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CiteTools

For Librarians

Give students a free citation generator on your library site. They paste a source and get a checked, formatted reference. Copy one line of code to add it.

What it does for a student

  • A student pastes a DOI, a link, an ISBN, a PubMed ID or a whole reference. A pasted list works too.
  • Each source is checked against its published record and formatted in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE, Vancouver, AMA, ACS, CSE, ASA, APSA, and OSCOLA.
  • The student copies the list with its italics, or saves it as a file. There is no sign-up and no paywall.

How the check decides

A source counts as confirmed only when a published record matches it. A record that differs from what the student pasted is shown as a correction.

A reference that no registry holds is marked Not confirmed. That does not say the reference is wrong.

The methodology page gives the full rules.

What is sent to a server

A student's list is stored only in the student's browser. Adding a source sends it to CiteTools.io to look it up.

The list is sent again to format or export it, and CiteTools.io keeps no list and no account. Server memory may hold a lookup result for up to 24 hours, as the privacy page says.

Usage counts name an action, such as a copy, and never the text pasted.

The embedded converter counts the same actions as the converter, never the text and never the address of the page that frames it.

The privacy policy lists every service a lookup may reach.

Put it on your site

Paste this where the converter should appear. It works on any page that allows an iframe.

<iframe src="https://citetools.io/embed/converter" title="Citation generator by CiteTools.io" width="100%" height="640" loading="lazy" allow="clipboard-write" referrerpolicy="no-referrer"></iframe>

  • The converter fills its frame. Set the height your page can spare, and 640 pixels suits most pages.
  • Keep allow="clipboard-write". Without it Chrome refuses Copy in a frame from another site.
  • Keep referrerpolicy="no-referrer". It stops the browser from telling CiteTools.io which page frames the converter.
  • A browser may block or clear what a frame stores. The converter then says so, and the student can save the list as a file.
  • Limits count requests from one network address. A whole class adding sources at once on one network can reach the limit.
  • The converter then asks the student to wait one minute and try again.
  • Only this one page can be framed by other sites. Every other page of CiteTools.io refuses frames.
  • The code adds no script to your page.

See it first: the embedded converter opens in a new tab.

Reach a person

Questions, a style you need, or a program that wants more than an embed: send us a message. Use the contact page.

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