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Find sources for your paper

Search more than 300 million published works by topic or by a claim you need to support, and filter to what your assignment allows. Searching is free, with no account. A free account keeps what you cite and bookmark, so none of it is lost.

Try , , .

Search published research, then narrow it down

Results come from the scholarly record: journal articles, reviews, books, chapters, preprints and theses. Use the filters to keep only what your assignment allows, such as journal articles from the last five years, then press Cite on any result to add it to your reference list.

Citation styles

Each style has its own generator and a short guide to how its references are built.

StyleEditionCommonly used inGenerator
APA7th editionNursing, psychology, education, social sciencesAPA citation generator
MLA9th editionLiterature, languages, humanitiesMLA citation generator
Chicago18th edition, author-dateHistory, business, sciences that use author-dateChicago citation generator
HarvardCite Them Right, 12th editionUK, Australian and many international universitiesHarvard citation generator
IEEEIEEE Reference GuideEngineering, computer scienceIEEE citation generator
VancouverNLM, Citing MedicineMedicine, health sciences, biomedical journalsVancouver citation generator

What is checked on every source

EdCitation does not write references. It looks your source up and formats what the publisher recorded.

The source exists

Authors, year, journal, volume and pages come from the record the publisher filed with Crossref, DataCite, PubMed or Open Library. If no record exists, you are told so.

It has not been retracted

Journal articles are checked against the Retraction Watch database. A withdrawn paper is flagged before it reaches your reference list, and published corrections are linked.

The format follows the current edition

References are set with the open Citation Style Language files that Zotero and Mendeley use. Italics and the hanging indent survive pasting into Word and Google Docs.

Check your paper against your own assignment

Paste your assignment’s instructions and they are read into a checklist: the word limits, the formatting, the sources it asks for, and what it asks you to do. Your paper is checked against exactly that, and a reader judges how well it does what was asked. It never writes a word of it.

Read my instructions
Against your assignment
staffing-and-safety.docx
10rules read
  • Word limit · Part 1: 300 to 350 wordsNot done
    412 words
  • At least 5 sources from the last 5 yearsPartly
    6 sources, 1 of them from 2011
  • APA 7th, Times New Roman 12, double spacedDone
    As asked
  • Evaluate two staffing models and recommend onePartly
    One model is evaluated
Part 1 is 62 words over its limit

The limit was read from your instructions: “300-350 words”.

Example paper, for illustration.

What your account keeps

A free account is where your work lives: everything you cite, bookmark and check, in one dashboard.

Reading listThe sources you bookmarked to read, one press from being cited.
Reference listsEvery source you cite, set in any of six styles, with your own tags to filter by and a style for a single reference when one has to differ. Copies into Word with italics and hanging indents; downloads for Word, LaTeX, Zotero, EndNote and Mendeley.
Library and My BooksMore than 5 million books in one place: keep the ones you need, buy one, find it in a library, and with Max read or borrow them.
My papersEach paper with its checks, and what was fixed since the last one: References from a file, Mechanics QA, Theoretics QA, Check plagiarism and Check AI.
TeamShare a whole list, or single sources, with classmates and colleagues.

Pricing

Finding, citing and verifying sources is free, on this site and in your account. Pro checks whole papers, Max checks your paper against your own assignment and opens more than 5 million books to read and borrow. Either paid plan is free for the first 14 days, and you can move between them at any time.

  • Free

    $0 for ever

    Finding and citing, with no limit.

    With every account

    • Find sources300 million published works, with every filter
    • Cite a sourcesix styles, from the publisher’s record
    • Verify referencesreal, and not retracted
    • Library catalogue and My Bookssearch it, buy a book, find it in a library
    • Reading list, reference lists and your teamtags, a style for each reference, sharing with classmates
    • A taste of Pro3 checks a month of References from a file and of Mechanics QA
    Create a free account

    No payment details needed.

  • Pro plan: Pro

    $8 a month$72 a year

    The checks that read your whole paper.

