APA Citation Checker
Paste your APA 7 reference list and get every likely formatting slip flagged: authors not inverted, “and” where APA wants an ampersand, a missing year, a DOI that is not an https://doi.org link, Title Case where APA wants sentence case, entries out of A–Z order, and repeated sources. Each finding names the rule and links to the APA page behind it. Free, no sign-up, and nothing leaves your browser.
What this checker looks for
- Author names in APA Surname, Initials order, and & (not “and”) before the final author.
- A (year) element after the author — or (n.d.) when there is no date.
- DOIs in the APA https://doi.org/10.xxxx URL format.
- A terminal period (unless the entry ends in a DOI or URL).
- Article and book titles in sentence case rather than Title Case.
- Alphabetical order of the list and duplicate entries.
Every finding is advisory and links to the relevant APA guideline. The checker is deterministic — it never uploads your text, never uses AI, and never auto-rewrites your references. It targets APA 7 reference lists only (in-text citations and other styles are not checked yet).
How to Use the APA Citation Checker
- Paste your reference list. Put one reference per line, or separate wrapped references with a blank line. Copying from Word or Google Docs works; the checker joins wrapped lines for you.
- Read the list-level findings first. Entries out of A–Z order and repeated sources affect the whole list, so they appear above the individual entries.
- Work through each flagged entry. A finding says what looks wrong and why, offers a corrected fragment to copy when it can, and links to the APA Style page for the rule. High confidence means the pattern is almost always an error; Worth a look means it often is.
- Paste the list again after editing. Entries that now pass drop out of the results, so you can keep going until the list is clean.
The APA 7 Rules the Checker Applies
The checks follow the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed., 2020) and the reference pages on APA Style. They cover only what can be read reliably from plain text:
| Element | APA 7 form | Flagged when |
|---|---|---|
| Author names | Smith, J. M. — surname first, then initials | the entry opens with a given name, as in John Smith |
| Final author | Adams, R., & Doe, A. | the word and joins the last two authors |
| Year | (2020). or (n.d.). | no (year), (year with a letter) or (n.d.) is found |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1037/xxxx | doi:10.… , dx.doi.org or an http:// link |
| Titles | Sentence case: only the first word, proper nouns and the word after a colon are capitalized | every longer word in the title starts with a capital letter |
| Ending | a period, except after a DOI or URL | the entry ends with no punctuation and no link |
| List order | A–Z by the first author’s surname | an entry sorts before the one above it |
| Duplicates | each source listed once | two entries share author, year and the start of the title |
Rules from the Publication Manual, 7th ed. APA writes a DOI as a full link with no period after it, and capitalizes journal and periodical titles in Title Case — only article, chapter and book titles use sentence case.
Worked Example
Choose Try a sample to load three invented references. The checker reports 7 likely issues to review across 3 entries, and one entry passes:
- The list: the entries run Smith, Brown, Adams, so entries 2 and 3 are each flagged as out of A–Z order. It is one problem — the list is reversed — so reordering Adams, Brown, Smith clears both.
- Entry 1 gets three findings: John Smith should open Smith, J.; doi:10.1000/abc.def should be https://doi.org/10.1000/abc.def; and “The Effects Of Sleep On Memory” looks like Title Case (the sentence-case form is “The effects of sleep on memory”).
- Entry 3 uses and where APA wants Adams, R., & Doe, A., and ends without a period.
- Entry 2 — Brown, K. L. (2021). The grammar of rivers. Academic Press. — passes untouched.
What a Plain-Text Check Cannot See
- Formatting. Italics, the 0.5-inch hanging indent and double spacing do not survive pasting, so they are not checked. Hanging indents are the job of the Hanging Indent Formatter.
- Whether the details are true. A wrong volume, a mistyped DOI or a source that does not exist all pass. Check DOIs with the DOI Validator.
- Group authors and dated entries. A company or association written out as the author, such as “American Psychological Association”, can be flagged as a reversed name, and “Procter and Gamble” as a missing ampersand. Entries dated with a month or day, such as (2021, March 3) for a newspaper article, are reported as having no year because the checker looks only for (2021), (2021a) or (n.d.). Dismiss these when the entry is right.
- Everything else in APA. It does not test the 20-author limit, journal-title capitalization, publisher details or in-text citations.
Which Citation Checker Do You Need?
Each checker tests one style’s rules, so pick the one your assignment names. If you are not sure which style a list is written in, run it through the Citation Style Identifier first.
| Your style | Use | Reference list is called |
|---|---|---|
| APA 7 | This page | References |
| MLA 9 | MLA Citation Checker | Works Cited |
| Chicago 18 | Chicago Citation Checker | Bibliography |
| Harvard | Harvard Citation Checker | Reference list |
| IEEE, Vancouver, AMA | IEEE, Vancouver or AMA checker | Numbered references |
Frequently Asked Questions
- What does an APA citation checker check?
- This one reads each pasted reference for author names that are not inverted, “and” where APA wants an ampersand, a missing year, DOIs that are not https://doi.org links, Title Case in a title, and a missing final period. It also checks the list for entries out of A–Z order and for repeated sources. Each finding links to the APA Style guideline it comes from.
- Does a clean result mean my APA references are correct?
- No. A clean result means none of the patterns above was found. The checker cannot see italics or indentation, cannot confirm that a source exists or that a DOI resolves, and does not test every APA rule. Treat it as a first pass and compare a few entries with the Publication Manual or your instructor’s requirements.
- How do you write a DOI in APA 7?
- As a full link: https://doi.org/10.1037/xxxx. APA 7 drops the doi: label and, for most sources, the words “Retrieved from”, and puts no period after the link. If a work has no DOI, give its URL the same way; a work with neither, such as a print book, has no link.
- Should APA titles be in sentence case or Title Case?
- Article, chapter and book titles in the reference list use sentence case: capitalize the first word, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns. Journal and other periodical titles use Title Case and italics. The checker flags a title only when every longer word is capitalized, so a title with a few proper nouns will not trip it.
- In what order does an APA reference list go?
- Alphabetical by the first author’s surname, with the list titled References. Several works by one author run oldest first, and works from the same year are labeled 2020a, 2020b. The checker compares each entry’s sort word with the one above it and flags any that sorts earlier.
- Does this checker handle MLA, Chicago or Harvard?
- No — it applies APA 7 rules only, and pasting an MLA list will produce false findings. Use the MLA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE, Vancouver or AMA checker for those styles.
- Is my reference list uploaded anywhere?
- No. The checker runs entirely in your browser; nothing you paste is sent to a server or stored.