Modern misuse rarely invents whole sources — it invents what they said. Verify Citations checks every citation in an essay against the source itself: does the bibliography match the in-text citations, does the source exist, and does it actually say what the essay claims it says. Facts and questions, never a verdict.
Every citation walks the same ladder — quoted passages first,
then figures, then the essay's characterization of the source.
Four steps from a bibliography you have doubts about to a documented, per-citation comparison — inside the extension you already use, or from any browser.
Fill from the open Google Doc, upload a file, or paste — bibliography included. Every citation is extracted along with the exact claims and quotes the essay attaches to it.
Parsing is free. No citations found → no charge, no report.
Before any searching, the bibliography and in-text citations are matched both directions: sources cited but never referenced, references never cited, and format observations.
You see the citation count and choose before any tokens are spent.
Live web search — journal databases, publisher pages, Google Books — locates each source and compares what the essay says it says against what it actually says, quoting both sides.
2 tokens covers 25 citations; +1 token per additional 25.
Each citation gets a side-by-side card, a plain-language summary, and a suggested question for the student conversation. Factual counts up top — no aggregate score.
Ready in two to four minutes. Cross-match findings are yours even if a search fails.
A fabricated bibliography is rare. A real bibliography attached to invented specifics — a quote the source never contains, a figure it never reports, a conclusion it explicitly disclaims — is what actually shows up on a teacher's desk.
In-text citations matched against the works-cited list, both directions. Sources cited but never referenced. References that never appear in the text. Format sanity, stated as observations.
"Three works-cited entries are never cited in the text."
Does the source exist — and does it say what the essay claims? Quoted passages are searched in the reachable source text; figures are matched exactly; paraphrases are compared against the source's own words, both sides quoted.
"This quoted passage was not found in the source text."
Numbers and claims attributed to sources, sanity-checked for accuracy and plausibility. The most judgment-laden check, so it is phrased only as questions — never as findings.
"This 87% figure is attributed to a single-participant case study — worth asking about."
Every citation gets two factual reads — was the source located, and does it say what the essay claims — with the evidence basis stated on each. Paywalled and print-only sources fail lookup routinely, so the language is built to stay honest about what a search can and can't see.
The source was found and the reachable text supports what the essay attributes to it. The evidence basis is stated — full text, abstract, snippet, or publisher description.
The reachable source text differs from the essay's characterization — both sides quoted so you can judge. A quote not found in fully-reachable source text is the report's strongest finding.
The source sits behind a paywall or in print, so the claim couldn't be compared. Stated as a fact about access — never as suspicion.
Search couldn't find the source. Print-only and regional-database sources fail lookup routinely — which is why this status opens a conversation instead of closing one.
The rule the whole report is written around: "Not located" is a question, not a finding.
Quotes Whitfield: "observation is the engine of all discovery, and the senses its only fuel."
The quoted passage was not found in the source text. Ch. 2 argues the opposite: observation is "always theory-laden, never raw."
Editable header for your records. Factual status counts up top —
no aggregate score, because the citations don't get a grade. The student conversation does.
Like every PaperTrail tool, this is a structured, repeatable data point — not a verdict. Three things to keep in mind before you weigh one.
Paywalled journals, print monographs, and regional databases are routinely unreachable. A legitimate source a student found in the school library can come back "Not located" or "Access limited."
"Consistent with the abstract" is weaker evidence than "quote found on page 43." A paraphrase judged against a publisher's description is weaker still.
A "Notable difference" can be sloppy paraphrase, an honest misreading, a secondary source quoted secondhand — or something worth a longer conversation. The report can't tell you which.
Findings come from live web search with sources quoted — never from AI memory, which confidently confirms plausible fakes.
The essay is transmitted securely for analysis (Anthropic) and is not kept after the report is generated. The finished report stays on your PaperTrail dashboard for up to 90 days.
Reports are cached on your device; the server copy can be cleared after delivery. Nothing is used to train AI models.
Parsing is free. If the search phase fails, your tokens are refunded automatically — you keep the cross-match findings.
Verify Citations runs on PaperTrail Tokens — the same wallet as Verify and Oral Defense. Two tokens covers an essay with up to 25 citations; longer bibliographies add one token per additional 25, and you choose before anything is spent.
A token is $0.60 in the starter pack, less in bigger packs — a full citations check on a typical essay costs about the price of a photocopy run.
Install the extension and run Verify Citations from the PaperTrail panel, or paste an essay into the teacher web app from any browser.