    Everything in Free, and

    • Pro plan:
      References from a fileno limita source recommended for every reference that cannot stand
    • Pro plan:
      Mechanics QAno limitformatting, what was left in the file, citations, numbers, language
    • Pro plan:
      Check plagiarismpassages that match published or web text, with the source of each
    • Pro plan:
      Check AIwhat a detector finds, passage by passage
    • Pro plan:
      240 credits a monthfor Check plagiarism and Check AImore from $10, whenever you need them
    Try it free for 14 days

    Then $8 a month. Change or stop at any time.Then $72 a year, billed once. Change or stop at any time.

  • Popular

    Max plan: Max

    $24 a month$216 a year

    Your paper against your own assignment, and more than 5 million books to read and borrow.

    Everything in Pro, and

    • Max plan:
      Theoretics QAyour paper against your assignment’s own instructionsevery rule they set, checked one by onehow well it does what was asked, judged by a readerit never writes a word of your paper
    • Max plan:
      More than 5 million booksto read in full in your dashboard, or to borrow
    • Max plan:
      720 credits a monththree times what Pro includesfor Theoretics QA, Check plagiarism and Check AI
    Try it free for 14 days

    Then $24 a month. Change or stop at any time.Then $216 a year, billed once. Change or stop at any time.

  • Institution licence

    Custom pricing

    For a programme, a school or a library, made to fit yours.

    Built around your institution

    • Every student coveredone licence for the whole cohort
    • Custom integrationbuilt into the systems you already runyour LMS, your library, your sign-in
    • White labelyour institution’s name, colours and web address
    • Set-up and trainingfor your staff and your studentsa named contact after that
    • One invoicepriced by the size of the programme

    Booking opens soon.

Credits

Check AI, Check plagiarism and Theoretics QA cost money every time they run, so they run on credits: Pro includes 240 a month and Max 720. What a check will use is shown before it runs, a check that fails uses nothing, and bought credits never run out. Everything else in a plan has no limit.

  • Bronze

    $10

    360 credits

  • Save 5%

    Silver

    $25

    950 credits

  • Save 15%

    Gold

    $50

    2,120 credits

  • Save 25%

    Your own amount

    $100 to $10,000

    the most credits for what you pay

Packs are bought inside your dashboard, in one payment. A saving is on the price of every credit, against Bronze’s.

Questions

Is it really free?
Searching for sources, generating a citation and verifying a reference list are free on this site, with no account and no monthly limit. A free account keeps what you cite and bookmark, opens any source you find, and includes a few whole-paper checks each month. Pro removes that limit and adds Check plagiarism and Check AI; Max adds Theoretics QA, your paper against your own assignment, and the free books of the library.
What are credits?
Check AI, Check plagiarism and Theoretics QA cost money every time they run, so they run on credits. Pro includes 240 a month and Max 720, and more can be bought from $10. What a check will use is shown before it runs, a check that fails uses nothing, and bought credits never run out. Everything else in a plan has no limit.
How is this different from asking a chatbot for a citation?
A chatbot writes text that looks like a reference, and sometimes the paper it names does not exist. EdCitation does not write references. It looks the source up in the publisher’s record and formats what is there, and it tells you when nothing is there.
My source has no DOI. Can I still cite it?
Paste the title and pick your source from the matches, or use a PubMed ID, an arXiv ID, an ISBN or a ClinicalTrials.gov number. For a web page, paste its address: the details are read from the page itself, and you can correct anything it got wrong before you copy the reference.
Which editions do the styles follow?
APA 7th, MLA 9th, Chicago 18th (author-date), Harvard as set out in Cite Them Right 12th, the IEEE Reference Guide, and Vancouver as set out in the NLM’s Citing Medicine.
Are the references always right?
They are as right as the publisher’s record. Most records are complete; a few have a missing issue number or a title in capitals. Read each reference once against your course’s guide before you hand in.
Is using a citation generator allowed?
Formatting a reference for a source you have read is ordinary scholarly practice, and universities recommend tools that do it. EdCitation does not write any part of your paper.