You will be able to get answers from a document that you can check in seconds.
Next time you ask an AI assistant about a document that matters, add two instructions to your request. First, for each answer, it should give the exact words from the document that support it, in quotation marks, plus the clause or page number. Second, if the document does not answer a question, it should say "not found in the document" and not fill the gap from general knowledge.
An answer about a document is only useful if you can check it quickly. You can only check it quickly if you know where in the document to look. These two instructions tell you where to look, and they also tell you when there is nothing to find.
Hui Min is about to sign a tenancy agreement. She has it as a proper digital PDF, eighteen pages long. She asks an assistant who pays for aircon servicing and gets a clear answer: the tenant pays for regular servicing every three months, and the landlord pays for repairs. It sounds reasonable and typical, but she cannot tell whether this agreement actually says it.
AI fundamentals lesson 6.1, "Why a fluent answer can still be false", explained why a typical-sounding answer comes so easily. A plausible answer may not reflect what the specific document says. The fix is to change the request so every answer comes with its evidence: the exact words from the document in quotation marks, plus the clause or page number. With a quote and a location, checking means turning to one page instead of reading the whole document.
Hui Min asks again with the quote-and-place instruction. This time the answer points to Clause 6(c), page 7, with a quote saying the tenant must, at the tenant's own cost, engage a qualified contractor to service the air-conditioning units "once every three months". She turns to page 7 and finds the wording there. Checking takes ten seconds, compared with reading eighteen pages.
Asking for the quote does a second job. It pushes the model to base its answer on the text in front of it and away from what documents of that type usually say. Answers drawn from what such documents usually say are where confident wrong answers tend to come from.
Lesson 1.3, "Set constraints and ask for the format you need", warned that models fill gaps by default. If you ask about something the document does not cover, many assistants answer anyway from general knowledge and present it as if it came from the file. The "not found in the document" instruction lets you tell "the agreement says X" apart from "the agreement says nothing about this". In a contract, "says nothing about this" is often the more important answer.
Hui Min asks whether her agreement has a diplomatic clause, which is a clause that lets a tenant end the lease early if they are posted overseas. The answer comes back as "not found in the document". She checks the contents page and the termination section herself and confirms it is missing. She then raises it with the agent before signing. When you get a "not found" answer, do the same: check the relevant parts yourself, such as the contents page or the related section, and raise the gap with the other party before you sign.
A model can paraphrase while claiming to quote. It may tidy the wording, merge two clauses, or quietly change "may" to "shall". It can also give the wrong page. Most quotes are accurate, but the inaccurate ones are the ones that matter.
The quickest check is text search in the original PDF. Open the file, use the search shortcut, and paste in a few distinctive words from the quote. If the words come up and match, the check is done. If they do not come up at all, treat the quote as unreliable until you find the real passage yourself.
Search a short, distinctive phrase and leave out the rest of the quote. One changed word makes a long search fail even when everything else is right. Text search may also not work on a scanned document. Lesson 5.1, "What happens when you upload a file", suggested getting the digital version of a document, and this is another reason to do it. Get a digital PDF whenever you can.
Asking many questions in one message is fine for a casual read, such as a brochure. For a contract, a policy, a set of terms, or anything you will sign or rely on, ask one question at a time. A batch of ten questions gets ten shorter, shallower answers, and an error in one answer can colour the next. One question per message gives each answer the model's full attention, its own quote, and its own check from you. Lesson 3.1, "Why one giant prompt gives you a mediocre result", gave the same reason for splitting big tasks.
Hui Min has five important questions:
the notice period who pays for repairs what happens to the deposit whether she can have a guest stay over the rules for early termination
She asks them one at a time, each with the quote-and-page instruction, and checks each quote in the PDF as it comes in. Three of the five answers match exactly. One quote has slightly smoothed wording. One gives the right clause with the wrong page number. None of the differences change her decision, but she only knows that because she checked.
The method is easiest to learn on a document you have a real interest in. Find a tenancy agreement, insurance policy or set of terms that applies to you, ideally as a digital PDF, and write down five questions you would genuinely like answered about it.
Take a tenancy agreement or insurance policy and ask five questions about it, asking for the quote and page each time. Then find each quote in the original.
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