How to check a quote against the official record

Start with the record of the body that heard the words

A quote from a legislature should be checked against that legislature's own report. In the UK Parliament this is Hansard, the official report, which records what Members said, the decisions taken and how Members voted in divisions ¹. In the US House the Congressional Record must be a substantially verbatim account of the proceedings under clause 8 of rule XVII and 44 U.S.C. 901 ².

At the United Nations, principal organs and selected subsidiary bodies have either verbatim or summary records, and many meetings have no meeting record at all ⁴. For a body without meeting records, the UN library points readers to press releases, where issued, and to sessional or annual reports ⁴.

Match the date, the sitting and the version

• Note the date and the sitting. UK Hansard can be browsed by sitting, debate, division and Member ¹.
• Check which version you are reading. UK Hansard publishes a rolling record in parts during the day and a complete daily part the next morning with column numbers that match the print ¹.
• In Australia a proof Hansard goes online within 3 hours of Parliament finishing for the day, and the official Hansard replaces it around 2 weeks after each sitting week ⁷.
• For older UK debates, most records before 2010 were added by scanning printed bound volumes and the text may contain errors ¹.
• For UN documents, read the symbol. PV marks a verbatim record and SR marks a summary record ⁴.

Spoken words and inserted words

Some records carry text that was never said aloud. In the US House, material added under leave to revise and extend must be clearly distinguishable by typeface from the verbatim account ². The Congressional Research Service says any portion of a House statement not spoken is printed in a different type style, and undelivered Senate remarks are marked with a bullet ³.

Extensions of Remarks is a separate part of each daily Record. It holds most of the House's unspoken remarks and insertions, such as tributes to constituents ³. A line found there was placed in the Record, not delivered on the floor ³.

Edited and expunged text

UK Hansard removes repetitions and obvious mistakes ¹. Australian Hansard editors remove vocal tics such as um and ah, but the meaning of a speech cannot be changed ⁷. A small gap between a video clip and the written record can come from this editing ^1,7.

In India's Lok Sabha, Rule 380 lets the Speaker expunge words judged defamatory, indecent, unparliamentary or undignified, and Rule 381 has expunged parts shown with asterisks and a footnote reading Expunged as ordered by the Chair, as reported by Apoorva Mandhani for ThePrint ⁸. Words heard on a live broadcast can be missing from the printed record for this reason ⁸.

Summaries are not quotes

UN press releases on meetings are written by press officers of the Meetings Coverage Section as plain synopses of the deliberations ⁵. A UN summary record is a third-person condensed version of a meeting ⁴. Neither gives the speaker's own first-person words, so a direct quote needs a verbatim record or a transcript ^4,5.

For UN noon briefings, the Office of the Spokesperson posts a full transcript and separate highlights ⁹. The highlights are a summary ⁹.

Show the reader where the words are

The IFCN Code of Principles asks signatories to identify the source of all significant evidence so readers can verify findings themselves, and to use the best available primary sources ⁶. Signatories publish a corrections policy and make corrections openly ⁶. A link to the dated record with its column or page number lets a reader repeat the check ^1,6.