Citation Checker: Make Sure Every Citation Matches Your Reference List
A missing source or a wrong year can cost you marks. Our citation checker reads your whole paper, including Word footnotes, links every in-text citation to your reference list and shows you exactly what to fix, before your supervisor does.
- ✓Finds cited sources missing from your list, wrong years and entries you never cited
- ✓Shows every problem in your text with a short explanation
- ✓Works with author-date, numbered and footnote citation styles
Free summary of issues. Result in about a minute.
9 out of 10 papers have citation problems
of papers with a reference list had at least one citation or reference problem.
Based on 40,000+ papers with a reference list (November 2026).
Small citation mistakes, real consequences
A citation checker compares what you cite in the text with what you list in your references, and finds every gap between the two.
These mistakes are easy to make and hard to spot yourself. A typical paper has dozens of citations and around 25 reference entries. After weeks of editing, a source gets deleted from the list but stays in the text, a year changes in one place and not the other, or the same book gets listed twice.
Supervisors and examiners notice. Inconsistent citations can mean lost marks, a request to revise, or questions about academic integrity, even when you never meant to copy anything.
Checking by hand takes hours. Our reference checker does it in about a minute.
23 checks across your citations and reference list
The citation checker looks for 23 types of issues and sorts each one by severity: errors to fix, warnings to review, and notes to consider.
Missing sources
A cited source isn't in the reference list, only part of a citation is listed, laws or legal acts are cited but not listed, or there is no reference list at all.
Citation mismatches
The year or author name in the text differs from the reference list, the wrong first author is cited, or a citation could match more than one source.
Reference list quality
Sources listed but never cited, duplicate entries, missing year, title or author, URL-only entries, wrong numbering or order.
Citation style consistency
Author-date and numbered citations mixed in one paper.
Source age
Outdated sources, or a reference list that is outdated as a whole.
Figures and tables
References like "see Table 4" when there is no Table 4.
See all checks
| Issue | Severity | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Cited source not in reference list | Error | You cite Miller (2020), but she's not in your list |
| Some cited sources missing | Error | (Smith 2012; 2013), but only 2012 is in your list |
| Year mismatch | Error | Johnson 1995 in the text, Johnson 2011 in the list |
| Name spelled differently | Warning | Lesyer in the text, Leyser in the list |
| Not the first author cited | Warning | The citation names the second author of the work |
| Ambiguous citation | Warning | Same author, several works: unclear which one is meant |
| Entry never cited in the text | Warning | Taylor (2009) is in your list but never cited |
| Duplicate entry | Warning | The same source appears twice |
| Missing year / title / author | WarningNote | Incomplete reference entry |
| Entry is only a URL | Warning | No author, title or date |
| Numbering errors | Warning | Gaps or repeated numbers in a numbered list |
| Mixed citation styles | Warning | Author-date and numbered citations in one paper |
| No reference list | Warning | Citations exist, but there's no list |
| Old sources | NoteWarning | Sources older than 10 years, or most of the list is old |
| List not in alphabetical order | Note | Entries of an author-date list are out of order |
| Missing figure or table | Note | "see Table 4", but there's no Table 4 |
| Laws, standards, URLs not in the list | Note | Shown as notes, because lists often leave them out |
| Names mentioned without a source | Note | A scholar named in the text but not in the list |
How the citation checker works
Reads your whole paper
We extract the full text, including Word footnotes and endnotes, so footnote citations are checked too.
Finds every citation and reference
Our own trained model finds author-date citations like (Johnson, 1995: 40), numbered citations like [12], narrative citations like "as Brown notes", and source notes under figures and tables. It splits each reference entry into author, title, year, journal, pages, publisher, URL, DOI and ISBN.
Links them together
Each citation is matched to its reference entry. The matching handles typos, abbreviations and small differences in how names are written.
Lists every issue
Each problem gets a severity, a plain explanation and its exact place in your text.
Median time from upload to result: 47 seconds.
A citation report that shows you exactly what to fix
Your citations at a glance
See how many citations and reference entries your paper has, what share of citations link to your list, how many entries are never cited, and which citation style you use.
Every citation colored by status
In your text, each citation is colored: linked to a list entry, wrong year or not in the list, ambiguous or partly found, or cannot be matched. Uncited list entries are marked too.
