Why fabricating references is a big deal – Lessons from the real world
Thursday, 29 May 2025
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AI is powerful, but when it comes to referencing, accuracy is your responsibility.
Imagine this: You subscribe to a news feed from a major newspaper and they finally release their recommended summer book list. You are excited to find your next summer holiday read, but as you look up the recommendations, you find that some of the books don’t even exist! How annoying is that? Not to mention, the credibility of the newspaper on anything they publish now is kind of tarnished.
This is what happened to The Chicago Times.
So? Why should you care?
Generative AI making up book titles and quotes is very similar to generative AI making up academic references that you might use in assessment and research submissions. You should know that this happens, a lot.
At ECU, accurate referencing and acknowledgement of correct sources is very important. Making up sources is a serious form of academic misconduct called ‘fabrication’.
When you use fake references, it is being dishonest about the research you did to write your assessment, and it misleads people who will read your submission. If your work has no basis because the references are fake, we cannot award any marks for that assignment.
What can you do about it?
While you can use Generative AI according to the university guidelines, if you blindly copy whatever generative AI produces, you are setting yourself up for disaster. Don’t use Generative AI to create your content or copy the output provided, find and check your own reference sources, cite them properly for the content you have written and then check it all again.
See our online guidelines or attend our AI workshops to find out more.
Remember YOU are responsible for making sure your submitted work is authentic, honest and credible, not Generative AI.