Check sources in Aquinian Studio
A quotation, attribution, edition, or source does not become reliable merely because it appeared in an answer. Check sources is how you inspect what was cited, see what Aquinian could retrieve, and record your own check. The system check and your check are shown separately. Neither layer proves the other.
The same explanations are in the in-app Help page at studio.aquinian.com/help. Opening Help does not use credits. You need to be signed in to use Check sources.
What it is
After an answer, open Check sources. You will see two independent records for each cited https link: what Aquinian retrieved and matched from the page text, and what you confirm. Opening a link is not verification.
A URL in the answer is not itself evidence. Your Confirm match or Flag discrepancy decision is kept on the record; opening the link again does not reset it.
Why have it
Aquinian is governed against fabricated quotations, citations, and attributions, and it marks what it has not inspected. That discipline still leaves two questions open: did the cited page actually contain the claim, and have you checked it yourself?
Check sources keeps those answers in view, and keeps them apart. Free wording overlap is never presented as AI verified. Your confirmation is never inferred from a click. Category checks you record yourself are never treated as source confirmations.
How to use it
Use Check sources after an answer, in Conversation or in Investigate.
- Open Check sources and retrieve the cited pages. Retrieve cited pages is free. For each link you will see whether the page was retrieved — for example Page retrieved, Not found, Unreachable, or Retrieved (reprint, not a critical edition) — and a match label.
- The free check looks for wording overlap in the retrieved excerpt. If it finds some, the label is Text overlap (preliminary — not AI verified). That label is never AI verified. If the excerpt is too thin, opposite, or mostly page chrome, you will see Insufficient evidence.
- If you want a model to read the retrieved excerpt, press Deeper AI match (Ask credits). This is the only path that can yield AI verified. It spends Ask credits on the retrieved excerpt only. Retrieve and text overlap are free and never AI verified. This is never run from a save, a link click, or opening Check sources. When it finishes, the desk shows how many credits were spent.
- Opening a cited link records it as Opened. Your decision stays Pending. Opening a link is not a reading, and it is not a confirmation that the source matches the claim. Opening a link is not User verified.
- When you have checked the source yourself, press Confirm match to record User verified, or Flag discrepancy to record Discrepancy.
Ask may have used web search while writing. This check still fetches the cited https links. Free retrieve reports preliminary text overlap, not AI verified.
Investigate does not run web search. AI retrieval here fetches the https links already cited in this packet. If the packet cites none, nothing is invented.
If an answer cites no https links to check, the panel says so. Nothing is invented. Category records below are not source confirmations.
Scripture and the Summa
In Check sources you can also Look up, or Look up all, a citation. Each lookup fetches a single article or passage and includes a link back to the source.
- Found in Corpus Thomisticum — the Latin of a cited Summa article in parts I, I-II, II-II, or III, shown with a link back to Corpus Thomisticum. Text: Corpus Thomisticum, Fundación Tomás de Aquino, used with permission. The edition line from that page is shown with the Latin.
- Found in Douay-Rheims — a cited Scripture passage.
- Found in Summa (Dominican 1920 tr.) — English translation: Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 1920 (public domain).
- Otherwise you may see Not in source, Not confirmed, or Could not check. Citations outside those Summa parts, including the Supplement, show Not in source.
Looking up a citation, or opening the Corpus page, is not User verified. Use Confirm match or Flag discrepancy after you have checked it yourself. If a lookup finds the place but you have not yet confirmed it, you may also see Found by lookup: needs your check.
Corpus lookups are spaced a few seconds apart on purpose. That is the modest rate the permission allows.
Your own checks
Record what you checked yourself. This is your own record, not a check by Aquinian.
Below the cited pages you can mark what you reviewed — for example Aquinas, Scripture, Tradition, or the Catechism. The labels are User checked, Pending, Discrepancy, and Needs check. Exports include a User attested checks section when you have recorded something.
Category records are your own checklist. They are not source confirmations, and they are not AI verified.
What this is not
- Aquinian is an intellectual formation tool. It is not an ecclesial authority, priest, confessor, or substitute for competent theological, spiritual, or pastoral counsel.
- A system label, including AI verified, does not replace your own reading of the source.
- User verified means you confirmed the match. It is not a check by Aquinian.
BEGIN
Put a real question on the desk.
Ask naturally. Distinguish carefully. Continue in form.
Use Aquinian Studio for theology, philosophy, doctrine, cultural analysis, language, teaching, and disciplined intellectual formation.
150 free credits, no card.
50+ modern languages · Latin · Ancient Greek · Biblical Hebrew · Biblical Aramaic