Paste a DOI and fetch its official Crossref metadata: title, authors, journal, year. Free, no sign-up.
What this tool does
Reference details copied from PDFs are often wrong in small ways: a missing middle initial, a journal name abbreviated two ways, a year off by one. Crossref is the registry publishers deposit into, so its record is the reference point. Paste a DOI and this tool fetches the Crossref record — title, authors, container title, published year and DOI — and shows it beside nothing else, so you can correct your own entry line by line.
Why it matters
Good citations do quiet work. They let a reader find every source you used, they show that your argument rests on real evidence rather than memory, and they protect you: a clean reference list is much harder to challenge than a vague one. Most marks lost on referencing are not lost on difficult sources. They are lost on small, repeated slips — a missing year, a swapped initial, a title in the wrong case — that a quick tool pass catches before submission.
How to use it
- Paste a DOI.
- Click Fetch Crossref metadata.
- Compare the record with your reference.
Worked example
DOI 10.1038/nature12345 returns its Crossref title, author list, journal and year in one block. If your reference says 2013 and Crossref says 2014, Crossref is almost certainly right — fix yours.
Tips for good results
When Crossref and the PDF disagree, trust Crossref for the year and volume, but read the PDF for the actual title wording.
Work from the source itself, not from another paper’s copy of it. And keep one style for the whole list: a single mixed entry undermines an otherwise perfect bibliography.
Honest limits
Crossref records reflect what publishers deposited; some older or smaller-publisher records are sparse or contain publisher errors. The tool needs Crossref reachable from your browser, and it does not rewrite your bibliography — you apply the corrections.
Common mistakes to avoid
Common mistakes to avoid: copying a reference from another paper without checking it against the original, trusting a PDF filename for the title or year, and mixing two styles in one list. Each of these looks harmless alone and careless together. Run the tool, read its output once, and compare it with the source itself before you paste it into your document.
Before you submit
Run through this short check before you submit: is every author name spelled as it appears on the source, is every year present and correct, and does every in-text citation have a matching entry in your reference list? Read the list once from top to bottom rather than skimming it. Most referencing errors are found in that single slow read, and fixing them there is far cheaper than fixing them after a reviewer finds them. If one entry still looks odd after that read, check it against the original source before you change anything else.
Frequently asked questions
Is this tool really free?
Yes. It runs in your browser on this page, with no account and no payment. For live lookups, your query goes to the public API named in the tool; nothing else is sent anywhere.
Do I still need to check the result?
Yes, once. Tools apply rules; they cannot verify facts about your source. Compare the output with the source itself before submitting.
Can I use the output in my paper?
Yes. The output is a formatted reference or analysis for your own work. Keep the source’s facts accurate and the formatting consistent across your list.
What if the tool’s output differs from my style guide?
Trust the style guide. Tools encode the common rules of a style; your university or journal’s own sheet wins every disagreement. Use the tool to do the routine work, then apply the local rule where it differs.
Also available in Spanish: Comparador de Metadatos Crossref – Asocia DOI con Título, Autores y Revista Gratis.