cited-source-mirror-verificationlisted

# Verify Blocked Primary Sources Against an Open Mirror A number you cite carries the authority of its primary, but it usually reaches you through a chain — **LLM-generated report → WebSearch summary → secondary blog → primary paper** — and each hop can drop or distort the load-bearing detail. The primary is also frequently access-blocked (SSRN and many publishers return HTTP 403 to bots; paywalled PDFs). Citing from the digest ships the secondary's framing, not the source's. This skill is the discipline that closes that gap before a citation becomes durable. ## Why this matters (the failure it prevents) Concrete case (2026-06): a research digest cited *"a significant negative association (OR = 0.546)"* and a WebSearch summary presented it as a finding — "schema markup reduces AI citation." The primary abstract, reached only through an open mirror (aiXiv), flagged that same number explicitly as a **methodological artifact** that the controlled analysis then corrected for. The real finding was the opposite-shaped *"presence isn't the lever; richness is."* Citing the secondary framing would have shipped a misleading claim into a DOI-registered repository whose own stated discipline is citation fidelity — a self-inflicted ghost citation. The lesson is not "digests are bad." It is that **a summary preserves the number while losing its epistemic status** (finding vs artifact vs baseline vs limitation), and the status is exactly what makes the citation true or false. ## How to