Cross-Referencing

Find broken references before your examiner does.

We check the in-text citations in your document against your reference list, in both directions, and mark what does not line up in your own Word file. Confirmed mismatches are highlighted red and uncertain ones yellow, each with a comment explaining the finding.

Choose the option and start cross-referencing
1Choose Language & Style

Click here or drop your thesis, novel, memoir, or any manuscript.

Word (.docx) on every plan; LaTeX (.tex) on paid plans. Up to 45 MB. Up to 150,000 words

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20,000 words free on sign-up · No credit card required · See pricing

Citations with no entry (red)

In-text citations with no matching reference entry are highlighted red, with a comment.

Entries never cited (red)

Reference entries that are not cited anywhere in the text are highlighted red.

Uncertain matches (yellow)

Citations the check could not confirm are highlighted yellow, with the likely matching entry.

Free, and your text is untouched

Highlights and comments only. Free on every plan, with no words or document slots used.

How do I find missing or orphaned references in my thesis?

Upload your thesis as a Word file on this page, choose its citation style, and start the check. You get your own document back with in-text citations that have no reference entry, and entries that are never cited, highlighted in red, each with a comment. Fix them, then run the check again for free.

  1. Save your thesis or dissertation as a Word (.docx) file.
  2. Upload it above and choose the citation style it uses.
  3. Start the check and download the marked-up document.
  4. Work through the red highlights first: add the missing entries, correct the citations, or remove entries you no longer cite.
  5. Review the yellow highlights, then run the check again.

Orphaned references usually creep in when chapters are drafted separately, when a source is cut late, or when an author's name or year is typed differently in the text and in the list. The check is built to catch exactly those mismatches.

What do the red and yellow flags mean?

Red means a confirmed problem: a citation with no matching entry in your reference list, or an entry that is not cited anywhere in the text. Yellow means a possible problem the check could not confirm, such as a citation that may match an entry with a different spelling or year. Its comment names the likely entry.

  • Red on a citation: no entry in your reference list matches it.
  • Red on a reference entry: the entry is never cited in the text.
  • Yellow: the check found a probable match but could not confirm it; the comment explains why and names the candidate entry.

Fragments the check cannot read with confidence, such as a year on its own, are left unmarked rather than guessed at, so treat a clean result as a strong signal, not a guarantee.

Which cross-references does it check?

This check compares in-text citations with your reference list, bibliography, or works cited, in both directions. It reads citations as they appear in your document, whether typed or inserted by a citation manager. Figure, table, section, and equation numbering are checked when you run an edit, where problems come back as editor comments.

The citation check works with author-date, numbered, and note-based styles, including APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, OSCOLA, IEEE, Vancouver, and AMA. For numbering problems elsewhere in the document, such as a figure mentioned in the text that has no caption or a table numbered out of sequence, run AI editing or AI proofreading; those checks come back as comments alongside the edit.

Does it work with LaTeX?

Not yet. The cross-reference check reads Word (.docx) files only. LaTeX (.tex) files can be edited on Monthly and Yearly plans, and when you compile a LaTeX thesis, BibTeX or Biber already warns you about any citation key that has no matching bibliography entry.

If you convert a LaTeX thesis to Word for submission or for your supervisor, run the check on the converted .docx: conversion is exactly where citations and entries tend to drift apart.

Is the cross-reference check free?

Yes, on every plan, including Free. The check does not use any of your words or document allowance, and a free account gets the whole marked-up document back, not a preview. You can run it again each time you fix your references.

See pricing for what the editing plans include.

Does it change my document?

No. It adds highlights and comments to a copy of your document and does not edit your text, your citations, or your reference list. When you have fixed what it found, you can format the references themselves with reference editing, which returns tracked changes.

Your uploaded original is deleted when the check finishes, and the marked-up copy is removed automatically after its download window. Accepting the findings is up to you: delete a highlight or a comment in Word once you have dealt with it.

Next step: correct and format your references to your citation style.

Ready when you are

Upload your document and get it back with highlights and comments on every mismatch the check finds.

Check my cross-refs