Check every citation against the article it came from
With Aithor Pro, Check against the source gives the exact sentence and page for each citation, only for articles with an open-access PDF (OpenAlex or Unpaywall). It works on the citations in a paper written with Guided writing. If your reference list came from somewhere else, there is a manual method further down that needs no account at all.
(Surname, 2021, p. 4)
Supported
“…sleeping under six hours was associated with lower grades…”
Exact sentence · page 4 of the PDF
Open-access PDF
| With Aithor Pro, Check against the source gives the exact sentence and page for each citation, only for articles with an open-access PDF (OpenAlex or Unpaywall) |
| Cites real academic sources from OpenAlex and Crossref |
| In internal testing, citations not supported by their source fell from 22% to 16%: it does not promise zero errors |
| With Aithor Pro: the full paper, Word or PDF download with a title page, Check against the source and a downloadable Process report |
How it works
- Write your paper in Guided writing. Every cited sentence stays linked to its record in OpenAlex or Crossref.
- Click a citation in the document and press Verify in source on its card (Aithor Pro).
- Aithor.io looks for an open-access PDF of the article (through OpenAlex or Unpaywall) and finds the passage closest to your sentence.
- Read the verdict (supported, partly supported or not supported) and the one-line reason.
- Open the PDF at the page it points to, with the passage highlighted, and keep, narrow or replace the claim.
Two ways a citation goes wrong
The obvious failure is the reference that does not exist: plausible authors, a believable title, a real-sounding journal, and no paper behind any of it. Anyone who searches for the title will catch that one. The quieter failure is a real paper cited for something it never says. That one survives a quick search and only shows up when a grader opens the PDF and reads the page.
AI-written text produces both. In one 2023 study, two versions of ChatGPT wrote short literature reviews on 42 topics; across 636 references, between 18% and 55% were fabricated, depending on the version [1]. A team that asked for medical articles checked all 115 references they got back: 47% did not exist, and only 7% were both real and accurately cited [2]. When models were asked to reproduce published systematic reviews, the hallucination rate ran from 28.6% to 91.4% of the papers they listed, and the authors recommend validating every generated reference by hand [3].
Guided writing does not cite from memory. It only cites works it found in OpenAlex or Crossref, or sources you added yourself, and it writes each cited sentence from the work’s abstract. That deals with most fabricated references. It does not make the second failure go away: an abstract is not the paper, and a sentence can still claim more than the source does. In internal testing, citations not supported by their source fell from 22% to 16%: it does not promise zero errors. Check against the source exists for that second failure.
The four outcomes of a citation check
Whether you use the feature or check by hand, every citation ends up in one of four places. Naming them makes it quicker to decide what to do.
| Outcome | What it means | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| Supported | The passage says what your sentence says, or something that directly implies it | Keep it, and add the page number if your style requires one |
| Partly supported | The source covers the topic, but your sentence goes further: it generalizes, adds a cause or a figure that is not there | Narrow the sentence to what the source says, or find another source |
| Not supported | The paper is real but does not say this | Remove the citation or swap the source |
| Not found | Crossref has no record, the DOI opens something else, or the details do not match | Delete it: it cannot be cited |
The first three are the verdicts Check against the source gives you. The fourth belongs to the manual method: Guided writing cites works it found in OpenAlex or Crossref, or sources you added yourself, so in a paper written there you should rarely meet it.
What changes in the paper you submit
Checked citations look the same in the document: they stay in whatever style you picked. What changes is your answer when someone asks where a claim comes from. You know the page, and the reference list in the Word file links to every work, so your instructor can open each source in one click.
If you are also asked to show how you wrote the paper, the writing process report summarizes which parts you wrote and which the guide suggested. The two features answer different questions: one is “where does this come from?”, the other “who wrote this?”.
When to use the manual method
Check against the source only runs inside Guided writing. If the list came from somewhere else (a classmate’s bibliography, an old draft, another AI tool, or a paper you wrote in Word), use the manual method below. It takes a few minutes per reference and needs no account.
Start with the references your argument leans on and the ones carrying precise details: percentages, dates, named programs. Those are the ones a grader is most likely to check. If you need replacements for sources that fall through, the AI research assistant starts from real papers indexed in OpenAlex.
Limits and responsible use
- No open-access PDF means no check against the original: there is no PDF to open at the page. The app compares the sentence with whatever text of the work it can find, often just the abstract, and tells you when that is the case. That is not the same as reading the paper.
- It only covers citations in a paper written with Guided writing. A reference list pasted in from elsewhere needs the manual method.
- The verdict comes from an AI model comparing your sentence with a handful of passages. Treat it as a lead with a page number, not a ruling.
- It does not promise zero errors. Open the PDF yourself for the citations your argument depends on.
- It is an Aithor Pro feature. On the free plan you can see each citation and its source card, but not the verdict.
Manual method
- Search the exact title in quotation marks on Crossref Search. If the reference has a DOI, search for the DOI as well.
- Compare the authors, year, journal, volume and pages with your entry. A surname or year that does not match is already a warning sign.
- Resolve the DOI at doi.org and make sure it opens the same article, not one with a similar title.
- Find an open-access copy (on the journal site, a university repository or through Unpaywall) and locate the passage you cite.
- Sort the citation into one of the four outcomes in the table above, and fix or drop anything that is not supported before you hand it in.
Frequently asked questions
Is checking citations free?
Check against the source is part of Aithor Pro. The free plan lets you write with the guide and open each source card, but not run the check. The manual method on this page only needs Crossref Search, which is open to everyone.
Does it work with any article?
No. It needs an open-access PDF that OpenAlex or Unpaywall can find. If the article is paywalled, there is no PDF to open at the page, and you will need to read it through your library instead. If you download it there and upload it as one of your paper's sources, the check compares your sentence with the text of that file.
Can I check references that another AI tool gave me?
Not with the feature, because it works on citations inside a Guided writing paper. Use the manual method instead. If a reference cannot be found on Crossref or in any library catalog, assume it was made up.
What should I do with a partly supported citation?
Read the passage and see where your sentence overreaches. Usually it turns a correlation into a cause or widens the population (“students” when the study looked at first-year nursing students). Narrow the claim or find a source that supports all of it.
Is this a way to check whether I copied someone?
No. It checks whether an article supports a specific sentence. It does not compare your text with other texts or look for matching passages.
What if the article is in a different language from my paper?
It still works. The passage is matched on meaning rather than identical words, and the reason for the verdict appears in the language you use Aithor.io in. The quoted passage stays in the article's own language.
Related
Sources
- Fabrication and errors in the bibliographic citations generated by ChatGPT. Scientific Reports (2023). doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-41032-5
- High Rates of Fabricated and Inaccurate References in ChatGPT-Generated Medical Content. Cureus (2023). doi.org/10.7759/cureus.39238
- Hallucination Rates and Reference Accuracy of ChatGPT and Bard for Systematic Reviews: Comparative Analysis. Journal of Medical Internet Research (2024). doi.org/10.2196/53164
- Crossref Search. Crossref. search.crossref.org/
- Unpaywall. OurResearch. unpaywall.org/
Try it with your own paper
Try it on Aithor.io with the free plan, within its limits.
Start for free