runtsang/citation-verification

Citation Verification for Rebuttals

RebuttalStudio Utility — Stage 2 / Stage 4 Apply this skill whenever a Stage 2 draft or Stage 4 follow-up response introduces a new reference — especially when the reference was suggested by an LLM. A single fabricated citation in a rebuttal can undermine the entire response's credibility.

Verification principles and workflow for citations added during the rebuttal writing process.

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Why Citations in Rebuttals Are High-Risk

Rebuttal citations are uniquely dangerous compared to paper citations:

1. Short turnaround: Rebuttal period is 2–4 days. Authors write quickly under pressure.
2. LLM suggestions are plausible-sounding but often wrong: AI-generated citation suggestions have an estimated 40% error rate — wrong author, wrong year, wrong title, or entirely fabricated.
3. Reviewers check: An Area Chair or reviewer who discovers a fabricated citation in a rebuttal will immediately lose confidence in the entire response.
4. No revision opportunity: Unlike a paper, a submitted rebuttal cannot be revised after submission.

Core rule: Never add a citation to a rebuttal response unless you have personally verified it exists via search.

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When to Verify

Verify any citation that was:

• Suggested by an LLM during Stage 2 drafting
• Recalled from memory without looking it up
• Copied from a reviewer comment (reviewers can also be wrong)
• Added to counter a reviewer's "missing baseline" claim
• Introduced to support a new claim not already cited in the paper

Existing citations from the paper itself generally do not need re-verification — but do confirm the claim you are citing actually appears in that work.

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Verification Workflow

Step 1: Search

Use a reliable academic search engine:

Recommended search order:
1. Google Scholar (scholar.google.com)
2. Semantic Scholar (semanticscholar.org)
3. arXiv (arxiv.org) — for preprints
4. ACL Anthology (aclanthology.org) — for NLP/ACL papers
5. OpenReview (openreview.net) — for ICLR/ICML papers

Search query pattern:

"[Paper title keywords]" [first author last name] [approximate year]

Step 2: Confirm Existence

Verify the paper exists by confirming:

• [ ] Title matches (allow minor capitalization differences)
• [ ] At least the first author matches
• [ ] Year is within ±1 of what you recall (preprints often differ from camera-ready year)
• [ ] Venue matches what you intend to cite (workshop ≠ main conference)

Step 3: Verify the Specific Claim

When citing a specific finding, do not trust your memory of the paper's conclusion.

• Locate the specific sentence or figure that supports your claim
• If you cannot access the full text, cite more conservatively ("as suggested by [author]") or drop the citation
• Do not paraphrase a result you have not read

Step 4: Record the Verified Reference

Format for use in rebuttal prose (no BibTeX needed in most rebuttal portals):

[Author et al., Year, "Title", Venue]
e.g.: [Chen et al., 2023, "LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Models", ICLR]

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When You Cannot Verify

If after searching you cannot confirm the paper exists:

Option A — Drop the citation If the claim can stand without it, remove the reference.

Option B — Hedge the claim "Prior work on [topic] (e.g., [general area]) suggests…" without citing a specific paper.

Option C — Mark for human verification If working with an LLM and you want to flag it:

[CITATION NEEDED — verify before submission: "[paper title you were trying to cite]"]

Never submit a rebuttal with a citation you have not verified, even if it sounds plausible.

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Rebuttal-Specific Citation Patterns

Citing Your Own Prior Work

• Verify the venue, year, and paper number match what appears in your submission's reference list
• Consistency with the submitted paper matters — reviewers notice discrepancies

Citing a Reviewer-Suggested Baseline

• Reviewers sometimes suggest comparing with papers that are not directly comparable
• Verify the suggested paper actually evaluates on your task/dataset before agreeing to compare
• You may respond: "We have examined [Paper], which evaluates on [different setting], making direct comparison difficult."

Citing to Defend Against "Missing Related Work"

• Search first — the paper may genuinely exist and you missed it
• If it exists, consider acknowledging it: "Thank you for pointing out [Paper]; we will add a discussion in Related Work."
• If it does not exist (after searching), respond diplomatically: "We searched but could not locate this work; we would appreciate a link or full title."

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Quick Verification Table

| Citation Source | Risk Level | Action | |----------------|-----------|--------| | LLM-suggested reference | Very high | Always verify before including | | Recalled from memory | Medium | Verify title and year | | Copied from reviewer comment | Medium | Verify existence; reviewer may be wrong | | Already in paper's reference list | Low | Confirm the claim is in that paper | | Found via search in last 24h | Low | Cross-check author/venue |

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Adapted from Claude Scholar's citation-verification skill for the rebuttal context. Original: https://github.com/Galaxy-Dawn/claude-scholar/blob/main/skills/citation-verification/SKILL.md