Citation Generator

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Citation Generator

Paste a DOI, PubMed ID, ISBN, arXiv ID, BibTeX, RIS or a reference, pick a style, and copy the citation with its in-text forms.

This number could be a PubMed ID or an ISBN:
Retrieving the record…

Reference

In-text citation

Parenthetical
Narrative

Source details

    My References

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      About This Tool

      This generator turns an identifier or a pasted reference into an accurate citation. Instead of rebuilding citation rules by hand, it renders every reference through the official style definitions published by the Citation Style Language project — the definitions used by established reference managers, so the APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago, Harvard (Cite Them Right) and IEEE output follows the published manuals. Metadata comes from the registries publishers deposit their records with, each retrieval is labeled with its origin, and a checklist shows which fields are present, recommended or missing. Everything you save stays in your browser.

      How to Use

      1. Paste a DOI, PubMed ID, ISBN, arXiv ID, BibTeX, RIS or the text of a reference — the input type is recognized automatically.
      2. Choose the citation style and, if needed, the citation language, then generate. Check the source details and edit any field.
      3. Copy the reference and its in-text forms, or add the source to My References and export the whole list as BibTeX, BibLaTeX, RIS or CSL-JSON.

      Methodology

      Formatting follows the official style definitions of the Citation Style Language project, the open specification that established reference managers rely on; the tool applies them exactly rather than approximating the rules. When an identifier is entered, the record is retrieved from the registry responsible for it: Crossref or DataCite for DOIs, Europe PMC for PubMed IDs, DataCite for arXiv IDs, and Google Books or Open Library for ISBNs. Pasted reference text is searched in Crossref's bibliographic index, and a candidate is accepted only after the title, year and first author of the input agree with the record; a search hit alone is never treated as verification.

      Sources: Citation Style Language · CSL style repository · Crossref REST API · Europe PMC REST API · DataCite REST API

      Understanding Your Results

      Read the result in three parts. What belongs in the bibliography is the reference block; what belongs in the sentence is one of the two in-text forms, and the right one depends only on whether the author is already named in your prose. How complete the record is shows in the source-details checklist: a check mark means the field is present, a warning marks a recommended field that is absent (a journal article without a DOI, for example), and a cross marks a field the style genuinely needs. A badge states how the record was obtained: retrieved by exact identifier, matched with high confidence, matched but worth reviewing, entered by hand, or not verifiable. Each citation’s reliability is explicit rather than implied.

      Practical Examples

      A journal article by DOI: pasting 10.1257/000282803322655392 retrieves Kahneman's 2003 article in the American Economic Review and produces, in APA 7: Kahneman, D. (2003). Maps of bounded rationality: Psychology for behavioral economics. American Economic Review, 93(5), 1449–1475, with (Kahneman, 2003) and Kahneman (2003) as the in-text forms. Switching the style to IEEE reformats the same record instantly as [1] D. Kahneman, "Maps of bounded rationality…," with no re-entry. A book by ISBN: pasting 978-0-262-03384-8 retrieves Introduction to Algorithms (3rd ed., MIT Press, 2009) and APA renders its four authors as Cormen, T. H., Leiserson, C. E., Rivest, R. L., & Stein, C., and the in-text form shortens to (Cormen et al., 2009), exactly as the manual requires.

      Tips for reliable citations

      • Prefer the DOI over anything else for articles: it retrieves the publisher's own record and removes typing errors at the source. • Compare the year and page range against the document itself; registry records occasionally carry the online-first year instead of the printed issue's year. • APA 7 expects article titles in sentence case. If the retrieved title arrives in title case, adjust it in Edit details. • Set the citation language to the language of the manuscript, so terms such as ed., et al. and the connector between authors come out right. • Export BibTeX for LaTeX documents and RIS for reference managers; retyping citations by hand reintroduces exactly the errors this tool removes.

      Sources

      Only the identifier or reference you look up is sent to the bibliographic services named above, to retrieve their record. Your saved reference list stays in your browser and is never uploaded.

      Frequently Asked Questions
      Which citation styles are supported?
      Five styles are available: APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 (author–date), Harvard following Cite Them Right, and IEEE. Every style is rendered from the official style definitions maintained by the Citation Style Language project, the same definitions used by major reference managers, so the output follows the published rules rather than a rebuilt approximation. Further styles will follow.
      What can I paste into the input box?
      A DOI (also as a doi.org address), a PubMed ID, an ISBN, an arXiv ID, a BibTeX or BibLaTeX entry, RIS, CSL-JSON, a scholarly web address that contains one of these identifiers, or the text of a reference. Input type recognition is automatic and, when a number could be either a PubMed ID or an ISBN, the tool asks which one you mean instead of guessing.
      What does the verification badge mean?
      "Verified identifier" means the record was retrieved by an exact identifier (DOI, PubMed ID, ISBN or arXiv ID) from the registry that holds it. "High-confidence match" and "Possible match — review" apply to pasted reference text: the tool searched the bibliographic databases and compared title, year and first author. "Could not verify" does not mean the source is fake. Books without a DOI, older works and sources outside the indexed literature are often absent from these databases; the reference is kept exactly as entered.
      Where does the bibliographic data come from?
      From the registries where publishers deposit their own metadata: Crossref and DataCite for DOIs (DataCite also serves arXiv records), Europe PMC for PubMed IDs, and Google Books with Open Library as a fallback for ISBNs. Which service a record came from, and on which date, is always shown, so the origin of every field is traceable.
      What is sent over the network, and what stays in my browser?
      Only the identifier or reference you look up is sent, to the bibliographic services named above, so their record can be retrieved. Formatting itself runs in your browser, your saved reference list is stored in your browser only, and no account exists. Clearing the browser's site data removes the list, so export it first.
      Can I export to BibTeX, RIS or LaTeX?
      Yes. Every reference saved under My References exports as BibTeX or BibLaTeX (for LaTeX documents), as RIS (for reference managers such as Zotero or EndNote), or as CSL-JSON. BibTeX also works in the other direction: paste an entry and it converts into structured data that renders in any of the five styles.
      What is the difference between a parenthetical and a narrative citation?
      In author–date styles such as APA, a parenthetical citation places author and year in brackets at the end of a statement, as in (Kahneman, 2003), while a narrative citation names the author in the sentence itself and brackets only the year: Kahneman (2003). Both forms are produced for every source, along with numbered forms such as [1] for IEEE.