What is citation provenance? Tracing AI claims to original evidence
Understand claim-to-passage links through fee conditions, distinguishing citation presence, evidential support, and source reliability.
Understand the concept
Citation provenance records which source and passage support a claim so readers can verify it. A working link establishes page existence, not support or source reliability. Preserve claim-passage relationships, versions, and context instead of treating generated citation markers as factual certification.
Link existence differs from support for a claim
A page saying a feature exists does not support a claim that it is free. Find relevant terms and qualifications. Paragraph-end citations should make their coverage clear rather than imply support for every sentence.
Do not quote only a favorable fragment when later text restricts regions or plans. This is a verification method, not a pricing judgment. Compare claims with original sources rather than merely counting footnotes.
Citation interfaces aid location without replacing judgment
Anthropic provides document-citation structures, and Google search grounding returns source-to-answer associations. Preserve these links rather than reducing them to a bibliography. Locators vary by content type and can use text ranges or other identifiers.
Verify returned titles rather than inventing authors or dates. Old passages can become stale after updates. Read times and versions explain differences without excusing outdated answers.
Verify claim coverage rather than citation counts
Break an answer into checkable claims, locate support, and flag unsupported or conflicting statements. Reposts of one announcement are not independent evidence. More sources do not repair missing qualifications.
These are review steps without a citation-accuracy benchmark. Preserve uncertainty instead of fabricating sources. Make evidence accessible and label inferences so source facts and editorial judgment remain distinct.
Checked sources
These sources support the concepts and methods described here. Examples and test scope are labeled separately; check the version of the tools you use.