Inline citations, and every source listed.
Every article is written from sources that were searched, fetched and read at the time of writing. The body carries real inline citations where the claims are. The full source list stays with the article, so you can see what it was written from rather than take the word of a green tick.
What follows includes the limit, which most of this category leaves out: there is not a link on every claim, and here is what there is instead.
Two different things get called citations. You get both.
One is the link in the sentence. The other is the record of everything the article was written from. A tool that gives you the first without the second is showing its best sources and keeping the rest to itself.
Links where the claim is
Real inline citations in the prose, placed where a reader meets the statement rather than gathered at the foot of the page.
A readable number of them
Enough to show the work, not so many that the paragraph stops being readable. A cap that closed a real defect: one draft came back with eight links and one outlet cited four times.
Written from what was actually read
Sources are searched and fetched at the time of writing. The article is written from those pages, so a link points at something the desks genuinely used.
Every source, listed
The full set the article was written from, kept with the article - including the ones whose claims did not need a link in the body.
The checks, and what failed them
What was checked against those sources, and anything that could not be put right, named on the article with the repair it needs.
A credit line, or none
Where one outlet originated the story, the article says so. Where several covered it, the line is withheld rather than guessed at.
There is not a link on every claim.
Inline links are a density budget, not a count of sources. A 700-word article written from six sources carries about two links in its body. Every one of those six is still listed with the article.
That cap exists because the alternative was worse. Without it a draft came back with eight links in under a thousand words and one outlet cited four times, which reads as padding rather than sourcing. The budget keeps the prose readable and puts the completeness in the source list, where it belongs.
So if you need a footnote against every sentence for an academic submission, this is not that, and no citation style picker is coming. It is built for publishing, where the inline link is the convention.
A citation is only worth the source behind it.
Sources are searched, fetched and judged before the writing starts, and outlets you rule out are never fetched or cited. You can run that step on its own and read what came back, before you spend an article on it.
Questions
Does every claim get an inline citation?
No, and we will not say otherwise. Inline links are a density budget rather than one link per sentence: a 700-word article written from six sources carries about two links in its body, not six. Every source it used is still listed with the article, so nothing is lost - it is recorded in the source list rather than linked in the prose.
What is the difference between the inline citations and the source list?
The inline citations are the links placed in the body of the article, where a reader meets the claim. The source list is the complete set of sources the article was written from, kept with the article. The body carries a readable number of links; the list carries all of it.
Where do the sources come from?
They are searched, fetched and judged at the time of writing, not recalled from a model's memory. The same sourcing runs whether an article is requested by hand or written by the newsroom on a schedule, and you can run it on its own first with Find sources, before you spend an article.
Can I turn citations off for part of an article?
Yes, per section. It changes presentation and never sourcing: the sources for that section are still searched, fetched and checked, and the article's source list and its attribution line are untouched. The links that would have gone to a muted section are dealt to the sections that still want them, so the article does not lose links by muting one part of itself.
Do you support APA, MLA or Chicago citation styles?
No, and there is no plan to. Those styles belong to academic writing, where a bibliography is the convention. This is built for publishing, where the seamless inline link is the convention. A style picker would fight that rather than ride it.
What happens when something cannot be checked?
It is named on the article rather than quietly passed. Each claim is checked against the sources the article itself used, and anything that could not be put right arrives stated on the article with what it would take to fix, instead of hidden behind a green tick.
Who gets credited when one outlet broke the story?
An article ends on a credit line - "Originally reported by the outlet" - only when the sources it was written from name one outlet. Where two or more independent outlets covered the same story, no single one of them originated it, so the line is withheld rather than guessed at. It is never invented where the writer wrote none.