When References are Fabricated: A Quiet Warning from the Reference List
If you have to work hard to find it, it probably doesn’t exist
Recently, while editing a manuscript, I did something I’ve always done; I looked through the reference list to get a sense of how the authors had grounded their work. One citation caught my eye. The title looked interesting and relevant, so I decided to look it up.
To my surprise, the article didn’t exist.
At first, I thought it was just an error. But as I looked closer, it became clear that the reference was entirely fabricated. The DOI led nowhere. The title didn’t show up in any database. And the journal it was supposedly published in had never carried such a paper. I’ve seen other examples too, where references are pieced together using real author names, a real journal, and a believable title, but they don’t belong to the same paper. Together they form something that looks like a proper citation but isn’t.
This reminded me how important referencing has always been in my academic journey, and why I’ve taken it seriously since my student days.
Lessons That Stayed with Me
As an undergraduate nursing student, I developed the habit of paying close attention to references, thanks to our English teacher at Aga Khan University. She would bring in books, journal articles, and magazines and ask us to write proper references for them in APA style. Through repetition and practice, I learned the conventions and the reasoning behind them.
Even now, more than twenty years later, I can still write references from memory using APA, Harvard, or another style. I know how to place the commas, where italics are needed, and how to include a DOI. All thanks to that teacher whose name I still remember with great fondness. I wish I could share it here.
Another memory from that time also stands out. During our Leadership module, a classmate received feedback from a tutor that read, “Please bring this reference with you next time, or don’t make them up.” It seemed blunt at the time, but it had a lasting impact. We were young, we laughed and made a sort of meme of it but were also intimidated. The incident taught us something important i-e our tutors actually check the references. We couldn’t just write anything and assume no one would notice. More importantly, it showed us that academic integrity wasn’t a formality, it was a shared expectation. This is how I started paying attention to references as an academic
AI and Citation Hallucinations
Until recently, fabricated references were uncommon and usually due to honest mistakes. But with the rise of AI tools in academic writing, a new issue has emerged: citation hallucinations.
Some AI tools generate text and references that look convincing but don’t exist. Ask for recent studies on a topic and you might receive a list of articles complete with author names, journal titles, and DOIs. They appear legitimate, but when you try to find them, nothing comes up.
This doesn’t mean we should reject AI entirely. Used carefully, AI can help with structure, editing, or even brainstorming. But it must be used with responsibility. It cannot replace good scholarship.
What We Can Do
As an editor, I usually start checking references when something about a manuscript doesn’t feel quite right. Maybe the writing is too generic or the ideas feel disconnected. That’s when I start looking more closely, and sometimes, what I find is worrying.
But this is not just a problem for editors. Everyone involved in academic publishing and teaching has a role to play.
Authors must take responsibility for the accuracy of their citations. If you use AI to support your writing, always check every reference yourself.
Reviewers and editors should be alert to red flags in citations. Even spot-checking a few references can reveal serious issues.
Supervisors and educators must teach referencing not just as a formatting task but as a core part of ethical academic practice.
Journals and publishers could adopt simple tools that flag invalid DOIs or untraceable citations.
Thinking back to my early student days, I realise how those small lessons built a foundation that still guides me. Referencing taught me to respect the work of others, to be accurate in my own, and to value honesty over appearance.
That’s why this issue matters so much. Fabricated references are not just a technical problem. They break trust. They mislead readers. And if we start accepting them, even by accident, we risk weakening the integrity of our entire academic system.
Referencing may seem like a small detail, but it reflects how seriously we take our work. Whether we are students, authors, reviewers, or editors, we need to be mindful. Accuracy and integrity should never be optional.
Let’s remain curious. Let’s pay attention. And let’s teach the next generation that care and honesty belong not just in our conclusions, but in our reference lists too.