verifying-citationslisted

# Verifying Citations ## Overview A citation checker whose only mechanism is a language model launders hallucination into the word "Verified". The model that invented the reference is not competent to acquit it. **Core principle: the script returns the verdict, and the verdict stands.** Everything this skill claims about whether a work exists comes from `scripts/verify_citations.py` querying DBLP, Europe PMC, OpenAlex and Crossref. Nothing comes from recall. ## When to Use - Any bibliography that an AI tool wrote, extended, reformatted, or "cleaned up" - Before submission, before a supervisor or committee sees a draft, before a rebuttal - A reviewer wrote "I could not find this reference" or "this is not what that paper says" - References were migrated between Zotero, EndNote, BibTeX, Word, or another project - Suspicious signs: a plausible title with a self-consistent year and venue, a page range that looks right, an author pairing you cannot place **Do not use for** formatting a bibliography into a style (APA, GB/T 7714, IEEE), choosing what to cite, or judging whether a paper is any good. ## The Three Layers Conflating these is the most common failure, including in tools that advertise "verified citations". | Layer | Question | Who answers it | |---|---|---| | 1. Well-formed | Does the entry parse, and is every cited key defined? | `extract_references.py --cross-check`, offline | | 2. Exists | Is there a real record with this title, author, year, venue? | `verif