A reference should help a reader identify and find the work you used. Before adjusting commas, identify what the source actually is: a book, journal article, webpage, report, or something else. Different source types need different information.

The four questions behind a reference

For many APA references, ask: Who created the work? When was it published? What is it called? Where can a reader find it? Those questions correspond broadly to author, date, title, and source.

A simple book example is:

Darwin, C. (1859). On the origin of species. John Murray.

In a formatted APA reference list, the book title is italicized. A plain-text field cannot reliably represent italics or hanging indentation, so a local checker should not pretend it has validated those visual details. Consult the APA Style reference examples for the authoritative format that matches your source.

Dates belong to the work you used

Use the publication information for the version you actually consulted. A website’s footer year is not necessarily the publication date of a specific page. A classic book’s original publication year may differ from the edition you read.

When a date genuinely cannot be found, APA has conventions for missing information, including “n.d.” in appropriate cases. Do not invent a year just to make a checker stop flagging the entry. Review the source and the applicable rule instead.

DraftLens looks for a year or “n.d.” and, in APA mode, a basic parenthesized date. This is a structural prompt. It does not establish whether the date is correct or whether a more specific date is required.

A DOI is an identifier, not a phrase to paraphrase. When a work has an applicable DOI, APA generally presents it as a DOI URL. Our tool can suggest the URL form of an existing doi: string, but it does not look up or verify the identifier.

Check the original source or publisher record. Do not guess a DOI from the title, and do not assume that a syntactically plausible identifier exists. The APA DOI and URL guidance explains when and how these links are included.

Original URLs are never silently changed by DraftLens. A normalization suggestion appears separately for you to review. That matters because punctuation can sometimes be part of a real identifier.

Duplicates and missing elements

An accidental duplicate reference can survive several revisions. Our reviewer compares normalized lines and flags repeated entries. It also checks for basic author-like openings and terminal punctuation. Those rules cannot cover every organization, title-first source, legal reference, translated work, or archival item.

Paste one complete entry per line. If you paste a visually wrapped reference with line breaks, join its lines first. Otherwise the tool may interpret the continuation as a separate entry.

Reference lists and in-text citations work together

A correctly shaped bibliography entry does not show whether the corresponding claim is supported. Check that each cited work is actually relevant, that quotations are accurate, and that in-text citations and reference entries correspond as required by your style guide.

Use automated review as a final sweep for visible inconsistencies, not as a source generator. The citation reviewer can help you notice a missing date or repeated line. It cannot supply missing publication facts, verify every source, or certify full APA compliance.

Put it into practice.

Take a fresh look at your draft with the related local tool.

Open citation review

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