The symptom is specific: aI cites sources that do not exist. Start with the affected item and identify the decision or input that could produce this behavior.
Find the likely cause
Generated reference details were accepted without verification.
Treat this as an explanation to verify against the actual work. Look at the input, the relevant decision, and the final result together. If the evidence does not support this diagnosis, investigate the mismatch before applying a convenient but unrelated fix.
Make the targeted correction
Open each reference and confirm its title, author, and relevant passage.
Fact checking requires tracing important claims to evidence rather than asking the same model to reassure itself.
Check that the repair worked
Remove citations that cannot be located or do not support the claim.
Repeat the check on the final version that the reader or customer will encounter. An approved draft, a preview, and a published result can differ; the acceptance decision should concern the version people actually use.
Prevent the next related failure
A separate issue to watch for is this: a real source is cited for a claim it never makes. Match each important assertion to the actual supporting passage.
Monitor the useful outcome
Track unsupported claims found before publication and recurring categories of factual error.
Keep a short record of the original symptom, the evidence behind the diagnosis, and the result of the acceptance check. That record makes the solution reusable when the same condition appears again, without assuming that every superficially similar problem has the same cause.