# The Source-Check Checklist (Chapter 11)

**Use when:** the claims are extracted and numbered, and you need each one to survive its source. Rung three of the verification ladder.

For each claim, find the source: the one it cites, or the one it should have. Then compare. Three yes-or-no checks cover almost every office claim:

- [ ] The source exists. Open it. If the citation does not resolve to a real document, that is an invented source: the study that was never published.
- [ ] The source says what the claim says. A document that exists and says something else is a mismatched source: a paraphrase wearing a citation.
- [ ] The number matches. Read the figure in the source with your own eyes.

## The split, which is the design

Let the agent pass over the claims, quoting its evidence and linking it. Then spot-check. Open three sources yourself, two numbers and one quote, and compare with your own eyes. That part is not delegable: check one count by hand, and the count is the one that matters.

## Failure shapes to name out loud

- Invented source: the citation that does not exist.
- Mismatched source: the document exists and says something else.
- Circular citation: a report cites a summary of itself, usually a blog post or a newsletter, and the summary's only source was the report.
- Stale citation: the 2019 statistic presented as current, or the study the field has since walked back.

None of these is a lie on its own. All of them are claims, and all of them belong on the flag-list.

## The per-claim sheet

```
Claim [NUMBER]: [THE CLAIM, VERBATIM FROM THE EXTRACT]
Source it cites: [SOURCE]
Source it should have: [SOURCE, IF DIFFERENT]
Exists? [YES / NO]
Says what the claim says? [YES / NO]
Number matches? [YES / NO, STATE THE TWO NUMBERS]
Opened by me: [YES / NO, WHICH FIGURE OR QUOTE I CHECKED BY HAND]
```

Claims that fail ship exactly one of two ways: corrected, or flagged. Never silent.