Free citation checker
Are your sources real?
Check before your marker does.
AI tools often invent references that look convincing but do not exist. GPT Nada checks each book and paper in your reference list against free scholarly databases and flags any it cannot find.
Check sourcesFree. No account. Your text is wiped when the check finishes.
How it works
- Paste your essay with its reference list, or upload the file.
- GPT Nada looks up each reference by title in Crossref, OpenAlex and Open Library.
- Each one is marked found, check or not found, with the closest match it saw. It also spots works cited in your text that are missing from the list.
What it does well
- Catches made-up references. The kind of fake source chatbots produce, with real-sounding authors and journals.
- Shows its working. You see the record it matched, so you can judge a near miss yourself.
- Private. Only the titles of your sources, and one author's surname, are looked up.
What it cannot do
- Some real sources are not in these databases, such as reports, websites, very new papers and some books. Not found means check it, not that it is fake.
- It checks that a source exists. It does not check that the source says what your essay claims.
Who it is for
Students who used AI anywhere in their research, and teachers and markers checking reference lists.
Questions
How does the citation checker spot fake references?
It searches Crossref, OpenAlex and Open Library for each title. A reference that appears in none of them, or only with different authors or years, is flagged for you to check.
Is it free?
Yes. No account and no payment. It runs automatically after any check.
Does it check the citation style, such as APA or Harvard?
No. It checks whether each source exists, not how it is formatted.
The other free tools
Paste your text once and GPT Nada runs these too: