Treat Citations as Evidence, Not Decoration

Citations are not badges of truth. They are inspection handles. That distinction matters because generative search systems can produce fluent summaries that overstate, compress, or generalize beyond what individual sources say. Research audits of citation quality show that verifiability is uneven: some sentences are well-supported, while others blend evidence with inference in ways a casual reader can miss. When you verify a cited claim, check three things: Subject match: Is the source about the same company, audience, market, or population? Claim strength: Does the source say “is,” “may,” “early signs suggest,” or “one executive argued”? Those are not interchangeable. Time…

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