Cite
Cite turns a link, DOI, ISBN or title into a formatted citation, and can find sources for something you have written. Open it from Cite in the sidebar.
01Two modes
Choose a mode in the Cite header before you paste anything.
- Link. Paste a link, identifier or title and get its citation in the format you pick. Every source you cite collects in a list below. The direct address is
researchanything.ai/cite?mode=link. - Paper. Paste your writing, and an agent finds sources for its claims.
Cite does not use your monthly research runs.
02Cite a link
Paste any of these into the box and press Enter:
- the address of a web page,
- a DOI, such as
10.1038/nature12373, - an ISBN, such as
978-0-262-03384-8, - an arXiv link or ID, or a PubMed ID,
- the title of a work, or a few words of it.
Choose Enter details instead to type a citation in by hand.
Where the details come from
Each kind of input goes to the record that is authoritative for it:
| Input | Looked up in |
|---|---|
| DOI | Crossref, then doi.org, which also covers DataCite records such as Zenodo and figshare. |
| ISBN | Open Library, then Google Books. |
| arXiv | The arXiv API. |
| PubMed ID | PubMed, upgraded to the Crossref record when the paper has a DOI. |
| Web page | The page itself: its citation tags and other structured data. If the page declares a DOI, the DOI's record is used. If the site refuses automated readers, the Internet Archive's copy is read. |
| Title | Crossref's search. You get a few possible matches under "Which one do you mean?" and choose one. |
A web page that cannot be read still gives you its address, so you can finish the citation by hand. No AI model is involved in Link mode: the lookup is plain code, and the formatting happens in your browser, so switching formats is instant and needs no second lookup.
The citation
The result shows the reference in the chosen format, with:
- In text, the in-text form for that style. Click it to copy.
- Copy citation, which copies the reference with its formatting.
- Edit details, to correct any field or change the type of work: journal article, book, book chapter, web page, news article, conference paper, report, thesis or preprint.
- A note when something the style needs is missing, such as the author, year or journal, with a link to add it.
- Save to list, to add it to your list below.
Titles are printed as entered. Cite does not change their capitalisation, because it cannot tell a proper noun from a common one.
Formats
Pick a format from the menu. There are 19 citation styles and 3 data formats.
| Group | Formats |
|---|---|
| Most used | APA (7th edition), MLA (9th edition), Chicago (17th, notes and bibliography), Harvard |
| Author–date | APA (6th edition), Chicago (17th, author–date), ASA, APSA, CSE (name–year) |
| Numbered | IEEE, Vancouver, AMA (11th edition), ACS, Nature, ACM, CSE (citation–sequence) |
| Humanities and law | MHRA (4th edition), OSCOLA, Bluebook |
| Data | BibTeX, RIS, CSL-JSON |
Paste a whole list
Paste several lines at once, such as a reading list, a column of DOIs or the links from a document, and each line is looked up on its own. Numbering and bullets are stripped, blank lines and repeats are skipped, and up to 50 lines are taken from one paste.
Each line reports what happened: added, already in your list, several matches to choose from, or not found. For a line that was not found, you can retry it or enter the details by hand. You can stop an import part way.
Your list
Saved citations collect in Your list, shown in the current format. Numbered styles and data formats keep the order you added entries in; the other styles sort alphabetically. From the list you can:
- copy one entry, or its in-text form,
- edit an entry, open its source, or remove it,
- Copy all, in the current format,
- Export a file: BibTeX (.bib) for LaTeX and Overleaf, RIS (.ris) for EndNote, Zotero and Mendeley, or CSL-JSON (.json) for Zotero and pandoc,
- Clear the list.
03Find sources for your writing
In Paper mode, paste your text and choose Next. Cite takes up to 12,000 words at a time. You can also send a project document here with Open in Cite; its text is filled in and waits for you to choose Next.
Cite then works in three stages, shown in the header:
- Reading for structure. It groups your sentences into blocks, one claim or idea each.
- Finding sources. For each block it searches the academic databases or the web and attaches the source that supports it, with a line on how. If nothing supports a block, it says so rather than attach a weak source.
- Marking up. It adds a few labels, broad categories such as "Main idea", "Evidence" or "Needs support", listed in a key, and a small number of notes on specific wording, such as a claim stronger than its source.
The header counts how many blocks are cited. The rail on the right shows what Cite is doing as it works. Click a label in the key to highlight every block that carries it.
When it is done
- Ask for changes in the rail: a better source for a block, a citation removed, more notes. Cite makes the change rather than describe it.
- Bibliography lists every cited source once, in APA, MLA, Chicago or Harvard, with Copy all.
- Add to project files the Cite run in a project. This is optional; it is saved either way.
- New starts again with a fresh paste.