Citation: who said it

Who said it and where do I find it

A citation is not decoration for bores. It is an answer to two questions: who claims it and where can I check it. When you write “as AI says”, nobody said it whom a teacher can find. When you write “according to a website”, but the website does not exist, it is a hallucination in a jacket. An honest citation at your school is enough simply: an author or a title, a book or a page, a year when you know it. For the web an address you really open. A textbook has an imprint. A wiki has a history. A teacher has a name. A chatbot has no imprint. That is why AI is not a source. AI can suggest where to look. You must go there and check it is there. When it is not there, the citation falls. The whole sentence falls with it.

Ema writes a report about the Vltava. The chatbot offers a quote “As Professor Havel wrote in 1994…” Ema almost pastes it. Adam opens a search engine. Professor Havel on the Vltava in 1994 is nowhere. Ema deletes the sentence. She goes to the geography textbook, finds the chapter about the river, writes: “Textbook Geography 6, chapter Rivers, p. 41.” It is not a university. It is honest. A teacher can find it. Ema adds a second source: a page she really opened, and a third: an atlas she holds in her hand. The chatbot stayed in the role: “Where to look?” not “Say a professor said it.”

AI is not an author in the bibliography

At school a citation protects two people: the one who thought it up, and you, so you do not lie that you thought it up. When you use an idea from a book, you say where from. When you use AI help for an outline, you tell the teacher how you worked — we get to that in Helper. A chatbot does not belong in the bibliography as a book. A textbook, an encyclopaedia, an article, an interview do. When the model invents a citation, it is faking a source, even if you “only copied it”. Intent is not an excuse here. The method is: first a source in your hand or on the screen, then a sentence in the report. The other way round is a path to a zero.

Three shapes. Only one is fine.

1. Wrong: “As ChatGPT says, the Vltava is 430 km long.” The source is a chatbot.
2. Wrong: “Havel 1994 claims…” — a link from the chat, the book was not found.
3. Right: “According to the textbook Geography 6 (p. 41) the Vltava is the longest river in Czechia.” The book exists on the desk.

Add-on: a website you opened. You write the page title and that you read it today. When the teacher wants an exact format, you use the school pattern. A pattern from AI without a check: no.

A mini table:

Why this right now

You are in the course Ask with Martin, level 準備. You work in a chatbot (ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude) — same game, different brand. No code. A parent or the school creates the account. A child’s email does not belong here.

This is not the インベンター level. There you build a chatbot on your own website. Here you are a user: a question, a check, a citation.

You will know this lesson by one sentence: A citation says who and where — AI is not in the bibliography. When you can say it to a parent or a teacher, you have got the core. The rest is practice, not magic.

A hallucination without a citation is just a weird fact. A hallucination with a fake citation is a fraud on the reader. 準備 splits that in time. Detective then practises it on three sources. Today a habit is enough: first I hold a source, then I write a name.

Four things you will build in this course

The course has four small projects. You do not have to do them all at once. Today you add only what this lesson can do.

Workshop: one sentence, one real source

You pick a fact from a textbook. You write it. You add where from. Then you ask the chat for a citation — and check if it is lying.

1. Open a textbook on one page. Pick one fact-sentence (not an opinion). Rewrite it in the notebook in your own words. Under it write: source = textbook title, page.

2. Open a chatbot. Write: “Suggest a citation for this topic: … I do not want invented authors. If you do not know, say you do not know.” Take the topic from that page, but do not paste the whole chapter.

3. If the model lists a book or a website, open it. Does it exist? Is that fact there? If not, cross out the citation. Do not write it in the notebook.

4. If the model says it does not know, praise it in the next sentence and stay with the textbook. That is a win, not a loss.

5. The notebook now has: your sentence + a real source. No name from the chat that you did not find.

Practice: fix the citation

Three lines. Cross out, or fix. No internet chase — logic from the lesson is enough.

1. “Source: ChatGPT 5.” Fix, or cross out. Why it is not a citation.

2. “Novák 2011, p. 5” — you do not have the book and you did not find it. What do you do?

3. “Textbook Science 6, p. 22, chapter The Cell.” What else must you do for it to be honest?

Now you 💪

Go through three checks. At each one tick in your head: can I see it, or not?

1. You know two citation questions: who and where.
2. You will not write AI as an item in the bibliography.
3. You have in the notebook one sentence with a real textbook page.

If something is missing, go back to the steps above. This is not a test for marks. It is a safety net, so you go on sure, not confused.

What to take from this lesson

• Citation = who said it and where I check it.
• A chatbot is not a source. It can suggest where to look.
• First a source, then a name in the work.
• An invented citation is a lie about a source.
• A simple school write-up is enough when it is true.
• The names in the examples (Ema, Adam) are made up. Do not put your number, email or photo here.
• Next lesson: When you can do this, go to the next lesson in the same level.

© 2026 Ing. Martin Polak / AlgoRhino · コンテンツ利用規約