Research prompts
Research prompt

Find primary sources for a secondhand claim

You read a claim somewhere with no link. You want the original to actually evaluate it.

Works best in: Claude

Help me trace this claim back to its primary source.

The claim:
{{quote / statistic / "studies show..."}}

Where I read it:
{{the article / tweet / book that mentioned it}}

Output:
1. **The probable original source** — paper, dataset, study, document, or person
2. **How to verify** — where can I find the actual primary source online?
3. **Common mistranslations** — has this claim been distorted in retelling? (Common with statistics that get rounded, generalized, or stripped of caveats.)
4. **The actual claim** in its original form — what did the source really say?
5. **Why the secondhand version differs** (if it does) — abbreviated for clarity? misquoted? cherry-picked?

If you can't trace it to a specific source, tell me. "I couldn't find the original" is a useful answer.
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