ThezisHow to check that your citations support your claims
A citation can be correctly formatted and still fail to support the sentence before it. A claim audit checks the relationship between your wording and what the source actually says.
Compare the claim with the source, not the title
| Your sentence | Source says | Match? | Risk | Revision |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Students prefer predictable access. | 18 interviewees described reliable access as useful. | Partial | Turns a small sample into all students. | In this interview study, participants valued predictable access. |
| Long travel causes lower grades. | Travel time correlated with reported study disruption. | No | Turns association and self-report into causation. | Longer travel was associated with reported disruption in this sample. |
Keep the source’s population, method, timing, and uncertainty visible when they change the meaning of your sentence. Stronger verbs are not clearer if the evidence does not support them. Purdue OWL
Run the audit in a focused pass
- Highlight every externally verifiable claim in one section.
- Open the original source at the page, table, or passage that supports it.
- Write the source’s claim in your own notes without looking at your draft.
- Compare scope, certainty, and attribution word by word.
- Revise the sentence, add a limit, find a better source, or remove the claim.
This process is different from paraphrasing. Paraphrasing checks whether you have restated a passage accurately; a claim audit also checks whether that passage can support the larger point you want to make. Thezis: Paraphrase a research paper