How to provide sources and citations to ChatGPT

To get started, you need to ask ChatGPT something that requires sources or citations. I’ve found that it’s better to ask a long answer question so that ChatGPT has more “meat” to chew on.

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Be aware that ChatGPT cannot provide any information after 2021 and requests for information prior to the Internet (eg, for a paper on Ronald Reagan’s presidency) will have very few available sources.

Here’s an example of a topic I did a lot of work on when I was in graduate school:

Describe the learning theories of cognitivism, behaviorism and constructivism

This is where a little quick engineering comes in. A good starting point is with this question:

Please provide source for previous answer

I’ve found that it often provides offline sources, books, papers etc. The problem with offline sources is that you cannot verify their veracity. But it is a starting point. A better question is:

please provide url source

This specifically tells ChatGPT that you want clickable links for the sources. You can also modify this by asking for a specific amount of sources, although your mileage may vary depending on how many sources you get back:

Please provide 10 url sources

In our next step, we’ll see what we can do with these.

Keep in mind this golden rule regarding ChatGPT-provided sources: ChatGPT is more often wrong than right.

About half of the times I asked ChatGPT about URL sources, they were outright bad links. The other 25% or more are links that go entirely or in part to topics that are not related to the topics you are trying to source.

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For example, I asked about the background source of the phrase “trust but verify”, usually attributed to US President Ronald Reagan of the 1980s. I got back a lot of sources, but most didn’t actually exist. I got something back that took me to active pages on the Reagan Presidential Library site, but where the page subject had nothing to do with the phrase in question.

I had a little better luck with the learning theory question from step 1. There, I found texts back online from people I knew from my studies who had actually acted on those principles. I also got URLs back, but even then, only two out of ten actually worked or were accurate.

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But don’t be discouraged. The idea isn’t for ChatGPT to provide sources that you can use right away. If you instead think of ChatGPT as a research assistant, it will give you some great starting places. Use the names of the articles (which may be completely fictitious or inaccessible) and leave them to Google. This will give you some interesting search queries, which will probably lead to some interesting reading and material that can legitimately go into your research.

Also, keep in mind 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 to see if they are available to you. If you’re at school, you can also ask your friendly neighborhood librarian for help.

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Don’t forget that there are many excellent traditional sources. For example, Google Scholar And jstor Provide access to a wide range of academically acceptable resources that you can cite with reasonable confidence.

One final point: If you just cut and pasted the ChatGPT sources into whatever research you’re doing, chances are you’ll get stuck. Use it for clues, not to avoid the actual act of research.