real, retrievable source
- Hedges (when used) are explicit about what's unverified
- A reader can follow the citation chain back to the primary
Variations
- High-stakes writing (legal, medical, financial): also have a second person verify
- Writing on a deadline: cut more aggressively rather than hedge
- AI-assisted drafts: every citation introduced by the AI is suspect by default
Example
Without skill: "As Einstein said, 'If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.'"
With skill: STOP. Verify. The quote is widely attributed to Einstein but has no primary source — it's likely a 20th-century paraphrase of Rutherford. Two options:
- Hedge: "A widely circulated saying — often attributed to Einstein, though without primary documentation — captures it: 'If you can't explain it simply...'"
- Cut: rewrite the paragraph without the quote.
Either is honest. The verbatim attribution to Einstein is not.
