For Journal Editors & Manuscript Reviewers
Catch hallucinated citations and honest mistakes.
AI-assisted manuscripts are flooding journals with plausible-sounding references that don't exist. Even dedicated authors can make mistakes rushing to meet a deadline. RefRunner quickly and transparently checks every citation against Crossref and other public databases, flagging anything that can't be verified. You get transparent lookups against sources you can check yourself. For references not found, one-click search links to search engines save time verifying that obscure, but legitimate reference.
What RefRunner checks
Submit the manuscript
Every missing or mismatched citation is instantly highlighted. No more manually checking each one. All processing happens in your browser. No uploads. No AI.
Every reference is looked up
Each entry is searched in public databases and references checked for consistency. References that can't be found or whose details don't match are flagged for inspection.
Review the evidence
Each result shows its source and a clickable DOI so you can verify it directly. You see exactly what was found and where.
See it in action
Citation verification
See every mismatch at a glance.
Paste the manuscript. Every in-text citation is matched against the reference list — unmatched citations and uncited references highlighted immediately. No manual cross-checking required.
Source Verification
References validated automatically.
No AI. No hallucinations. Every reference is searched at Crossref, OpenAlex, Open Library, and Google Books. Preprints automatically get the volume, page numbers, and publication year when available. See where the data comes from. Click the DOI to see for yourself.
Accurate citation styles
Any style. Instantly.
Choose from APA, MLA, Chicago, or any of thousands of custom styles. The publisher wants some variation of APA with a twist? No problem. We use the same formatter as Zotero, the gold standard for citation formatting, so you know the bibliography will be perfect.
Live search
Search. Click. Move on.
Type an author name and a word or two from the title — matching academic papers appear instantly. Press Enter or click to add any result directly to the reference list.
Research explorer
Explore connections.
Click an author to see their publications and affiliations and graphs of citations. Click any reference to explore works that cite it or are cited by it. Click any of those to add them to the list. One-click PDF links for Open Access papers and many publishers.
Why editors use RefRunner
Spot Unmatched & Missing References
Instantly see every in-text citation and whether it matches a reference, and every reference that's not cited.
DOI Verification & Repair
Every reference is checked against Crossref. Missing DOIs are found, wrong ones flagged, and references automatically updated.
Updates You Can Use
Download the original document with updated references, or get just the corrected reference list to send to the authors.
Nothing Leaves the Browser
Authors' work is never uploaded to a server. RefRunner runs entirely in the browser and queries only public databases.