Free citation checker — verify every reference against real sources
Paste your reference list in any style and CiteProve verifies every citation against Crossref, OpenAlex, PubMed and CourtListener — flagging fabricated AI citations, wrong DOIs and retracted papers in seconds.
In short
A citation checker verifies that the references in your bibliography point to real, correctly-described sources. CiteProve checks each citation against Crossref, OpenAlex, PubMed and CourtListener — flagging fabricated AI citations, wrong DOIs and retracted papers — and returns a field-level diff with a one-click corrected citation. Free, no account required.
Checked againstCrossrefOpenAlexPubMedCourtListener
How it works
Three steps, results streaming in about a second.
- 1
Paste your bibliography
Drop in a reference list in any style — APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, IEEE, Vancouver or Bluebook. No formatting required.
- 2
We search authoritative databases
Each reference is matched against Crossref, OpenAlex, PubMed and CourtListener in parallel.
- 3
Get a careful verdict
Field-level diffs, corrected citations, and retraction flags — with every source we consulted shown.
What we catch
The failure modes that slip past a reader skimming a reference list.
Catch fabricated citations
AI assistants invent plausible-looking references. We flag the ones no database can locate — carefully worded, never an accusation.
Spot wrong identifiers
A real DOI attached to the wrong paper is a classic failure mode. We resolve the identifier and validate every other field against it.
Flag retracted papers
Retractions are surfaced prominently from Retraction Watch, OpenAlex and Crossref — so a retracted study is never cited as sound.
Style-aware corrections
We detect the citation style you used and hand back a one-click corrected reference in that same style, plus BibTeX.
What the verdicts mean
Uncertainty always degrades to a softer verdict — never a harsher one.
- Verified
- High-confidence match found.
- Partial
- Real source, but some fields differ.
- Not found
- Couldn't locate it in the databases consulted.
- Can't check
- Outside our coverage — neither confirmed nor flagged.
Popular checks & guides
Jump straight to the checker or learn how citation verification works.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a citation checker?
- A citation checker verifies that the references in a bibliography point to real, correctly-described sources. It resolves identifiers like DOIs and PMIDs and searches authoritative databases to confirm each reference exists and that its author, year, title and journal match the real record.
- How do I check if a citation is real?
- Paste the reference into CiteProve. It resolves any DOI, PMID or arXiv ID, then searches Crossref, OpenAlex, PubMed and CourtListener for a matching record. If nothing is found it is flagged as not found; if a real source is found with differing fields it is flagged as partial with a field-level diff and a corrected citation.
- Can it detect fake citations made up by ChatGPT?
- Yes. AI assistants generate references that look perfectly formatted but have no real source behind them. CiteProve flags any citation that no database can locate, and catches real DOIs attached to the wrong paper — the two ways AI-fabricated citations most often slip through.
- Is CiteProve free?
- Yes. Verifying that references exist and that their metadata is correct is free and requires no account.
- Which citation styles does it support?
- Any style — APA, MLA, Chicago, IEEE, Vancouver, Bluebook, Harvard, AMA, ASA, ACS and Turabian. CiteProve reads identifiers and bibliographic fields rather than relying on one fixed format.