hallucinated citation
References that look real but aren't.
What it is
Generative AI tools confidently produce citations that don't exist: plausible author names, plausible title, plausible journal, plausible year, no real paper. The DOI is often invalid; the title doesn't appear in any database. When an author uses an AI assistant for literature review without checking each citation against CrossRef or Semantic Scholar, hallucinations can survive into the submission.
Why a reviewer cares
Reviewers check the references they care about. A reviewer reaching for [12] and finding a 404 will assume the worst about the rest of the manuscript. One hallucinated citation is enough to lose credibility.
How to fix it
Verify every reference against CrossRef or Semantic Scholar — our free BibTeX Validator does this automatically. Any citation that doesn't return a confident match should be re-checked manually or removed. Don't trust AI-generated citations without verification.
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