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Free Academic Citation Generator

Search 250M+ academic works by title, DOI, ISBN, URL, PMID, or author name and generate a ready-to-use citation from verified scholarly metadata. Free, no account required, supports APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, Vancouver, IEEE, ABNT, and 40+ curated styles.

No signup · No credit card · Works in your browser

How it works

1

Step 1

Type your topic or query

Enter a research topic, author name, or keywords. CiteMe searches 250M+ works across OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar, PubMed, and more.

2

Step 2

Choose your style

Select from 60+ citation styles including APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, ABNT, IEEE, and Vancouver.

3

Step 3

Copy your citation

Get a formatted reference and in-text citation ready to paste into your paper. Export to BibTeX or RIS.

By CiteMe Editorial Team·

When to use topic search vs. identifier lookup

Identifier lookup (DOI, ISBN, PMID) is faster and more accurate because the metadata comes directly from the registration registry. Use topic search when you do not yet have an identifier — for example, when citing a paper you heard about in a lecture, a book you saw on a shelf, or a paper that predates the DOI era. Topic search in CiteMe queries 250M+ works across OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar, CrossRef, PubMed, and arXiv.

How CiteMe avoids hallucinated citations

AI-only citation tools are prone to hallucination — generating citations for papers that do not exist, inventing DOIs, or misattributing authors. This is especially common with obscure sources, non-English papers, and pre-print repositories. CiteMe avoids hallucination by only returning citations for works found in real scholarly databases. If a paper cannot be located, the tool surfaces the gap instead of inventing a reference. This makes CiteMe a safer choice when your course prohibits AI citation tools, or when accuracy is critical (theses, journal submissions, legal or medical work).

Verified metadata sources

CiteMe aggregates metadata from OpenAlex (250M+ scholarly works), CrossRef (the DOI registration agency, covering most published articles), Semantic Scholar (AI-enriched paper records), PubMed (biomedical literature), Google Books (books and chapters), arXiv (pre-prints in physics, math, and CS), bioRxiv (life-sciences pre-prints), Unpaywall (open-access versions), and OpenCitations. Each query uses the best source for the source type — journal articles resolve through CrossRef, medical papers through PubMed, books through Google Books and ISBN registries.

Supported citation styles

Need it in a specific citation style?

Format the result in the style your paper requires — APA, MLA, Harvard, Vancouver, Chicago, or IEEE.

More ways to look up sources

This tool in other languages

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Frequently asked questions

What can I search with this free citation generator?
Paste a DOI (e.g., 10.1038/s41586-024-00001-2), an ISBN (10 or 13 digit), a PMID, a doi.org URL, or a publisher article URL — or search by paper title, author name, or keywords. CiteMe looks up verified metadata first across OpenAlex, CrossRef, Semantic Scholar, PubMed, and Google Books, then formats the citation in your chosen style. No account is required to generate citations.
Does CiteMe generate citations from real sources or AI guesses?
Every citation comes from a verified scholarly database — CrossRef, OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar, PubMed, Google Books, arXiv, or Unpaywall depending on the source type. CiteMe never invents metadata or hallucinates DOIs. If a paper cannot be found in any database, the tool tells you rather than fabricating a reference. This makes CiteMe safer than AI-only citation tools for academic work where accuracy matters.
Which citation styles does this citation generator support?
The generator supports APA 7th edition, MLA 9th edition, Chicago 17th edition (author-date and notes-bibliography), Harvard (Cite Them Right), Vancouver (ICMJE), IEEE, ABNT NBR 6023, AMA, Turabian, OSCOLA, MHRA, ACS, ASA, AIP, APSA, Bluebook, CSE, Nature, and 40+ additional curated styles. Over 10,000 further CSL styles (journal-specific formats) are available on demand for niche publications.
Can I export the citation after generating it?
Yes. Copy the formatted citation directly, export BibTeX for LaTeX / Overleaf, or RIS for reference managers. If you already have a DOI, the DOI to Citation tool is a faster route. To verify references before submission, use the Reference Checker.
How is this different from ZoteroBib, MyBib, or Scribbr?
ZoteroBib is excellent for generating citations from an identifier you already have (DOI, ISBN, PMID) but does not support topic search. MyBib and Scribbr rely primarily on web scraping, which can miss metadata on paywalled journal pages, non-English sources, and malformed publisher URLs. CiteMe queries real scholarly APIs first and falls back to structured page metadata only when needed — this reduces errors on difficult sources like pre-prints, conference proceedings, and theses.
Can I search by paper title if I do not have a DOI?
Yes. Topic search is the fastest way to cite a paper when you only know the title. Type the paper title (or a unique phrase from the abstract) and CiteMe searches OpenAlex and Semantic Scholar, ranks results by relevance, and lets you pick the correct match. This is especially useful for pre-prints, older articles, and book chapters that may not have easily-searchable DOIs.
Does the citation generator work for medical articles from PubMed?
Yes. Paste a PMID (e.g., 38123456), a PMC ID (e.g., PMC4031825), or a PubMed URL and CiteMe pulls the biomedical metadata and formats it in Vancouver, AMA, Harvard, or APA. For biomedical-specific workflows, the dedicated Vancouver PubMed generator and PMID-to-citation tool are optimized for medical and nursing students.

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Every reference verified against real academic databases.