Concept
Source anchors and the evidence line
How a quote in your draft stays linked to the page it came from, and what the Evidence panel shows for each paragraph.
When you write "Teachers trusted the dashboard more than their own notes (Hamid & Yusof, 2023, p. 7)", a reader has to take your word for it. In CurTask you don't have to remember where it came from: a citation can be anchored to the exact passage on the exact page, and you can see that link at any time.
What a source anchor is
A source anchor is a citation that knows its passage. It holds the paper, the page and the words you quoted.
You get one when you:
- quote a passage from the reader, by dragging it into your draft or pressing Quote in draft;
- cite a matrix value with its quote, using Cite in draft (see Cite from the matrix);
- insert a quote from an insight card (see The insight margin).
A citation you type with @ is a normal citation: it names the paper (and a page, if you add one) but is not linked to a passage. You can link one later by dragging a passage from the reader into that paragraph.
The evidence line
Select an anchored citation in your draft and CurTask draws a dashed teal line from the citation to its passage. That line is the evidence line. It shows, at a glance, which words in the paper stand behind which words in your draft.
- If the Evidence tab is showing beside the draft, the line runs to the quote on that paper's card.
- Otherwise CurTask opens the reader at the page, highlights the passage, and the line runs to the highlight.
You see the same line in other places:
- in the literature matrix, when you open a value's quote in the reader;
- from an insight card's page to the paragraph it is about.
If the wording on the page differs a little from the saved quote (for example, a scanned page read with OCR), the reader highlights the closest match and tells you so.
The Evidence panel
Beside the draft, the Evidence tab shows Supporting this paragraph: one card for each paper cited in the paragraph where your cursor is.
Each card shows:
- Cited, or Suggested if the citation came from AI and you haven't accepted it yet;
- the page, and the linked passage. A citation with no passage says No passage linked. Drag one from the reader to link it.;
- Jump to the page →, which opens the reader at that page with the passage highlighted.
If the paragraph has no citations yet, the panel reminds you that you can type @ to cite a paper, or drag a passage from the reader.
Why it matters
Every AI value in CurTask comes with a page and a quote that was checked on that page (see How AI finds evidence). Source anchors carry the same idea into your own writing: when your supervisor asks "where does it say that?", the answer is one click away.