About CiteTrue
CiteTrue checks whether the references in a piece of academic writing point at real publications, correctly described.
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What CiteTrue is
CiteTrue is a citation verification tool for academic writing. Paste a reference list or upload a paper, and each reference is resolved against bibliographic databases: does the cited work exist, and do the details written down match the record? It is built for the moment before a paper is submitted, reviewed, or relied on.
Where the answers come from
Every verdict traces back to a lookup in a bibliographic database. CiteTrue does not ask a language model whether a paper exists — language models are the reason fabricated references spread in the first place. The databases and indexes queried include:
- Crossref
- OpenAlex
- Semantic Scholar
- PubMed
- arXiv
- CORE
- Open Library
- Google Scholar
- IEEE
- ACM
- Springer
- Wiley
- Elsevier
- ScienceDirect
- BioMed Central
- Cambridge University Press
Which sources are reached depends on the reference: most are settled in the academic databases, while tricky ones bring in more data sources and more analysis.
How a reference is checked
The standard check
Each reference is parsed into title, authors, year, DOI and venue, then matched against academic databases by metadata. Most references are settled here, for one credit each.
Tricky references
When a reference can't be settled that way — a garbled title, missing details, an obscure source — the check keeps going with more data sources and more analysis, and stops as soon as it has an answer. It happens automatically; these references can cost up to 5 credits.
What a verdict means
- Authentic
- A matching publication was found and the details line up.
- Unsure
- A candidate was found but could not be fully confirmed. Worth checking by hand.
- Inauthentic
- No matching publication was found — most often a fabricated reference, or one badly mistyped.
Results that resolve to a verdict also carry a confidence score, showing how closely the matched record aligns with the citation.
What CiteTrue will not tell you
Being explicit about the edges is more useful than a bigger claim:
- 1It is not a plagiarism checker, and it does not judge the quality or the argument of a paper.
- 2Coverage is uneven. Very recent work, non-English publications, books, theses and grey literature are indexed less completely than journal articles — an unindexed work can come back as not found.
- 3A verdict is evidence, not a ruling. Anything marked Unsure or Inauthentic should be checked by a person before it is acted on.
Who maintains this
CiteTrue is built and maintained by the CiteTrue team. The product is available on the web, as a Chrome extension, as a Mac app, and through an API and an MCP server, in 11 languages.
Getting in touch
Questions, corrections and reports of a wrong verdict all go to the same place. A wrong verdict is the single most useful thing you can send us.