Ask Perplexity a work question and inspect the citations
The answer says 80%, and there's a little citation number right beside it. Follow the link before you repeat the number: a citation can be attached to a claim its page never makes.
What you'll make
a short, checked answer to one work question, with a link beside each claim and any unsupported figure removed.
What you'll need
Perplexity in your work account, a question that can be answered from public sources, and about ten minutes. Keep private business details out of the search. For a question about your own documents, see check whether Perplexity is using your files or the web.
Example result.
Claim: A caption helps readers identify what a table is about.
Source: W3C WAI, Tables tutorial: Caption & Summary
Support: Stated. The page gives no reading-time figure.
Answer: Add a caption so readers know what the table shows. No measured time saving is claimed.1. Ask a question with a checkable answer
Use Perplexity’s ordinary search for a single question; Research mode, chosen from the mode selector, is for longer reports (see choose the Perplexity job). Name the source you’d trust most: the vendor for a product feature, the paper for a finding, the standards body for guidance.
Find primary-source guidance on [question], using [preferred source].
Give a short answer with direct links, and say which passage supports
each important claim. Separate recommendations from requirements and
note any limits. Do not add a figure or benefit unless the source
states it for this context.[question] is your one question; [preferred source] is the organisation or site you’d trust, such as “w3.org” or “the vendor’s own documentation”.
Why this works: naming the source steers the search, and banning unsupported figures removes the most quotable kind of error.
What you should see: a short answer with numbered citations beside its claims.
2. Open the citation behind the claim that matters
Pick the claim you’d repeat, usually the one with a number in it, and open its citation. Read the page itself: its title, publisher, date and the relevant section. Does it say this exact thing, in this context?
If the link leads to a summary, a search page or something you can’t open, find the original on the publisher’s own site. If you still can’t, mark the claim unresolved.
Why this works: the citation shows where the answer came from, not whether the page supports it. Only reading the page tells you that.
What you should see: each important claim marked supported, weaker than stated, or not found on the page.
3. Write the checked answer as a note
Write the answer in your own words, one row per claim that matters:
Claim:
Source (title, publisher, date or version):
Support (stated / weaker / not found):
Qualification:
Answer in my own words:If the source has no figure, leave the figure out. An answer can be useful without a percentage.
Why this works: a claim-by-claim note keeps each number next to its evidence. A bibliography at the end doesn’t.
What you should see: a note like the example result.
Check the result
- Every number in your answer appears on the cited page, for the same context.
- Recommendations aren’t presented as requirements.
- Each citation is the original source, not a page summarising it.
- Anything you couldn’t check is marked unresolved.
The usual failure: a real citation next to a claim the page doesn’t make. The page is relevant, often authoritative, and has no such figure. Spot it by searching the cited page (Ctrl+F or Cmd+F) for the number.
The page [link] does not support this claim: [claim]. Remove it, or
find a primary source that states the same figure for the same context.
Keep the supported point [point] and the source's qualifications. Do
not attach an unrelated citation to the number.[link] is the cited page; [claim] is the unsupported sentence; [point] is what the page does support.
Worked example: an 80% that isn’t there
Fictional example. An answer to “Do table captions help readers?” said: “Table captions reduce reading time by 80%”, citing the W3C tutorial on captions and summaries.
- The failure. The real W3C tutorial explains that a caption identifies a table and a summary can explain a complex one. Searching it for “80” finds nothing. It also says captions and summaries aren’t required in every case.
- The repair. The repair prompt, with the W3C link and the 80% sentence, gave: “A caption helps readers identify what a table is about; a summary can help explain a complex table’s organisation. The tutorial doesn’t measure reading time.” That’s the example result.
- The same check on a vendor claim. A second question about an onboarding tool returned “cuts onboarding time by 40%”, cited to the vendor’s feature page. The page describes the features and has no figure. The checked note said: “Vendor describes automated onboarding checklists. No time saving is stated on the cited page.”
Task kit for this job: Download (ZIP) · Reusable instructions
Go deeper
Check the source behind the source
When a citation is a news article or blog quoting a study, open the study. Secondary pages round numbers, drop conditions and sometimes cite each other in a circle. If the original is behind a paywall or doesn’t exist, the claim stays unresolved however many pages repeat it.
Know when to switch to Research
A single factual question suits ordinary search. When you need several sources weighed against each other, Research produces a longer report, but each claim in it still needs the same check. More citations mean more to open, not more certainty. The beginner’s guide to Perplexity covers the modes.