A cautionary article from TechPinas highlights a growing problem in academia: students using generative AI to create citations, only to find that the references are fabricated and untraceable. The article warns that large language models are not connected to live academic databases and instead predict plausible-sounding text, leading to citations that do not exist.
To maintain credibility and academic integrity, the article recommends a smarter workflow: use AI for brainstorming and outlining, but turn to trusted academic resources, citation managers, and careful source verification for the actual references. Every citation should come from verified academic databases rather than chatbot-generated bibliographies.
Instead of asking AI to generate references, students should craft prompts focused on keywords, research strategies, conceptual explanations, and writing improvements. The article emphasizes that source collection should remain the domain of legitimate scholarly databases to avoid the frustration of submitting a paper with a flawed bibliography.