Scholar Sidekick: Citation Verifier for 'Real DOI, Wrong Paper'

Scholar Sidekick - Citations, Clean & Fast

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Format-perfect citations from ADS bibcodeDOI

Paste the link or ID on the front of a paper — a DOI (the doi.org link), PMID (PubMed ID), PMCID (PubMed Central ID), arXiv ID, ADS bibcode (NASA astrophysics), ISBN, ISSN, or eISSN — and get a formatted citation in seconds.

Vancouver, APA, AMA, IEEE, CSE, Chicago, Harvard, or any of 10,000+ CSL (Citation Style Language) styles. Export to BibTeX, RIS, EndNote, CSL JSON, and more — ready to copy or drop straight into Zotero, EndNote, or Mendeley.

Format a citation ↓

Or pick a focused job: verify a citation · check open access · check for retraction · see all 10 free tools →

How it works

1

Paste

Drop in a DOI, PMID, PMCID, arXiv ID, ADS bibcode, ISBN, ISSN, or a link to a paper.

2

Pick a style

Vancouver, APA, AMA, IEEE, CSE, or any of 10,000+ CSL styles.

3

Copy or export

Copy the formatted citation, or export to BibTeX, RIS, EndNote, or CSL JSON for Zotero, Mendeley, EndNote, and more.

10,000+ citation styles · 9 export formats · 8 identifier types

For developers and AI agents

Scholar Sidekick is also a public REST API and an open-source MCP (Model Context Protocol) server. Build it into your reference manager, your editorial pipeline, or your AI agent — no key required for light use.

curl -X POST \ https://scholar-sidekick.com/api/format \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"text":"10.1038/nphys1170","style":"vancouver"}'

API docs · OpenAPI spec · Postman collection · MCP server · CLI

MCP lets Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor call Scholar Sidekick directly. The scholar CLI (npm i -g scholar-sidekick-cli) brings the same tools to your terminal and shell scripts.

Frequently asked questions

Which identifiers can I paste into Scholar Sidekick?A DOI, PMID (PubMed ID), PMCID (PubMed Central ID), arXiv ID, ADS bibcode, ISBN, ISSN, or eISSN. You can also paste a link to a paper and Scholar Sidekick detects the identifier automatically.

Which citation styles are supported?Vancouver, APA, AMA, IEEE, and CSE are built in, plus any of 10,000+ Citation Style Language (CSL) styles, including Chicago, Harvard, MLA, Nature, BMJ, and Lancet.

What formats can I export to?Scholar Sidekick exports to nine formats, including BibTeX, RIS, EndNote XML, CSL JSON, and CSV — ready to copy or import into Zotero, Mendeley, or EndNote.

Is Scholar Sidekick free?Yes. The web tools are free to use with no account, with rate limits for fair use. The public REST API and MCP server are free for light use too; for a monthly quota and higher limits, a free RapidAPI key (the BASIC tier) is available.

Does Scholar Sidekick have an API or AI integration?Yes. Scholar Sidekick is also a public REST API and an open-source MCP (Model Context Protocol) server, so tools like Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor can call it directly, and you can build it into a reference manager, editorial pipeline, or AI agent.

Can it check retractions and open access, or verify a citation?Yes. Dedicated tools check retraction status (via Retraction Watch and Crossref), open-access availability (via Unpaywall), and whether a citation is real by cross-checking a claimed title against the paper at its identifier to catch fabricated references.

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