What to do with seemingly fabricated data when researching a paper's citations One particular paper (Initial) cited a website with a basic pie chart of some data (Chart), while interesting, did not contain any of the original data, only a reference, so I dug into the original paper to get more details (Paper).
Then I found out that the original Paper had no such data at all. I'm not even sure how the numbers came about. It seems like the Chart author was interpreting the Paper's research, and basically created a new chart while citing the Paper as the &quot;source&quot;, but that actual chart nor data exists on Paper at all.
The Chart is useful, but it seems to be, at minimum, interpreted, if not outright fabricated. I've decided that particular chart, although had useful information, is not true and I should not use it in my paper.
However, what exactly do I do with the knowledge that the chart seems to be fabricated? And what about the Initial paper that cites this chart?
It seems like the Chart author was interpreting the Paper's research, and basically created a new chart while citing the Paper as the &quot;source&quot;, but that actual chart nor data exists on Paper at all.

Maybe the author created the chart from the paper's data and cited the paper as the data's source. You've mentioned the Chart is useful, suggesting the author added value. (Whilst also suggesting the chart is not true, which seems contradictory.)

what exactly do I do with the knowledge that the chart seems to be fabricated?

You could email the author and ask for clarification.