Checking a draft the smart way

Why it invents

• It continues text, it does not look things up. A question about an instruction is usually followed by an instruction number, so it produces one, real or not.
• Its knowledge stops at a date, and web search is a periodic index, not the live internet.
• Numbers are predicted, not computed. Days between dates, totals, per-diem: it predicts the digits that usually follow.

Make the model do the finding

• References beside every claim. Ask for the page or paragraph after each item; an item with none is the one to check.
• A fresh chat as reviewer. Give it the draft and the source: “list every claim the source does not support.”
• Ask what it assumed. One line at the end of the prompt turns its guesses into a short list.
• Match the depth to the risk. A rewording: one read. A brief: the source open. A number you will act on: recompute it.

The tells

1. A reference, date or name you did not supply. “Where in the attachment is that?” If it cannot point to it, it invented it.
2. A citation you cannot open. Open it. A citation is a pointer, not proof.
3. A number with no working. Ask for the inputs and recompute.
4. An answer that is suspiciously complete. “What is missing from the source?”