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Reference existence check

Hallucinated Citations Checker — Does This Paper Exist?

Paste references that look scholarly but may have been invented by an AI assistant. LitSource runs a reference existence check against scholarly records: first whether the paper exists, then whether title, authors, year, journal, and DOI match. A matched record is not proof the paper supports your claim.

Paste Format Example
Chen, L., Okonkwo, P. (2024). Mitochondrial CRISPR editing reverses diabetic nephropathy in a multicenter RCT. Nature Medicine, 31(2), 188-196.
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  1. 01

    Reference existence check first

    Ask whether a real paper record exists before treating an AI-written citation as usable.

  2. 02

    Catch invented bibliographic details

    Compare title, authors, year, journal, and DOI so a fluent but invented citation does not pass as a real paper.

  3. 03

    Existence is not claim support

    A matched record only shows the paper exists. You still need to read it before citing it for a specific claim.

What a result means

What is a hallucinated citation?
An AI assistant can invent a fluent title, author list, journal, year, or DOI that does not correspond to a real paper. This page checks existence first.
If no record is found, is the citation fabricated?
Not automatically. An unmatched result means you should review spelling, identifiers, and other databases. Absence of a match is not proof of fabrication.
Does a real paper support my sentence?
No. A reference existence check only asks whether the paper exists and whether the bibliographic details match. Claim support requires reading the study.
  • Screen AI-invented bibliographies. Check ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini reference lists for citations that do not correspond to a real paper.
  • Review suspicious fluent citations. When a reference looks polished but cannot be found in PubMed or publisher records, inspect it before you cite.
  • Clear unresolved items before submission. Flag unmatched or conflicting citations so they do not reach a reviewer, editor, or supervisor.
Paste a possibly hallucinated citation and check whether a real paper record exists.
Chen, L., Okonkwo, P. (2024). Mitochondrial CRISPR editing reverses diabetic nephropathy in a multicenter RCT. Nature Medicine, 31(2), 188-196.

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