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Free Academic Citation Generator

Search 250M+ academic works by title, DOI, ISBN, URL, PMID, or author name and format a source record as a ready-to-use citation. Free, no account required, with 60 curated styles.

No signup · No credit card · Works in your browser

What to do next

Check ReferencesReformat BibliographyExtract from PDF

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 can invent papers, DOIs, or author details. CiteMe searches source records first and exposes the source behind each matched result. When only generated fallback or incomplete webpage metadata is available, the result is visibly marked for manual review instead of receiving a record-found status.

Current metadata sources

Depending on the identifier and document type, CiteMe can consult OpenAlex, Semantic Scholar, PubMed, BASE, Europe PMC, HAL, arXiv, Google Books, Open Library, BDTD, CrossRef. The result names only provenance recorded for that item; source availability and request budgets mean not every service runs for every query.

Supported citation styles

APAMLAChicagoHarvardIEEEVancouverABNTAMAASABluebookCSEOSCOLATurabianACSMHRAAPA 6thNaturePLOSScienceCellLancetAIPRSCAPSAAAAAGLCMcGillNP 405ISO 690ISO 690 (DE)ISO 690 (FR)ISO 690 (ES)Chicago NotesABNT Numérico

Need it in a specific citation style?

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

APA Citation Generator

Author-date format for psychology, social sciences, and education.

MLA Citation Generator

Works Cited format for humanities and literature.

Harvard Referencing Generator

Author-date common in UK and Australian universities.

Vancouver Citation Generator

Numbered references for medicine and biomedical research.

Chicago Citation Generator

Notes-bibliography or author-date for history and the arts.

IEEE Citation Generator

Bracketed numbers for engineering and computer science.

More ways to look up sources

DOI lookupISBN lookupExtract from URLPubMed / PMIDBuild a bibliographyCheck one citationVerify your bibliography

This tool in other languages

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Reference Checker

Verify your bibliography against academic databases

Citation Formatter

Paste a reference in any style, get it reformatted

PDF to BibTeX

Extract references from a PDF and export as BibTeX

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 for a source record first, shows its provenance, and then formats the returned metadata in your chosen style. No account is required.
Does CiteMe generate citations from real sources or AI guesses?
CiteMe searches scholarly indexes and identifier registries before formatting a citation. Results name the recorded metadata source; generated fallback, webpage metadata, and incomplete records are marked as needing review. DOI presence is shown separately from record existence.
Which citation styles does this citation generator support?
The generator supports 60 curated styles, including 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, and Nature. 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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