How to get ChatGPT to provide sources and citations

To start, you need to ask ChatGPT something that requires a source or citation. I find it better to ask a question that has a longer answer, so ChatGPT has more “meat” to chew on.

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Please remember that ChatGPT cannot provide any information after January 2022 for GPT-3.5, April 2023 for GPT-4, and October 2023 for GPT-4o as well as information requests before they are available. The internet (for example, for an article about president Ronald Reagan) will have fewer sources available.

Here’s an example of a prompt I wrote about a topic I did a lot of research on in graduate school:

Describe the learning theories of cognitivism, behaviorism, and constructionism

This is where a little fast technique will appear. A good starting point is with this query:

Please provide source for previous answer

I find that this prompt often offers offline sources, books, articles, etc. The problem with offline sources is that you can’t verify their authenticity. But that’s a starting point. A better query is:

Please provide source URL

This prompt specifically tells ChatGPT that you want clickable links to sources. You can also tweak this prompt by requesting a specific number of sources, though your mileage may vary depending on how many you get back:

Please provide 10 URL sources

In the next step, we will see what we can do with these resources.

ChatGPT and most major language model AIs Responds well to detail and specificity. So if you are asking for sources, you can ask for higher quality sources. You will need to determine that you need reliable and accurate sources. While this approach isn’t necessarily effective, it can prompt the AI ​​to give you more useful feedback. For example:

Please provide me with reliable sources to support my arguments about… (regardless of the topic you are looking at)

You can also tell ChatGPT what type of source you want. If you are looking for scholarly articles, journals, peer-reviewed books, or authoritative websites, explicitly mention these preferences. For example:

Please recommend peer-reviewed journals that discuss… (and here, repeat what you discussed earlier in your conversation)

When dealing with abstract concepts or theories, ask ChatGPT to provide a conceptual framework and practical examples. Here is an example:

Can you describe the principles in Vygotsky’s Theory of Social Development and provide real-world examples where these principles apply, including sources for these examples?

This approach provides you with theoretical explanations and practical cases for tracing or case studies.

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Another idea is to use sources that have no rotten links (i.e. they are no longer online at the URL that ChatGPT knows about). Be careful with this idea, though, as ChatGPT doesn’t know about things after January 2022 for GPT-3.5, April 2023 for GPT-4, and October 2023 for GPT-4o. So while you might be tempted to use a prompt like this:

Please provide me with sources published within the last five years.

Instead, consider using a reminder like this:

Please provide sources published between 2019 and April 2023.

And, as always, don’t assume any results ChatGPT gives you are accurate. It’s still possible that the AI ​​will completely fabricate answers, even to the extent of making up the names of what appear to be academic journals. It’s a lie. It is sometimes a useful tool but also a misleading one.

Keep in mind this golden rule about resources provided by ChatGPT: ChatGPT is often wrong more often than right.

In the many times I’ve asked ChatGPT to provide a source URL, nearly half are just bad links. The other 25% or so links lead to threads that are completely or completely unrelated to the topic you’re trying to source. GPT-4 and GPT-4o are a little more reliable, but not by much.

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For example, I asked sources on the platform for the phrase “trust but verify”, generally popular by US President Ronald Reagan. I got a lot of sources back, but most are non-existent. I received some information that correctly took me to active pages on the Reagan Presidential Library site, but the page topic had nothing to do with that term.

I had better luck with my learning theory question from step 1. There I got offline messages from people I knew in my studies who had worked on those theories. I also got the URL. But again only about two out of 10 worked or were correct.

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But don’t despair. The idea is not to expect ChatGPT to provide resources that you can use immediately. Instead, if you think of ChatGPT as a research assistant, it will give you some great starting points. Use the names of the articles (which may be completely fake or inaccessible) and drop them into Google. That process will give you some interesting search queries that could lead to interesting material that could legitimately be included in your research.

Also, remember that you are not limited to using ChatGPT. Just because ChatGPT exists doesn’t mean you should forget about all the tools available to researchers and students. Do your own web searches. Check with primary sources and subject matter experts if they are available. If you’re in school, you can even ask your friendly neighborhood librarian for help.

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Don’t forget that there are many wonderful traditional sources. For example, Google Scholar And NEWS provides access to a variety of academically acceptable resources that you can cite with reasonable reliability.

One final point: if you just cut and paste ChatGPT sources into your research, you might be fooled. Using AI to find clues, is not a way to avoid the real work of research.