Evidence Explained and Chat GPT (2 of 2)

Hello Group,

I used ChatGPT to create a template based on the "digital image from an archive" citation style, as outlined in Evidence Explained.

Here is the attached document.

It told me“This follows a'digital image from an archive' citation style that is detailed in Chapter 4 of Evidence Explained under the 'Archival Record, Certified Digital Image' section." Here is the pdf I hope that it follows the Evidence Explained standards?If not please tell me what's missing please.

Submitted byEEon Sun, 04/20/2025 - 08:45

rp2025

I have to begin my answer with a question of my own.  As you note, ChatGPT gave you a footnote at the end of your part 2, stating:

1 This follows a "digital image from an archive" citation style that is detailed in Chapter 4 of Evidence Explained under the "Archival Record, Certified Digital Image" section.

Have you identified the section of EE4 to which ChatGPT refers?  

Neither Chapter 4 nor any chapter of any edition carries the phrase "digital image from an archive" or a section "Archival Record, Certified Digital Image," both of which ChatGPT put into quotation marks as though it were quoting exactly.

That's the first problem.

Elizabeth

Hello,


Thank you for pointing that out. I suspected the citation reference might not be accurate my main concern was whether the citation itself follows an acceptable format. Could you help confirm if it aligns with the standards outlined in Evidence Explained?

 

I figured it must have made an error and seemed to pull that reference out of nowhere.

rp2025, the best way for you to learn the difference is for you to compare those AI-generated citations against EE. For me to do so, point by point, flagging each issue and discussing why "this" or "that" doesn't work, would be a tutorial much too long for this forum.

The best I can do as a critique is this ...

• The first two chapters of Evidence Explained lay down the principles of citation and the principles of evidence analysis that influence what we cite for each type of record. The third chapter is a tutorial on how to build a citation--ending with 14 universal templates that will cover every type of citation you need for any kind of record in any corner of the world.  Each of the twelve chapters thereafter cover specific record types and their special quirks.

• You asked ChatGPT about "archive" records so it jumped to "Chapter 4: Archives and Artifacts," ignoring the basics in Chapters 1-3, and thereby created issues.

Many human users of ChatGPT do the same: Hoping to short-cut the learning process, they ignore the three fundamentals chapters and try to jump right to a specific model for whatever record they just found. That approach doesn't work for them either. If we don't understand what we're using and what we're doing and why certain things are handled a certain way, we won't understand the examples provided.

Best wishes, Elizabeth