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For Students

Your professor expects real sources. AI-generated references can look convincing — but up to 40% don't actually exist. The Source Taster helps you check every citation before you submit.

Quick Start

  1. Install the extensionChrome Web Store (also works on Edge, Brave, Opera)
  2. Open the side panel — Click the Source Taster icon in your browser toolbar
  3. Paste your references — Copy a bibliography or individual citations and paste them in
  4. Review the results — Green = verified, yellow = uncertain, red = likely hallucinated

How It Fits Into Your Workflow

Writing in Word, Google Docs, or Overleaf

  1. Add citations to your document as usual
  2. When you have a bibliography, select it and right-click → "Check bibliography"
  3. The extension extracts each reference, searches 5 academic databases, and shows you which ones are real

Checking a Single Suspicious Reference

Found a citation that looks off? Paste it directly into the extension:

  • Exact Match (green) — The reference exists in academic databases
  • Possible Match (yellow) — Partial match — review the differences
  • No Match (red) — Not found in any database — likely hallucinated

Why This Matters

  • 93% of genuine APA references are correctly verified
  • 100% of fabricated references are caught
  • Under 3 seconds per reference — check an entire bibliography in minutes
  • 10 citation styles supported — APA, MLA, Chicago, IEEE, Vancouver, Harvard, ACS, AMA, Oxford, Springer

Tips

  • Always verify suspicious citations — If a reference seems too obscure or too perfect, it might be AI-generated
  • Batch-check your entire bibliography before submitting — catch issues early
  • Export results — Copy individual results or the full report to include with your submission

Privacy

The extension is stateless — no reference data is stored locally or sent anywhere except the academic databases for verification. Your API keys are encrypted (AES-256-GCM).

Released under the MIT License.