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
- Install the extension — Chrome Web Store (also works on Edge, Brave, Opera)
- Open the side panel — Click the Source Taster icon in your browser toolbar
- Paste your references — Copy a bibliography or individual citations and paste them in
- Review the results — Green = verified, yellow = uncertain, red = likely hallucinated
How It Fits Into Your Workflow
Writing in Word, Google Docs, or Overleaf
- Add citations to your document as usual
- When you have a bibliography, select it and right-click → "Check bibliography"
- 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).