Evidence Comparison Prompt: Claims vs. Sources

Introduction

This is an original TokRepo prompt for general readers doing light research. It is an organizational aid, not a fact-checking service and not a substitute for reading your sources. Its value is that it keeps claims tied to the exact excerpts you supply, instead of letting a chat model fill gaps from memory.

The prompt asks for a claim table, a short comparison and three follow-up questions. It is written for people who already have a few excerpts and want to see what those excerpts do and do not support.

Prerequisites

• No terminal, account or API setup is required.
• An ordinary AI chat that accepts pasted text.
• Two or more source excerpts you are allowed to paste, plus a clear question.
• Optionally, titles, URLs and dates for each excerpt.

What You Need to Provide

Missing question: the prompt should ask you for it and stop. Missing excerpts: same. If you paste only one excerpt, expect weak or refused comparison rather than a table.

Permissions and Limits

You are asking a chat model to organize text you supply. You are not authorizing it to browse, to contact anyone, to post conclusions or to change records. The prompt explicitly says not to do those things, but you remain responsible for what you send and how you use the reply.

Limitations to keep in mind:

• It works only from your excerpts. Absence of evidence in your excerpts is not evidence of absence.
• It cannot verify whether an excerpt itself is accurate.
• Excerpts that share one original announcement or dataset are not independent.
• The output is not legal, medical or investment advice.
• A confident-looking table is still a draft; confirm significant conclusions against the original material.

Privacy

Pasting text into a chat may store or transmit it. Do not paste confidential, personal or licensed material unless you are allowed to. Redact names, contact details and anything you cannot share.

Documented setup instructions: source reviewed; runtime not tested.

How to Check the Output

1. Does every row point to an excerpt you actually pasted?
2. Is the supporting quote short and does it appear in that excerpt?
3. Are author assertions separated from described evidence?
4. Are dates and definitions preserved rather than normalized?
5. Does it flag shared-origin sources?
6. Are the three follow-up questions actually questions, not conclusions?
7. Is any hypothesis labelled as an inference from your text?

FAQ

What if the model adds facts from its own memory?

Send the correction: use only the pasted excerpts, and mark anything else as unsupported. The prompt already forbids browsing and remembered facts, but models can drift; re-anchor with a short reminder and ask it to strike unsupported rows.

Can I treat a repeated claim as confirmed?

The prompt instructs that repetition across excerpts is not automatically independent confirmation. Check whether the excerpts rely on the same original announcement or dataset before treating agreement as stronger evidence.

What are the three follow-up questions for?

They point at the most important gaps and suggest what kind of primary evidence would help. They are research suggestions, not findings, and they are not a to-do list of actions to take.

What if my excerpts disagree?

The comparison section should show points of agreement, points of disagreement and missing information. If the excerpts use different measures or populations, expect the prompt to explain why the apparent comparison may be invalid rather than pick a winner.

Complete reusable prompt

Act as an evidence organizer for a non-specialist reader. I will paste two or more source excerpts, with their titles, URLs and dates if available, and a specific question. Use only those excerpts. Do not browse, fabricate a citation or use remembered facts as evidence. If the question or excerpts are missing, ask for them and stop.

Build a claim table with these columns: claim, which excerpt supports it, exact short supporting quote, source anchor, what the evidence actually establishes, and what remains unknown. Separate an author's assertion from evidence described in the excerpt. A repeated claim across several excerpts is not automatically independent confirmation. Note when sources appear to rely on the same original announcement or dataset.

Produce a short comparison of points of agreement, points of disagreement and missing information. Preserve dates and definitions. If the excerpts use different measures or populations, explain why the apparent comparison may be invalid. Do not rank sources by prestige alone, infer causation from correlation or turn absent evidence into evidence of absence.

End with three focused follow-up questions that would resolve the most important gaps and say what kind of primary evidence would help. These are research suggestions, not findings. Quote only small portions of the excerpts; summarize the rest in original language. Clearly label any hypothesis as an inference from the supplied text.

This is an organizational aid, not legal, medical or investment advice. Do not contact people, post conclusions or change any records. I must confirm significant conclusions against the original material.

Question and excerpts: paste them here with whatever source labels are actually known.

References and reuse

• ChatGPT release notes · Reviewed 2026-10-04

Original TokRepo prompt · CC BY 4.0. Reference documents retain their own rights.