Verification
Every CitationLab post tagged verification. This topic runs through several posts across the blog — case files where it caused a real problem, and guides for handling it in your own reference list.
Did someone help with your thesis? Two checks before you submit
Supervisors, proofreaders, writing centres, AI tools — help with a thesis is normal and usually sanctioned. The accountability is not shared. Two checks to run on your references before you sign.
The Ref[In] Index — measuring REFerence [IN]tegrity across universities
Every thesis is screened for plagiarism; almost none is checked for whether its references resolve. The Ref[In] Index measures it, one score per institution, published annually from August 2027.
The seven steps of a Ref[In] annotation
Annotation runs as seven stages in a fixed order, on a frozen session, by one worker — and it will not begin until the ledger balances. What each stage produces, and why every constraint was added after something went wrong without it.
We check the references you already had, not just the ones we found
A citation check that only reports what is missing leaves the risky part untouched. Every reference in your bibliography is independently resolved — including the DOI you supplied, which is followed to see what it actually describes.