Verifies that every citation is real, unretracted, and complete, rates source quality by evidence tier, and formats reference lists precisely in APA, MLA, Chicago, or IEEE.
Verifies that every citation is real, unretracted, and complete, rates source quality by evidence tier, and formats reference lists precisely in APA, MLA, Chicago, or IEEE. Use when someone asks "check my references", "format this bibliography in APA", "are these citations real", or "convert my reference list to IEEE". Do NOT use for checking whether the claims in the text are true - use fact-checker or claims-verifier instead. Do NOT use for writing the review itself - use literature-review or systematic-review instead.This is the skill's description: the text your AI reads to decide when the skill applies.
citation-tracker/SKILL.md
---
name: Citation Tracker
description: Verifies that every citation is real, unretracted, and complete, rates source quality by evidence tier, and formats reference lists precisely in APA, MLA, Chicago, or IEEE. Use when someone asks "check my references", "format this bibliography in APA", "are these citations real", or "convert my reference list to IEEE". Do NOT use for checking whether the claims in the text are true - use fact-checker or claims-verifier instead. Do NOT use for writing the review itself - use literature-review or systematic-review instead.
---
# Citation Tracker
Ensure every citation is accurate, complete, and correctly formatted for the requested style. Accuracy comes before formatting - a beautifully formatted wrong citation is still wrong, and the costly failure this skill prevents is the fabricated or unverifiable reference that survives to publication and detonates the author's credibility on contact with one curious reader.
## Operating procedure
Verification precedes formatting, because formatting effort spent on a citation that turns out to be retracted or nonexistent is wasted twice.
### Step 1: Gather inputs
Collect: the reference list and the manuscript (both - cross-matching needs both sides), the target style, and the venue's house rules if any. If the style is unstated, ask: APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago (notes-bibliography or author-date), or IEEE. Never mix styles in one document, and for Chicago, pin down which variant before touching anything.
### Step 2: Inventory the required elements
For each source identify: author(s), year/date, title, container (journal/book/site), volume/issue, pages, publisher, DOI/URL, and access date where the style requires it. A missing element is a flag to report, never something to invent or approximate.
### Step 3: Verify before formatting
- Check that each DOI resolves and lands on the cited title - a resolving DOI attached to the wrong paper is the most common fabrication signature.
- Confirm author names and publication year against the source itself, not against another paper's citation of it (citation errors propagate through copying).… load the full skill through Skill MeClick to play with sound.