Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

In its current iteration, ChatGPT is often known to fabricate, or "hallucinate" citations for sources that do not actually exist. This is due in part to the fact that it is primarily designed to generate text in a conversational style and is not necessarily intended to function reliably or effectively as a search engine.

ChatGPT responses are generated based on the probability of what the next words should likely be, based on its training data, as opposed to a “knowledge” of the topic in question or real-time access to online sources. It may suggest books or journal articles by authors that have published frequently on the topic, but the titles, pages numbers, dates and other components of the citation could be completely fictional. 

You can attempt to verify the existence of a source by searching the full citation in Omni, Google Scholar, or an Internet search engine, but if you cannot find a match through any of these searches, chances are good that the source doesn't exist.

Need help verifying a citation? Visit Ask a Librarian chat or email library@mcmaster.ca for assistance.