The link opens. The claim still isn't on the page.
AI-assisted drafts often cite a real page that supports a neighboring fact. A five-field worksheet catches it by checking each sentence against the page.
A draft that looks sourced until you read the page
A draft paragraph says Halyard Software raised its list prices in March. Halyard is fictional, and this whole example was built for this guide. The footnote under the sentence links to Halyard's own blog, on Halyard's own domain, in a post about pricing.
So the link opens. The publisher is right. The topic is right.
Then you read the post. It's from the year before, and it announces a new enterprise tier. There's no price increase anywhere on the page and no mention of March.
Every surface check passes. Someone who reviews citations by clicking them, seeing a real page from the right company and moving on would approve this paragraph in under a minute. The citation is real, the claim is unsupported, and the two sit together comfortably until someone reads the page against the sentence.
Right street, wrong door: the adjacent-fact citation
We call this the adjacent-fact citation. The cited page is real and sits close to the claim: same company, same topic, often the same product line. What it supports is a neighboring fact. The number differs, or the date, or the entity, or the verb ('announced' on the page, 'launched' in the draft).
It's the failure that survives a click. A fabricated URL dies the moment you open it, and a dead link is obvious. An adjacent page looks like confirmation, which is what makes it dangerous.
The mechanism is easy to picture. A model, or a hurried writer, produces a fluent sentence and finds a topically relevant page, and the two get paired because they're about the same thing. Nothing in that pairing asks whether the page contains the sentence's specific claim.
So the unit of checking has to shrink. One sentence, one page, one claim at a time.
A link that opens proves the page exists. It says nothing about your sentence.
Why the usual source checklist misses it
Most citation advice online was written for students evaluating a source they chose themselves. The CRAAP test, developed at California State University, Chico's Meriam Library, asks about a source's currency, relevance, authority, accuracy and purpose. Those are good questions about a page.
A claim needs a different question: does this page say this? An adjacent page from the right company scores well on authority and relevance almost by definition. That's how it got cited in the first place.
Those guides also assume a person read the source and then wrote the claim. In an AI-assisted draft the order can run backwards. The sentence exists first and the citation is attached afterward, so the reading step the checklist depends on may never have happened.
And that's why clicking feels like checking. It confirms the page is real and looks credible, which is exactly what an adjacent page is.
What writers and researchers are reporting
Practitioners describe the problem in plain words. Drafts that look well-sourced until someone opens the links come up again and again when people talk about fact-checking AI-assisted writing. Search behavior points the same way, with people asking how to find the original source of a claim.
Two larger tests of AI news answers found sourcing to be a recurring weak spot. The Tow Center for Digital Journalism, writing in Columbia Journalism Review in March 2025, tested AI search tools on identifying the source of news excerpts and found widespread misattribution. A 2025 study coordinated by the European Broadcasting Union with the BBC reported sourcing as the most common category of significant problems in assistants' news answers.
Neither study isolates the adjacent-fact pattern, so we won't put a rate on it. We'd still rank it as the costliest variant, because it's the one that passes the check most people actually run.
The citation-support worksheet
Run this per citation, and only on checkable claims: a number, a date, a named person or company, a quote, or a strong verb like 'banned', 'acquired' or 'confirmed'. Adjectives can wait.
Five fields. The third is the whole test.
- Exact claim. Paste the sentence from the draft and mark the checkable part.
- Cited page. URL, publisher and page title.
- Supporting sentence, quoted. Search the page for the number or name, then copy the sentence that says the same thing. If you can't paste a sentence, you don't have support.
- Page date versus claim date. A pricing page updated last month can't confirm what happened two years ago, and an old press release can't confirm what's true today.
- Verdict. Supports, adjacent or absent.
A spreadsheet works. So does the margin of the draft, as long as field three holds a pasted sentence and never a paraphrase.
| Verdict | What the page shows | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Supports | A sentence on the page states the claim, with matching number, date and entity | Keep the citation. For high-stakes claims, also check independence and origin |
| Adjacent | Same subject, but a different number, date, entity or event | Rewrite the claim to match the page, or trace the source the original claim came from |
| Absent | Nothing on the page addresses the claim | Cut the claim, or find a real source before publishing |
The three verdicts and the fix each one calls for.
