DiFlowRin Research Bibliography Checker
Free WordPress plugin
Add one block to a page. Students paste their bibliography and see, within seconds, which sources exist, which have wrong details and which could not be found. No accounts, nothing stored on your site.
AI tools write references with real-sounding titles, journals and authors for papers that were never published. Checking each one by hand means searching several databases per source. This plugin puts that search on your own site, in a form anyone can use.
This is the plugin itself, running on this page. Paste a few references and click Check references.
Paste your bibliography below to check that each source exists and that its details are right. “Not confirmed” does not mean a source is fake: older books, local publications, theses and reports are often missing from the databases. Check those by hand with the links shown next to each result.
Free, no account. The check runs in your browser against public academic databases; your references are not saved on this site.
Install the plugin, then add the Bibliography checker block to any page, or paste the [diflowrin_bibliography_checker] shortcode into a classic page or a text widget.
Up to 100 at a time, in any common citation style, or as BibTeX and RIS exports from a reference manager.
Each reference is matched by DOI, ISBN, arXiv or PubMed ID, then by title, authors and year, in Crossref, OpenAlex, DataCite, PubMed, Open Library and Semantic Scholar.
With the record found and links to check by hand. Visitors can download the results as a text report or a CSV table, for example to send to a supervisor.
Found in a database, and the details match.
The work exists, but the year, authors, title, journal or DOI differ from the record. Both values are shown side by side and, when the authors match, a corrected reference to copy in APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE, Vancouver or ISO 690.
No good match in the databases. Links to Google Scholar, WorldCat and, if you set one, your own library catalog help visitors check by hand.
A report, policy, news article or blog post, which academic databases do not list. The plugin asks the Internet Archive whether the page was saved.
"Not confirmed" never means "fake". Older books, local publications, theses and reports are often missing from the databases, and the form says so next to every such result.
The check runs in each visitor's own browser, which talks directly to the public databases. Your server only delivers the page.
Under Settings → Bibliography Checker you can set:
It uses the same checking engine as the Fake Citation Detector browser extension.
0
real references marked "not confirmed"
120of 120
invented references caught
55of 55
references with a changed year, journal or author flagged
Tested in October 2026 on about 400 references in seven citation styles. Real bibliographies are messier, especially for older and local sources, so treat the result as a first pass, not a verdict.
In WordPress, go to Plugins → Add New, search for DiFlowRin Bibliography Checker, then install and activate it.
Add the Bibliography checker block, or paste [diflowrin_bibliography_checker] into a Shortcode block, a classic page or a text widget.
Review Settings → Bibliography Checker: introduction, citation style and library catalog link.
Downloads from WordPress.org
150
Daily downloads read live from the WordPress.org plugin API, over the last 30 days it returns. The plugin has been in the directory since 28 October 2026.
From the same author
Fake Citation Detector is the free Chrome and Edge extension with the same checking engine, plus right-click checks and checking the sources of any article you read. For checking whether a source actually supports a claim, there is DiFlowRin Research.
No. It means none of the databases searched had a good match. Many real sources are missing from them: old books, local and non-English publications, theses, reports, standards and web pages. The form says so next to every such result and offers links to check by hand.
It uses the same checking engine as the Fake Citation Detector browser extension. On about 400 test references in October 2026, no real reference was marked Not confirmed, all 120 invented references were caught, and all 55 references with a changed detail were flagged as having wrong details. Real bibliographies are messier, so treat the result as a first pass, not a verdict.
No. The visitor's browser talks directly to the public databases. Nothing goes to your server, unless you turn on the optional page proxy, which only receives the addresses of cited web pages, and nothing goes to the plugin author.
The script and stylesheet load only on pages that contain the checker, and the script is deferred. Pages without the checker load nothing from this plugin.
The form uses your theme's fonts and text colors, and the button follows your theme's primary color when it defines one. You can also set it with custom CSS, for example .bibc { --bibc-accent: #0a5c36; }.
Yes. All texts can be translated through translate.wordpress.org or with a translation plugin such as Loco Translate. The interface follows your site's language.
The databases are free public services. Checking at most 100 references at a time, a few at once, with short pauses, keeps the tool within their fair-use rules.