Reference Checker
Choose a citation style, paste your reference list and, if you like, the text with your citations. The checker explains what it finds and never rewrites your text.
Paste your list
Use a blank line between entries, or put each numbered entry on its own line. Long entries may wrap.
Paste the paragraphs where you cite sources, to check that every citation matches an entry and every entry is cited.
Choose a style and paste a list to check its structure, details, order and citations.
What should I do next?
Your list is checked. Now keep the sources organised.
- New
Literature Matrix Builder
Organise, compare and synthesise the studies in your literature review, and see the repeated methods, variables and gaps across them.
APA 7 Citation & Reference Builder
Builds temporary APA 7 references and in-text citations for books, journal articles and web pages in APA Style, 7th edition.
How to manage your references
How to keep track of sources from the start of a project: what details to record for each kind of source, using DOIs, choosing and using a reference manager, organising notes, and checking a generated reference list.
How the checker works
- Choose the citation style your work follows. Every check depends on it: a correct APA entry is wrong in IEEE.
- Paste the list, with a blank line between entries, or one numbered entry per line. Paste the text with your citations, or your notes for Chicago notes and bibliography, to check that citations and entries match.
- Each style has its own checker for the structure of its entries and citations. Duplicates and citation matching work the same way in every style.
- Review each finding against your source. No finding doesn't mean a reference is correct.
What this checker cannot determine
- Whether details are correct. It doesn't look up DOIs, fetch records or test whether URLs work.
- Everything your instructor or institution requires. It checks the patterns of each style as ResearchKit formats them; Harvard follows ResearchKit's defined profile.
- Your whole document. Citation matching is heuristic and works only on the text you paste; it can't see footnote placement, page layout or text in other files.
- Source types beyond books, journal articles and web pages, such as chapters, reports and conference papers, are read only as far as their shared structure allows.
- It never corrects, reorders, merges or deletes your text. The generators format; the checker diagnoses.
Privacy
Checking happens in your browser. Your reference list and text are not sent to ResearchKit, stored or placed in the URL.