Does Ritsu make things up? How page citations work

Does Ritsu make things up? Sometimes, yes: Ritsu runs on large language models, and a language model can state with confidence something your file does not say. What Ritsu gives you is a fast way to catch it. Every question and explanation shows the page of your file it came from, and in reading mode any reference Ritsu cannot ground in your file is stripped. When an answer and your page disagree, trust the page.

A page citation is the page marker, such as p.10, that ties a question, an explanation or a key claim to the page of your file it came from. The answers below cover what grounds an answer, where the citation shows, what to do when an answer and your page disagree, and what a citation cannot tell you.

Jump to: Can Ritsu be wrong? · How page citations work · When an answer and your page disagree · Getting answers you can check · Your mistakes and your files

Can Ritsu be wrong?

Q: Does Ritsu make things up?

Yes, sometimes. Ritsu runs on large language models, and those models sometimes hallucinate: they produce a confident-sounding answer that your file does not support, in the same tone as everything they get right. Ritsu cannot switch that off. What it can do is point each answer at a page, so you can hold the claim up against your own book instead of taking the tutor's word for it. Why answers go wrong, and how to fix them

Q: How do I know it won't teach me something wrong before my exam?

Check the page. Every question and explanation shows the page of your file it came from, so if something looks off, you can see exactly where it came from instead of guessing. Before an exam, open the page behind anything you plan to rely on, and give numbers and worked steps a second look: those are the answers most likely to go wrong. See it on a textbook chapter

Q: Why would Ritsu get something wrong when it has my file?

Usually one of four things: part of the file was not read cleanly, or the model leaned on its general knowledge instead of your page. A very long source can also leave the passage out, or the model simply errs, especially in arithmetic, dates and statistics, and multi-step working. Each cause has its own fix, from a cleaner copy of the file to a smaller upload, and the troubleshooting guide walks through them one by one. Why this happens

Q: Where do Ritsu's answers come from?

From your file first. When you add a source, Ritsu reads the whole of it and builds an ordered path of small units, each one a Point of Knowledge (PoK) traced to the page it came from, then writes each lesson from your material. The model behind it also carries general knowledge, and a sentence that rests on that knowledge alone has no page of yours behind it. How a source becomes a learning path

How page citations work

In the capture below, a lesson paragraph ends on the chip p.10. One click opened the file beside the lesson at page 10, and the passage printed there is the one the lesson paraphrased.

We opened the page citation in each of two screen recordings from September 29 and 30, 2026, one in a study guide and one in a chapter on language models, by opening each chip and reading the page beside the claim. Both pointed to the page whose text the lesson had paraphrased: p.10 printed the same seven sentences, and p.1 printed the line about Shannon's experiments in the 1950s that the lesson restated. Two citations show how the check works; they are not an accuracy rate.

Q: Where does the page citation show?

Next to what it supports. When you read a PoK's lesson (the text view Ritsu calls reading mode), a key claim or passage ends with a small page chip, such as p.10. Questions and explanations carry their page too, and every unit on your study plan is traced to the page it came from. A learning path from any source

Q: What happens when I click a page citation?

Your file opens in a panel beside the lesson and turns to the cited page, so the claim and the passage it came from sit side by side. Read the passage, compare it with what the lesson says, then carry on, or ask about the difference while both are still on screen. The lesson stays where it was, so nothing you were reading is lost. Master a textbook chapter

Q: Does every sentence have a page citation?

No. Ritsu ties every key claim to the exact spot in your source, and one chip can cover a whole passage: a single p.10 can close a paragraph of several sentences that page 10 prints together. In reading mode, any reference Ritsu cannot ground in your file is stripped. If you cannot find a statement on the page its chip points to, treat it as unchecked. How a lesson is grounded in your file

Q: Does a page citation prove the answer is right?

No. A citation shows where Ritsu took a claim from; it does not prove Ritsu read that page correctly. The model can still misread a table or slip on a calculation while pointing at the right page. What the citation changes is the cost of checking: the page that settles the question is one click away, so your source, not the tutor, has the last word. When an answer is wrong

When an answer and your page disagree

Q: What should I do if Ritsu's answer and my page disagree?

Trust your page. If an answer contradicts your textbook, paper or video, the source is right. Open the cited page and read the passage, then ask again about that exact passage, for example with /explain and the term as it is printed. If the same error keeps coming back on a scanned page, upload a cleaner copy of that chapter. Steps for a mismatched answer

Q: Which answers should I double-check?

Numbers and multi-step work, every time. Calculations, dates, statistics and long chains of reasoning are the answers most worth checking against your source, while a definition taken from a clearly printed passage is usually right. Scale the check to how much you will lean on an answer: a formula headed for your exam notes deserves a look at its page, a passing example usually does not. When to trust an answer

Getting answers you can check

Q: Do scanned pages make answers less reliable?

Yes, they can. Ritsu reads scanned pages with OCR, and scanned pages depend on how clean the scan is. A faint or skewed page can lose words or scramble a table, and the tutor then works from that imperfect copy. If answers about one page keep coming out wrong, upload a cleaner scan or a text PDF of the same chapter; reprocessing the same file helps only if Ritsu's OCR has been updated since you uploaded it. Reprocess a source

Q: Is it better to upload one chapter than a whole textbook?

Yes, usually. A very long source can exceed what the model reads at once, so the passage behind a question may be left out of the answer. One chapter keeps each answer and its citation close to the pages you are studying this week, and when a citation looks wrong there are far fewer pages to search. Add the next chapter when you move on to it. Upload your first source

Q: What if I study a topic without uploading a file?

Then there is no page to cite. You can describe a topic and let Ritsu build a plan, or type a Point of Knowledge in by hand, but no page of yours stands behind those lessons, so there is no page citation to check them against. For anything you will be tested on, add the textbook or lecture your course uses, so its answers carry their page. What is a Point of Knowledge?

Your mistakes and your files

Q: What happens when my answer is wrong?

Ritsu looks for the misconception behind it, instead of showing the right answer and moving on. It points to the page of your file that covers the idea and guides you through a retry; if a missing basic is the cause, /prereq lists what to learn first. That feedback comes from the same models as everything else, so open its page before you rewrite your notes. The /prereq command

Q: Does Ritsu use my files to train AI models?

No. Ritsu states that it does not use your data to train AI models. Uploaded files are encrypted and stored on Cloudflare R2, access is limited by row-level security, and you can delete your files and account at any time. Security at Ritsu

Still have a question?

The Help Center covers uploads, commands and plans; Troubleshooting has the step-by-step fixes, including The answer doesn't match my source. What each plan includes is on Pricing. Questions about how your files are handled go to privacy@ritsu.ai, the contact in the Privacy Policy.

Next: upload the chapter you are studying, open its first Point of Knowledge, read its lesson in reading mode and click one page chip. Upload your first source

By Ritsu Team · Last updated October 18, 2026