The most dangerous AI mistake

This lesson could save your degree. AI chat tools sometimes invent sources that look completely real: believable authors, titles, journals, and years. These are called hallucinations, and students have failed for citing them.

If you cite a source that does not exist, your supervisor will find out, and it looks like fabrication.

The rule is absolute: verify every single source yourself before you cite it.

To verify a source:

• Search the exact title in Google Scholar or your library
• Confirm the authors, journal, and year all match
• Open it and check it actually says what you think it says

If you cannot find it, do not use it. No exceptions, no matter how perfect it looks.

Practice

Ask an AI tool to suggest five sources on your topic, on purpose. Then try to find each one in Google Scholar. See how many are real. This is why we verify everything.