Citation Verification Guide

Table of Contents

• AI Citation Error Rate Warning
• 6-Step Verification Workflow
• API-Based Verification
• Exa MCP Integration
• Citation Rules Quick Reference

AI Citation Error Rate Warning

WARNING: AI-generated citations have a ~40% error rate. Hallucinated references — papers that don't exist, wrong authors, incorrect years, fabricated DOIs — are a serious form of academic misconduct.

The Golden Rule: NEVER generate BibTeX entries from memory. ALWAYS fetch programmatically.

Action	Correct	Wrong
Adding a citation	Search API → verify → fetch BibTeX	Write BibTeX from memory
Uncertain about a paper	Mark as [CITATION NEEDED]	Guess the reference
Can't find exact paper	Note: "placeholder — verify"	Invent similar-sounding paper

6-Step Verification Workflow

• [ ] Step 1: Search using Exa MCP or Semantic Scholar API
• [ ] Step 2: Verify paper exists in 2+ sources (Semantic Scholar + arXiv/CrossRef)
• [ ] Step 3: Retrieve BibTeX via DOI (programmatically, not from memory)
• [ ] Step 4: Verify the claim you're citing actually appears in the paper
• [ ] Step 5: Add verified BibTeX to bibliography
• [ ] Step 6: If ANY step fails → mark as placeholder, inform user

Verification Layers

Keep these layers separate in user-facing output:

1. Entry format valid — the BibTeX/BibLaTeX entry parses and has required fields.
2. Canonical metadata exists — DOI, arXiv, publisher landing page, or trusted index metadata confirms the paper identity.
3. Claim support verified — the cited paper actually supports the manuscript sentence or paragraph.

A local citation key, .bib match, DOI, or metadata hit is not enough to claim Layer 3. When Layer 3 is not checked, write CITATION_SUPPORT_NEEDED or tell the author that claim-level support remains unverified.

API-Based Verification

Search with Semantic Scholar

from semanticscholar import SemanticScholar

sch = SemanticScholar()
results = sch.search_paper("attention mechanism transformers", limit=5)
for paper in results:
    print(f"{paper.title} - {paper.paperId}")
    print(f"  DOI: {paper.externalIds.get('DOI', 'N/A')}")

Retrieve BibTeX via DOI

import requests

def doi_to_bibtex(doi: str) -> str:
    """Get verified BibTeX from DOI via CrossRef."""
    response = requests.get(
        f"https://doi.org/{doi}",
        headers={"Accept": "application/x-bibtex"}
    )
    response.raise_for_status()
    return response.text

# Example
bibtex = doi_to_bibtex("10.48550/arXiv.1706.03762")
print(bibtex)

Verify via arXiv

import requests
import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

def search_arxiv(query: str, max_results: int = 5):
    """Search arXiv for papers."""
    url = f"https://export.arxiv.org/api/query?search_query=all:{query}&max_results={max_results}"
    response = requests.get(url)
    root = ET.fromstring(response.text)
    ns = {"atom": "http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"}
    for entry in root.findall("atom:entry", ns):
        title = entry.find("atom:title", ns).text.strip()
        arxiv_id = entry.find("atom:id", ns).text.strip().split("/")[-1]
        print(f"{title} [arXiv:{arxiv_id}]")

Exa MCP Integration

For the best paper search experience, install Exa MCP:

# Claude Code
claude mcp add exa -- npx -y mcp-remote "https://mcp.exa.ai/mcp"

Exa enables searches like:

• "Find papers on RLHF for language models published after 2023"
• "Search for transformer architecture papers by Vaswani"

Then verify results with Semantic Scholar API and fetch BibTeX via DOI.

Citation Rules Quick Reference

Situation	Action
Found paper, got DOI, fetched BibTeX	Use the citation
Found paper, no DOI	Use arXiv BibTeX or manual entry from paper
Paper exists but can't fetch BibTeX	Mark placeholder, inform user
Uncertain if paper exists	Mark [CITATION NEEDED], inform user
"I think there's a paper about X"	NEVER cite — search first or mark placeholder
Citation key exists but claim support is unknown	Keep the key, mark CITATION_SUPPORT_NEEDED

Placeholder Format

When you cannot verify a citation:

% EXPLICIT PLACEHOLDER - requires human verification
\cite{PLACEHOLDER_author2024_verify_this}  % TODO: Verify this citation exists

Always tell the user: "I've marked [X] citations as placeholders that need verification."

API References

• Semantic Scholar API
• CrossRef API
• arXiv API