Citation Hygiene

Citation Hygiene Skill

Business documents run on unsourced confidence: "studies show," "industry-standard," the market-size number nobody can trace, the chart with no as-of date. Each unsourced load-bearing claim is a small loan against credibility — called in the moment a skeptic asks "says who?" in front of the room. Citation hygiene is not academia: it's the practical discipline that every claim someone might challenge or act on carries its source, the link actually contains the claim (the classic drive-by cite doesn't), numbers wear their dates, and claims that can't be sourced get softened or cut before the meeting does it for you.

What This Skill Produces

• The claim audit — the doc's load-bearing claims listed, each: sourced / sourceable / soften / cut
• The fixes — sources attached (verified to contain the claim — the source-triangulation quick check), softenings drafted, the cut list
• The venue format — how citations look here: footnotes for memos, the source line for slides, links for docs
• The norm card — the team's three citation rules, postable

Required Inputs

Ask for these if not provided:

• The document — and its stakes/venue (the board deck's bar differs from the team memo's; both have one)
• Which claims are load-bearing — the ones decisions or credibility rest on; hygiene triages (sourcing every sentence is academia cosplay — sourcing none is the current problem)
• The available sources — where the numbers came from (the analyst's model? a report? memory?) — "memory" is an honest answer that routes to softening
• Internal-data provenance — for internal numbers: which system, what query, as of when — internal claims need internal citations too ("revenue dashboard, July 15" beats "our data shows")

Framework: The Hygiene Rules

1. Triage by load-bearing: the claims that carry the recommendation, the sizing, or the urgency get the audit; connective prose doesn't. The test: if challenged in the room, would the author need to defend it? Then it needs its source now, cheaply, instead of live, expensively.
2. The link must contain the claim: the drive-by cite — a link that discusses the topic but never states the number — is the most common citation fraud, usually accidental (the chain of paraphrase drifted). The verify step: open the source, find the sentence. Absent, the claim inherits the source's actual wording or loses the cite.
3. Numbers wear dates and denominators: "as of Q2 2026" on every market figure and internal metric ("40% growth" — of what, since when?); an undated number in a living deck becomes silently false on schedule. Internal numbers cite system + date ("CRM export, Jul 15") so the inevitable "that doesn't match my dashboard" resolves in seconds.
4. Unsourceable claims soften or die: the options, in order — find the source · soften to earned confidence ("we believe, based on [basis]" / "directionally," per the triangulation phrasing rules) · attribute honestly ("our estimate") · cut. What never survives: the bare assertion whose defense is hope.
5. Venue formats keep it light: slides get the small source line (source, date) per chart/claim · memos get footnotes or inline links · docs get links. The norm card is three lines: load-bearing claims carry sources · numbers carry dates · "studies show" is banned without the study — light enough to enforce, sharp enough to matter.

Output Format

Citation Audit: [document] — [N] load-bearing claims

The Audit

The Fixes Applied

[Sources attached in venue format · the softened phrasings · the cut list with the credibility logic]

The Venue Format

[The citation style for this document type, shown]

The Norm Card (post this)

[The three rules · the banned phrase list ("studies show", "industry-standard" unaccompanied)]

Quality Checks

• Load-bearing claims were triaged from connective prose
• Every attached source was opened and verified to contain the claim
• Every number carries its date (and internal numbers their system)
• Unsourceable claims were softened or cut, never left bare
• The format matches the venue and stays light

Anti-Patterns

• Do not cite everything — academia cosplay buries the load-bearing sources in noise
• Do not link topics — the link contains the claim or it's decoration
• Do not ship undated numbers — they're scheduled falsehoods
• Do not let "studies show" survive without the studies — it's the tell the whole audit exists for
• Do not defend unsourceable claims by intensity — soften, attribute, or cut; the room's skeptic is faster than you