Reference list verifier
Paste your bibliography and every DOI is checked against CrossRef and the DOI registry. Free, no sign-up, nothing stored.
Nothing is stored. References are checked against CrossRef and the DOI registry, then discarded when you close the page.
Four things, all verifiable.
Everything here is a lookup against a public registry, not a judgement by a language model. The same checks run on every manuscript scan.
DOIs that resolve to nothing
Every DOI is looked up in CrossRef and, if it is not there, in the DOI registry itself. A DOI registered with no agency does not exist — the clearest signal that a reference was invented rather than read.
Metadata that disagrees
Where a DOI resolves, the registered title, authors, year, and publication are compared against what you wrote. Copy-paste errors and mismatched DOIs surface here.
Retractions and corrections
Formal retraction and correction notices deposited against a DOI are reported. Citing a retracted paper unknowingly is a serious and avoidable problem.
Missing DOIs
Entries without a DOI are searched for in CrossRef. Where there is a confident match, the DOI is offered so you can add it.
What this tool cannot tell you.
A reference that cannot be matched is not a fabricated reference. CrossRef indexes journal articles, conference papers, and many book chapters. It does not comprehensively cover books, theses, reports, working papers, or a great deal of non-English scholarship. A monograph from 1974 will not be found, and there is nothing wrong with citing it.
Not every retraction is recorded. Retraction notices are only reported where a publisher has formally deposited one against the DOI. Many have not been. A clean result here is not confirmation that a paper stands — for that, check the publisher's page directly.
A resolving DOI is not a relevant source. This tool confirms that a reference exists and that you described it correctly. Whether it supports the claim you attached it to is a judgement only you can make.
In-text citations are not checked here. Matching every citation in your text to an entry in your reference list — and finding the entries nothing cites — needs the whole manuscript. That runs as part of a full scan.
Invented citations are a live problem.
Generative writing tools produce references that look correct in every respect — plausible authors, a real journal, a well-formed DOI — and resolve to nothing at all. They survive a proofread because there is nothing misspelled about them. The only reliable way to catch one is to look it up.
Check the manuscript, not just the bibliography.
A full scan matches every in-text citation to your reference list, flags entries nothing cites, and runs all six checks across the document.