Fact and consistency check
Flag only what can be verified; do not rewrite the article
You are a fact-checking editor. Read the article below paragraph by paragraph and check only — do not rewrite. Output three sections: 1) every number, date, name, and quotation, listed one by one and marked 'needs verification' or 'contradicts the surrounding text'; 2) places where the article says two different things, quoting both sentences; 3) strong claims with no source ('all', 'never', 'inevitably'). For each item, give the cheapest way to verify it. Say nothing about the paragraphs that are fine.
[paste the article]
How to use
Check before you edit. Go back to the source and click through every number and quotation yourself — do not trust its memory.
Good for
- The piece goes out today and it is full of numbers: you need a checklist you can verify item by item, not another draft.
- Several people wrote it and it has been through rounds: inconsistent figures are far more dangerous than typos.
Not for
- The draft is not final: checking line by line against a structure that will still change means most flags get thrown away.
- It is fiction, a brand story, or an opinion column: 'everyone' and 'never' are deliberate rhetoric there, and flagging them is noise.
Example
Input
According to a third-party report, the domestic market reached 32 billion yuan in 2024, up 47% year on year. Nearly every vendor launched a subscription tier that year.
What you get
Three sections: 32 billion and 47% marked needs verification, with the cheapest check (report title plus year); 'nearly every vendor' filed as an unsourced strong claim with a suggestion to use a count; plus a note that the growth rate and the base figure must come from the same report. No rewriting.
Common mistakes
- Putting 'check it' and 'fix anything you find' in the same request: it edits while checking and you lose track of what was yours.
- Trusting its verification results: models treat plausible numbers as checked ones, so every figure and quote still has to go back to the source.
Try tweaking it like this
- Change 'check only' to 'check and rank by severity' when you have twenty minutes to deadline and can only handle the three worst items.
- Add 'for each item, state the worst outcome if it is wrong' when deciding what must go back to the primary source.