# CiteLedger

> A free, static reference-verification and academic source finder tool. Paste a
> bibliography or an entire manuscript draft; it checks each entry against Crossref
> and OpenAlex, reconciles in-text markers with the reference list, and exports an
> archivable evidence report. Parsing, scoring, and report generation all run
> client-side in the browser. No account, no upload, no credits, no AI model in the verdict.

Canonical URL: https://darkgray-goldfish-556917.hostingersite.com/
Launch language: English (Phase 1 deployment; domain placeholder for production release).

## Pages

- [Citation Checker](https://darkgray-goldfish-556917.hostingersite.com/) — Free reference checker verifying APA, MLA, and DOIs against Crossref.
- [Interactive Studio](https://darkgray-goldfish-556917.hostingersite.com/app/) — Full citation workspace with real-time metadata reconciliation.
- [Academic Source Finder](https://darkgray-goldfish-556917.hostingersite.com/source-finder/) — Paste a claim or draft sentence; retrieve peer-reviewed papers with persistent DOIs across 250M+ OpenAlex records.
- [APA Citation Checker](https://darkgray-goldfish-556917.hostingersite.com/apa-citation-checker/) — Audit APA 7th in-text citations, et al. rules, and reference lists.
- [MLA Format Checker](https://darkgray-goldfish-556917.hostingersite.com/mla-format-checker/) — Validate MLA 9th core container elements and Works Cited pages.
- [DOI Checker](https://darkgray-goldfish-556917.hostingersite.com/doi-checker/) — Resolve DOIs against Crossref; detect fabricated Chimera DOIs.
- [Citation Corrector](https://darkgray-goldfish-556917.hostingersite.com/citation-corrector/) — Automatically repair missing italics, punctuation, and author inversion.
- [Scribbr Alternative](https://darkgray-goldfish-556917.hostingersite.com/alternatives/scribbr/) — Free client-side alternative with no file uploads and no paywalls.
- [Methodology](https://darkgray-goldfish-556917.hostingersite.com/methodology/) — Exact deterministic scoring formula, Levenshtein distance, author vectors, and API limits.
- [Pricing](https://darkgray-goldfish-556917.hostingersite.com/pricing/) — Permanent $0 policy, zero tokens, zero paywalls.
- [FAQ](https://darkgray-goldfish-556917.hostingersite.com/faq/) — Comprehensive answers on fake citation detection, privacy, and databases.
- [About](https://darkgray-goldfish-556917.hostingersite.com/about/) — Editorial mission, privacy architecture, and limits of automated verification.

## What it is

- Reference / citation metadata verification for bibliographies produced by
  AI assistants (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, and similar).
- Three verdicts: `Verified`, `Mismatch`, `Not found`, each with a specific
  written reason, the matched bibliographic record, its DOI, the source index,
  and the score.
- Whole-manuscript reconciliation: flags references never cited in text (ghost
  references) and in-text markers with no entry in the bibliography (orphaned
  citations).
- Academic Source Finder: queries 250M+ OpenAlex records to locate peer-reviewed
  works matching user research claims.

## What it is NOT

- Not a plagiarism checker.
- Not an AI-generated text detector.
- Not a citation generator.
- Not a general search engine.
- Not a judge of scientific correctness.

## Method & Scoring Formula

Five steps:
1. Parse references and normalize titles, authors, years, DOIs.
2. Query Crossref REST API and OpenAlex public API.
3. Compute field scores:
   - Title token similarity (Levenshtein + bag-of-words): 70 points
   - Publication year match (+/- 1 year grace): 15 points
   - Author family name vector overlap: 10 points
   - Journal container name token overlap: 5 points
4. Thresholds:
   - Score >= 75: `Verified`
   - 35 <= Score < 75: `Mismatch` (potential Chimera DOI)
   - Score < 35: `Not found`
5. Reconcile in-text citation markers against bibliography list.

## Data Sources

- Crossref: 150M+ registered DOIs via polite REST API.
- OpenAlex: 250M+ scholarly works and citation graph.