Q. How do I check the validity of suspected fake references?

ChatGPT sometimes provides fake academic references(!) To make sure you or your students are not citing a fake work, use these steps:

Process for verifying the existence of a journal and or journal article:

• Check Library Search separately for the journal name and the article title
• Check e-journals for the journal title. If the journal is found – do the year and volume/ issue numbers match? Double check by searching the article title within the journal
• Check the Ulrichsweb database for the journal title (AUT Library > Databases > Find by Title > Ulrichsweb: Global Serials Directory). If it exists, look in the indexing / abstracting field to see which databases may contain this article. Select a database and run a search for the article title.
• Check AUT Google Scholar for the article title (“put article title into quotation marks”)
• Last resort: Search the open internet for the article title (“put article title into quotation marks”).

More on ChatGPT and fake references: https://teche.mq.edu.au/2023/02/why-does-chatgpt-generate-fake-references/