Module 4 · Lesson 4.3 · Interactive drill
Fabricated Citation Drill
Three short research briefs. Twelve citations. Some are clean. Some are fabricated. Your job: classify each using the four-pattern framework from Lesson 4.3.
The four fabrication patterns
Pattern 1— Invented source. The paper or article does not exist. The title returns nothing; the author is unfindable.Pattern 2— Real source, fabricated quote. The paper exists, but the quoted text is not in it.Pattern 3— Real source, misrepresented finding. The paper exists, the citation is accurate, but the brief's claim distorts what the paper actually argues.Pattern 4— Dead or mis-pointed URL. 404, typo-squat domain, or a URL that loads the wrong document.Clean— the citation is legitimate. The source exists, the URL resolves, the quote is in the source, the claim matches what the source says.
How this works
You will see three mock research briefs. Each brief has four numbered citations. For each citation, we give you what you would see from the outside: the claim the brief is making, the citation information the agent supplied, and (pretend) what you found when you opened the link or searched the title.
Pick the category. You get immediate feedback. At the end, you'll see a per-pattern breakdown so you know which kind of fabrication you're slowest to catch — that is the learning. Students who miss Pattern 3 most often (misrepresented findings) are in good company; it is the hardest to spot.
This is a drill, not a real audit. The briefs and sources here are teaching examples. Run the real four-pattern sweep on your capstone brief using the Recipe Book entry spotting-a-fabricated-citation.md.
Drill complete
Your score
0 / 12
What to do with this
If you missed more than one Pattern 3 citation — real source, misrepresented finding — that is the one to focus on. It is the hardest to spot because the agent does not have to invent anything, only distort. The check that catches it is the slow one: read the abstract and the conclusion, then write in your own words what the paper argues, then compare to what the brief claims.
If you missed Pattern 1 (invented source), you may be trusting metadata too easily. Title search is 60 seconds; run it before you trust any citation you have not already opened.
The failure mode this drill exists to prevent: shipping a research brief with citations you did not open.
When you run the real audit on your capstone, use the checklist at
/resources/module-04/open-before-cite-checklist.md and the recipe at
spotting-a-fabricated-citation.md.