Three citations, three verdicts
This walk-through is hypothetical. Halyard Software is fictional, and so are its pages.
The first claim says Halyard opened a Lisbon office. The cited press release, dated the same year as the claim, contains the line 'we've opened our Lisbon office.' Quote pasted, dates line up. Supports.
The second is the pricing sentence from the top of this guide. The cited post is about pricing, but its only relevant sentence announces a new enterprise tier, a year earlier. Adjacent. Either rewrite to what the page says ('Halyard added an enterprise tier') or go find whatever the March claim was based on.
The third says Halyard's chief executive called the company profitable. The cited interview covers hiring and expansion. No sentence mentions profit. Absent, and the claim comes out until a real source turns up.
Look at what the adjacent verdict hands you: a true neighboring fact. That's often the cheapest rewrite in the whole draft.
| Claim as drafted | Cited page | Quoted support | Dates | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Halyard opened a Lisbon office | Halyard press release | 'we've opened our Lisbon office' | Same year as claim | Supports |
| Halyard raised list prices in March | Halyard blog post on pricing | Only a line announcing a new enterprise tier | Page is a year older than claim | Adjacent |
| Halyard's CEO called the company profitable | Interview with the CEO | None found | Not applicable | Absent |
Hypothetical example. Halyard Software and its pages are fictional.
What changes when you verify sentences instead of links
Each claim takes longer to check, and the review as a whole gets shorter. You're reading pages now, but only for checkable claims, and every verdict tells you exactly what to fix.
Adjacent verdicts deserve the closest look. They're where a draft is confidently wrong in a way field experts will catch, since experts usually know the neighboring fact. If the adjacent page is all you can find, write the claim that page supports.
Two other checks sit next to this one. To learn where a claim started, trace it back through the pages that repeat it until you reach the earliest one you can find. When several pages agree, check whether they're independent or one story syndicated many times. This worksheet answers a narrower question: does the page you cited say the thing you wrote?
Supports does not mean true
A supports verdict means the cited page states the claim. The page can still be wrong, out of date or repeating someone else. For claims that carry real weight, run the origin trace and the independence check too.
Starting from coverage that already held up
The worksheet goes fastest when the sources under a story were checked before you started. For a field you follow, Niche does that part. It checks coverage against independent sources, merges syndicated copies, drops weak citations and keeps the supporting sources attached to each story, with a line on why it matters.
So when you or your assistant start writing from a Niche briefing, the links you inherit are the ones that held up. The sentences you write are new, though. Run the worksheet on them, especially any phrasing your assistant supplied.
Source checking narrows the risk. It can't guarantee a claim is true. A link that opens was never proof, and a pasted sentence from the page is the minimum bar for any claim with your name above it.
Frequently asked questions
How do I fact-check the citations in an AI-assisted draft?
For each checkable claim (a number, date, name, quote or strong verb), open the cited page and paste the sentence that states the same thing. Compare the page date with the claim date. Then mark the citation supports, adjacent or absent. If you can't paste a sentence, the citation doesn't support the claim.
Why does an AI citation link to a page that doesn't say what the draft says?
The sentence and the page are often paired because they cover the same subject. The page can be real, credible and on topic while backing a neighboring fact, such as a different figure, date or event from the same company.
Is a working link enough to trust a citation?
No. A working link only shows the page exists. An adjacent page from the right publisher passes that test and still fails to support the specific claim.
What should I do with an adjacent citation?
Either rewrite the claim to match what the page actually says, or trace the claim back to the source it came from. Don't keep the original sentence with the adjacent link under it.
Does a checked source mean the claim is true?
No. A supports verdict means the page states the claim. The page can still be wrong or out of date. For important claims, also trace the origin and check whether the sources are independent. Niche's checked coverage drops weak citations, but source checking is not a guarantee that every claim is true.