Audit an answer before it enters the record
Lesson 6 of 7 · The working week
By the end you can take any model output bound for a methods section, a notebook or a reference list, list every claim in it, and mark each VERIFIED, UNVERIFIED or [NEEDS: source].
1 · Learn the move · Fact-check list
At the bench, 'invented' is well formed. A citation with real authors, a real journal, a plausible year and a DOI that resolves to nothing. An annealing temperature, a gel percentage, an incubation time or a dilution that is not in your notebook and not on the vendor sheet. Real values for the wrong enzyme. A p-value the model computed from a figure it read. None of it looks wrong; it looks like a methods section. The audit is a list, not a reread. Pull every claim out of the output, one per line, and next to each write the record that proves it: the notebook page, the vendor sheet, the DOI you resolved yourself, the raw file. A reference is VERIFIED only when you opened it. A parameter is VERIFIED only when you can point at it in the record. Everything else is UNVERIFIED or [NEEDS: source], and nothing with either word in it enters the record. The model builds the list. It verifies nothing. Draft copy, not research-integrity advice. Reviewed by: nobody yet.
Here is a draft methods paragraph and its reference list: [paste]. List every claim, one per line: parameters, concentrations, times, temperatures, catalog numbers, citations, statistics. Next to each, write the record that would prove it (notebook page / vendor sheet / resolved DOI / raw data file / other). Mark every citation UNVERIFIED until I say I opened it. Do not tell me whether a value is right; you cannot know. End with the count and the records I must open.
What invented means on this door
Invented, in this door, means anything in the record that cannot be traced to a run, an instrument, a file or a paper you have opened: a citation nobody retrieved, a value no notebook page holds, a method step that was not performed as written, a statistic the analysis script did not produce, or a figure the AI drew. Fabrication is fabrication whichever hand typed it, and UNVERIFIED is the only honest label until the source is in front of you.
2 · Your turn. You write the prompt
The draft methods paragraph for the revision reads cleanly: 'cells were lysed in RIPA buffer with 1x protease inhibitor, proteins separated on a 10% gel, blocked 1 h in 5% milk, incubated overnight at 4 C with anti-GAPDH (1:5000)'. Three of those numbers you never gave it. Two of the four new references look real. The revision is due Friday.
Write the prompt for this scenario as given, or swap in a real one from your own work. The score works the same either way.
Remember: the AI sees only your prompt, not this page. If the situation isn't in your prompt, it doesn't exist.
Optional. These shape the output when you run your prompt below, not your score.