Academic Citation & Reference Auditor

📝 Prompt Overview

Tired of losing marks for citation errors? This Academic Citation & Reference Auditor acts as your personal, meticulous editor. Simply paste your academic paper, select a citation style like APA or MLA, and receive a comprehensive audit. The prompt cross-references your in-text citations with your reference list, checks for formatting accuracy, and even flags potential issues with source credibility. It's the fastest way to polish your work and ensure it meets the highest academic standards before submission.

🎓 Academic & Educational Benefits

This prompt is a powerful learning accelerator. By instantly identifying and explaining citation errors, it actively teaches you the nuances of academic formatting, helping you improve with each use. It significantly reduces the time spent on tedious, manual proofreading, freeing up valuable hours to focus on the quality of your research and arguments. Using this tool helps build habits of academic integrity, reduces the risk of accidental plagiarism, and ultimately leads to higher-quality submissions and better grades.

🎯 Who Should Use This Prompt

• University & College Students: For ensuring essays, term papers, and assignments are correctly formatted.
• PhD Candidates & Researchers: For preparing dissertations and theses for examination.
• Academic Scholars & Professors: For drafting and submitting articles to peer-reviewed journals.
• Journal Editors & Peer Reviewers: For conducting preliminary checks on manuscript submissions.
• Professional Research Writers: For maintaining consistency and accuracy across client projects.

🚀 Ideal Use Cases

• Finalizing a Thesis: Perform a last-minute check to catch any citation inconsistencies before final submission.
• Preparing for Publication: Ensure your manuscript adheres strictly to a journal's required citation style.
• Improving Grades: Avoid losing easy marks by submitting a paper with flawless referencing.
• Streamlining Editing: Quickly identify and list all citation-related errors in a document for efficient correction.

✍️ Sample Output Snippet

Audit Report for: The Impact of Remote Work on Urban Development
Citation Style: APA 7th Edition

1. In-Text vs. Reference List Consistency:

• Missing from Reference List: The in-text citation "(Davis, 2021)" appears in the text but has no corresponding entry in the reference list.
• Missing from Text: The reference list entry for "Chen, L. (2019)..." does not appear to be cited anywhere in the body of the article.

2. Formatting Accuracy:

• In-Text Error: The citation "(Smith and Jones, 2020)" should use an ampersand: "(Smith & Jones, 2020)".
• Reference List Error: The entry for "Miller, P. (2022). The new office..." is missing the italics for the journal title, Journal of Urban Studies.

3. URL/DOI Accessibility:

• Broken Link: The URL provided for the source "Williams (2018)" (http://example.com/study-data) appears to be a dead link, returning a 404 error.

💡 Tips for Best Results

• Include Everything: For the most accurate consistency check, ensure the ARTICLE_TEXT variable contains your entire paper, including the title page, abstract, body, and the complete reference list.
• Be Specific with Style: Don't just write "APA." Specify the version, like "APA 7th Edition," as rules can change between editions.
• Audit in Sections: For extremely long documents like a full dissertation, you can audit chapter by chapter to get more manageable reports. Just be sure to include the full reference list each time.
• Use the Report as a Guide: The AI provides a powerful checklist. Use its findings to guide your manual corrections, but always double-check against your institution's specific formatting guidelines.