Feedback quality predicts learning gains (Hattie & Timperley, 2007), especially in large classes (Johnson, 1995). Several authors (Smith, 2013) stress peer support, and the national survey (Education Report) shows similar results1. Taylor, M. (2009). Learning environments.
One list of issues, one click to each
Filter issues by errors, warnings or notes, or by category. Click "Show in text" to jump straight to the problem.
Works with all three main citation style families
Author-date
APA, Harvard and similar.
(Johnson, 1995: 40) / as Brown (2003) notesNumbered
IEEE, Vancouver and similar.
[12] / [3–5]Footnotes
Chicago, OSCOLA and similar. Word (.docx) footnotes and endnotes are read and checked.
…in teaching1 — 1 Johnson R. Feedback in teaching. Oxford, 2011, p. 40.The citation checker checks that citations and references are consistent and complete. It does not yet check formatting against a specific style guide, such as punctuation in APA references.
Citation checklist before you submit your paper
- ✓Every source you cite in the text is in your reference list
- ✓Every entry in your reference list is cited in the text
- ✓Years and author names match exactly in both places
- ✓No source is listed twice
- ✓Every entry has an author, a year and a title
- ✓You use one citation style throughout
- ✓Every "see Figure X" or "see Table X" points to a real figure or table
- ✓Your sources are recent enough for your field
Our citation checker checks all of these for you.
See your citation issues free
Every upload shows a free citation summary: how many issues your paper has, and in which areas. Open the full report to see each issue in your text and fix it.
| Feature | Free | Full report |
|---|---|---|
| Number of citation issues | ✓ | ✓ |
| Issues by area (missing sources, reference list, citation mismatches, other) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Plagiarism, translated plagiarism and AI scores for the same upload | ✓ | ✓ |
| Overview: citations, entries, % linked, style | – | ✓ |
| Every citation colored by status in your text | – | ✓ |
| Full issue list with explanations and "Show in text" | – | ✓ |
| Filters by severity and category | – | ✓ |
Citations, plagiarism and AI checked in one upload
Upload your paper once and get free scores for AI content, plagiarism, translated plagiarism and citations, side by side. Open only the reports you need.
Who uses our citation checker
Students
Check your thesis, coursework or essay before it goes to your supervisor. Fix missing sources and mismatched years in minutes, not hours.
Thesis supervisors and teachers
See citation problems in a student's work at a glance, with every issue located in the text.
Researchers and authors
Clean up your references before submitting a manuscript to a journal.
Editors and proofreaders
Check citations and references in clients' texts without going through them by hand.
Your paper stays private
The citation check runs on our own trained model. Your text is not sent to OpenAI or any other external service, and no external databases are used.
Citation checker FAQ
What does a citation checker do?
It compares the citations in your text with your reference list. It finds sources you cite but didn't list, entries you listed but never cited, mismatched years and names, duplicates and incomplete entries.
Is the citation checker free?
Yes, every upload shows a free summary of how many citation issues your paper has and in which areas. The full report with every issue in your text is paid.
Which citation styles does it support?
Author-date (APA, Harvard), numbered (IEEE, Vancouver) and footnote styles (Chicago, OSCOLA).
Does it check APA or MLA formatting?
Not yet. Today it checks that your citations and references are consistent and complete, not punctuation or formatting rules.
Does it check footnotes?
Yes, footnotes and endnotes in Word (.docx) files. Footnotes in PDFs are read as plain text and work less reliably.
Does it check whether my sources are real or retracted?
Not yet. It checks only your document, not external databases.
How long does it take?
The median time from upload to result is 47 seconds.
Can it be wrong?
Yes, sometimes. Lists of names, superscript numbers, abbreviations such as WHO and references to laws can be misread. Each issue shows its place in the text so you can check it quickly.
Is my document shared with anyone?
No. The check runs on our own model, without OpenAI or other external services.
What's the difference between a citation checker and a plagiarism checker?
A plagiarism checker finds text that matches other sources. A citation checker makes sure the sources you do use are cited and listed correctly. Use both before submitting important work.
Citation checking in 50+ languages
Show all 52 languages
Check your references before your supervisor does
Upload your paper and see your citation issues free, in about a minute.
Free summary. Works with APA, Harvard, IEEE, Vancouver and footnote styles.
