A real citation still needs a real check

Three checks, three different answers

A bibliography review should distinguish identity, accuracy, and support. Identity asks whether the cited work can be located. Accuracy asks whether its title, authors, year, identifier, and version are correctly described. Support asks whether a passage in that work justifies the specific assertion in your text.

A reference can pass the first two checks and fail the third. That distinction is especially important for fact citation AI and LLM-generated writing: a plausible bibliography is not proof that the accompanying argument follows from its sources. Keep field-level findings separate from semantic support judgments.

Begin with the citation record

Crossref’s REST API documentation describes retrieval of scholarly metadata. It is a useful starting point for bibliographic identity checks. Metadata alone does not determine whether a paper supports a claim or whether its methodology is sound.

Preserve the original reference string before normalization. Compare candidate matches using several fields, not just the first title returned. Distinguish a preprint from a published version. A missing DOI or missing result in one index should not automatically become a fabrication verdict; it may require another identification route.

Inspect the passage that matters

Locate the relevant sentence, result, table, or figure. Keep a reproducible locator and enough context to show what the passage is doing. A paper may quote a claim to dispute it, describe a hypothesis rather than establish it, or attribute a result to a different work.

For quantitative statements, preserve units, denominators, populations, and periods. For comparisons, identify the baseline. For paraphrases, check that important qualifications survived. When the source supports narrower wording than the draft, a useful recommendation may be to qualify the sentence rather than replace the entire reference.

Distinguish access problems from factual conclusions

If the full text is unavailable, say which checks were completed. Matching metadata does not permit an evaluator to invent the missing results. An abstract-only review should remain limited to material actually inspected.

Keep authorized-access and retention requirements separate from the substantive judgment. A source can be legitimate while unavailable to the present workflow. Use an operational status for that limitation instead of declaring the citation supported, contradicted, or nonexistent solely because a retrieval attempt failed.

Produce an actionable review

Return the submitted reference, the matched record, field differences, passage locator, support assessment, and recommended action. Typical actions include correcting metadata, narrowing wording, restoring a missing qualification, replacing an irrelevant citation, or requesting expert review. Keep the unresolved items visible.

The citation-checker field guide walks through the process. Pair it with academic fact checking for interpreting research and source watch for later corrections. This site offers guidance and examples, not a form for uploading papers or a live citation-scanning service.