# Citation Obsolescence and Supersession Audit

Amo ID: AMO-P-000320
Version: 1.0.0
Public URL: https://amo.ng/prompts/citation-obsolescence-supersession-audit

Summary: Determine whether cited evidence remains current and authoritative after corrections, retractions, updates, superseding guidance, or changed decision conditions.

Use this for: Use this to decide which citations can still support a consequential claim and which require correction, qualification, replacement, or withdrawal.

Category: Research
Tool: Perplexity
Difficulty: Expert
Prompt type: source review

## Best Use Cases

1. Policy Citation Currency Audit
2. Scientific Claim Source Refresh
3. Guideline Supersession Review
4. Evidence-Based Content Revalidation
5. Citation Retraction and Correction Check

## Prompt Body

Audit whether a bounded set of citations remains current and authoritative enough to support specified claims or decisions. Trace corrections, retractions, updates, superseding guidance, changed methods, and changed operating context.

Provide:
- Exact claims, audience, publication or decision use, required evidence strength, and consequence of stale support: [Claims and intended decision use]
- Citations, identifiers, links, source extracts, quoted claims, access dates, and provenance already used: [Current citation set and source extracts]
- Publisher notices, errata, retractions, expressions of concern, version history, review updates, and replacement sources: [Publication correction and update evidence]
- Current guidelines, standards, policy, authoritative reviews, later evidence, population/context changes, and applicability constraints: [Current authority and context evidence]
- As-of date, source-access limits, researcher/editor, domain reviewer, policy/legal reviewer, and publication owner: [Review date constraints and accountable owners]

Use authoritative and primary sources where accessible. Do not invent a retraction, correction, update, consensus, publication date, or source conclusion. Clearly distinguish supplied evidence from newly located sources if browsing is available. When a source cannot be accessed, mark it Unverified rather than inferring current status from a search snippet. Do not equate age alone with obsolescence.

Audit:

1. Map claims to citations.
   Break consequential statements into bounded claims and identify every source used for each. Record whether the citation directly supports the claim, provides background, or is cited through an intermediary.

2. Verify source identity and status.
   Confirm identifier, title, publisher, version, date, correction/retraction status, and canonical record. Identify duplicate versions, preprint-to-publication transitions, and secondary citations.

3. Search for supersession evidence.
   Review later official guidance, standards, systematic reviews, replications, corrections, retractions, updated datasets, changed law/policy supplied or discovered. Do not assume later publication automatically supersedes stronger earlier evidence.

4. Assess continued applicability.
   Check population, jurisdiction, technology, measurement, intervention, baseline risk, data period, and operating conditions. Explain which changed conditions weaken transfer to the current claim.

5. Classify citation status.
   Use Current and authoritative, Current with limitations, Superseded for this use, Corrected claim required, Retracted/withdrawn, Context no longer applicable, Conflicting current evidence, or Unable to determine.

6. Determine claim impact.
   For each affected claim choose Retain, Qualify, Narrow, Replace citation, Add contradictory evidence, Correct, or Withdraw. Avoid rewriting beyond the evidence.

7. Define ongoing revalidation.
   Specify monitoring sources, event triggers, time-based review where justified, owner, and evidence needed before a withdrawn claim can return.

Use Perplexity to locate public source candidates and supersession signals, but verify each claim against the supplied or directly accessible authoritative record and do not claim a source was inspected when it was not. Keep sensitive or licensed material within its authorized access boundary. The researcher owns source tracing, while the policy, legal, clinical, or publication owner approves consequential wording or use. Require acceptance evidence for each citation: expected observation, actual observation, authoritative locator, supersession check, unresolved conflict, and safe rollback to qualified wording. Proposed replacements are not published or approved changes.

Reconcile every citation decision against its acceptance evidence, expected observation, actual observation, and authoritative source before marking the audit complete.

Required deliverable:

# Citation Obsolescence and Supersession Audit

## Claim-to-Citation Map
| Claim | Citation/identifier | Support type | Direct/indirect | Evidence supplied | Importance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|

## Source Status Ledger
| Source | Canonical version | Correction/retraction/update | Superseding evidence | Applicability change | Status | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|

## Claim Impact Decisions
| Claim | Current support status | Required action | Replacement/qualification evidence | Reviewer | Publication consequence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|

## Unresolved and Conflicting Evidence
| Issue | Missing access/evidence | Why it matters | Safe interim wording/action | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|---|

## Revalidation Plan
| Trigger/source | Claims affected | Action | Owner | Next review condition |
|---|---|---|---|---|

Completion requires a status for every material citation, explicit handling of inaccessible or conflicting evidence, and publication decisions no broader than current source authority supports.

## Variables to Replace

1. Claims and intended decision use
2. Current citation set and source extracts
3. Publication correction and update evidence
4. Current authority and context evidence
5. Review date constraints and accountable owners

## How to Use

Use Perplexity with browsing enabled where permitted. Provide the exact claims, citation identifiers, source extracts, required as-of date, and decision context. Ask for direct links to canonical records and keep inaccessible sources marked unresolved. Have a domain researcher verify material source status and the editor or policy owner approve claim changes.

## Example Use Case

A public health brief cites an older observational study and a guideline that has since been replaced. The audit keeps the study as limited background, replaces the operative recommendation with current guidance, and identifies one inaccessible citation that cannot support publication.

## Tags

1. perplexity
2. citations
3. source-review
4. research-integrity
5. evidence-freshness
6. retraction
7. evidence-traceability
8. verification

## Dates

Published: 2026-08-25
Updated: 2026-08-25