APA format checker

Paste your APA reference list. The APA format checker points out the APA 7 mistakes markers look for (author names, year, title case, DOI, page ranges) and, at the same time, looks every reference up in CrossRef and OpenAlex to make sure it exists and that the year and authors are right.

Example result

2 found0 to check1 not found3 format notes

1Found
LeCun, Y., Bengio, Y., & Hinton, G. (2015). Deep learning. Nature, 521(7553), 436–444. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14539
CrossRef record LeCun, Bengio, Hinton (2015). Deep learning. Nature. doi.org/10.1038/nature14539
No APA 7 format problems spotted.
✓
2Found
Bandura, A. (1977). Self-Efficacy: Toward A Unifying Theory Of Behavioral Change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191-215.
CrossRef record Bandura (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review. doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.84.2.191
APA 7 format
- Use sentence case for the title: capitalize only the first word, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns.
- Use an en dash (–) in page ranges, not a hyphen.
- This work has a DOI. APA 7 asks you to add it: https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295x.84.2.191
3Not found
Smith, J. A., & Carter, L. M. (2021). Adaptive neural scaffolding for cross-lingual sentiment transfer in low-resource classrooms. Journal of Educational Data Science, 14(3), 211–229. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeds.2021.04.012
The DOI 10.1016/j.jeds.2021.04.012 is not registered.
No paper, book or report with this title in CrossRef or OpenAlex (over 250 million records). AI tools often invent references like this. It can also be a thesis, a very new preprint or a source these databases do not cover.
No APA 7 format problems spotted.

What the APA format checker looks at

Authors: Last name, initials (Smith, J. A.); “&” before the last author; no “et al.” in the reference list (APA 7 names up to 20 authors).
Date: the year in parentheses straight after the authors, followed by a period, such as (2021).
Title: sentence case for article and book titles: only the first word, the first word after a colon and proper nouns get capitals.
DOI: written as https://doi.org/…, not “doi:” or dx.doi.org, with no “Retrieved from”. If CrossRef has a DOI for a work you cite without one, you get the link to add.
Pages: an en dash in page ranges (191–215) and no “pp.” for journal articles.
Existence: each reference is matched against publisher records, so wrong years, wrong first authors and invented references show up too.

APA 7 reference examples

Journal articleAuthor, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of the article in sentence case. Journal Name, 12(3), 45–67. https://doi.org/10.xxxx/xxxxx

BookAuthor, A. A. (Year). Title of the book in sentence case (2nd ed.). Publisher.

Chapter in an edited bookAuthor, A. A. (Year). Title of the chapter. In E. E. Editor (Ed.), Title of the book (pp. 10–25). Publisher.

Web pageAuthor or Organization. (Year, Month Day). Title of the page. Site Name. https://example.com/page

Note the one place APA keeps “pp.”: page ranges of a chapter inside an edited book.

Common APA reference mistakes

Title Case Article Titles. Reference managers often copy the journal's capitalization. APA wants sentence case for the article title and title case only for the journal name.
“et al.” in the list. That belongs in in-text citations with three or more authors, not in the reference entry.
Missing DOIs. APA 7 asks for a DOI whenever one exists. This checker finds it for you.
A year that doesn't match. Online-first and print years differ by one; anything more is usually a copy error.
References that don't exist. If an AI tool helped with the draft, check every reference it supplied.

FAQ

Is this APA format checker free?

Yes. Up to 25 references per check, no account. The same check also tells you whether each reference exists.

Which edition of APA does it check?

APA 7, published in 2019 and required by most universities since 2020. The main changes from APA 6 are listing up to 20 authors, dropping the publisher location and writing DOIs as https://doi.org/ links.

Can it check italics and hanging indents?

No. Pasted text loses italics and indents, so check those in your document. Journal names and volume numbers are italic in APA; book titles are italic; article titles are not.

Does it fix my references automatically?

It tells you what to change and shows the matching record from CrossRef or OpenAlex, including the DOI, so you can copy the correct details. It doesn't rewrite the list for you.

Will it work for MLA or Chicago?

The existence check works for any style. The format notes on this page are APA 7; for MLA 9 use the MLA format checker on this site.