LiftMyGrade Now Checks Every Reference in Every Thesis It Edits, as Fake AI Citations Rise to 1 in 277 Papers
10-30-2026 09:33 AM CET | Science & Education
Press release from: Liftmygrade LLP
Learn how LiftMyGrade detects fake AI citations and verifies thesis references before submission.
Kolkata, West Bengal, India - 30th October, 2026 - In 2023, about 1 in 2,828 medical research papers cited a source that was never written. In early 2026, that number was 1 in 277. Most of these authors did not mean to cheat. They asked an AI tool for references, and it gave them ones that look real but are not. Now LiftMyGrade is putting reference checking at the centre of its thesis and dissertation editing, so one fake citation does not decide the fate of years of work.
What the numbers show
A recent audit published as a correspondence in The Lancet looked at about 2.5 million biomedical papers. The team checked around 97 million references. They found 4,046 fabricated references spread across 2,810 papers.
The rate has climbed fast: about 1 in 2,828 papers in 2023, about 1 in 458 in 2025, and about 1 in 277 in early 2026. More than 98% of the flagged papers had no correction, warning or retrac...