Citation Checker vs. Citation Generator

When you search for “APA citation tool,” most results are citation generators—tools that create new citations from a DOI, URL, or ISBN. But if your paper is already written and you need to verify that your existing citations are formatted correctly, what you need is a citation checker. These are fundamentally different tools that serve different purposes.

What Is a Citation Generator?

A citation generator takes information about a source (title, author, publication date, etc.) and formats it into a properly structured citation. You input the details, and it outputs a formatted reference entry or in-text citation.

Popular citation generators include Scribbr, QuillBot, Citation Machine, BibMe, and Zotero. They’re most useful when you’re building your reference list from scratch while writing.

What generators do well:

• Create properly formatted reference entries from source information
• Support multiple citation styles (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.)
• Auto-fill details from DOIs and URLs

What generators don’t do:

• Check if your existing in-text citations are formatted correctly
• Verify that et al. usage follows the rules for the number of authors
• Confirm that ampersand vs. “and” is used correctly
• Cross-reference your in-text citations against your reference list
• Check the formatting of citations you’ve already typed

What Is a Citation Checker?

A citation checker reviews what you’ve already written and identifies errors. It reads through your document, finds existing citations, and flags formatting issues with specific recommendations for correction.

Citation checkers are most useful after your paper is drafted, during the revision and proofreading stage. They catch the kinds of errors that are easy to make and hard to spot manually: a missing comma, an italicized “et al.,” an orphaned reference that isn’t cited anywhere in the text.

What checkers do well:

• Scan your completed document for formatting errors
• Check in-text citation formatting rules (et al., commas, ampersands)
• Cross-reference citations against the reference list
• Identify issues at their exact location in the document

Why You Probably Need Both

The most effective workflow uses a citation generator while writing (to create properly formatted references as you add sources) and a citation checker before submission (to catch any formatting errors introduced during revision). Many errors creep in when you rearrange paragraphs, add new sources late in the process, or delete sections that contained certain citations.

Where CiteLogos Fits

CiteLogos is a citation checker. It does not generate new citations—instead, it validates the citations you’ve already written. It works inside Microsoft Word, scanning your document and placing comments at each error location with specific guidance on how to fix the issue.

This makes it complementary to citation generators. Use Scribbr or Zotero to create your references, then run CiteLogos to catch any formatting issues before you submit.