paper reference checker

This skill should be used when the user asks to "check paper citations", "verify references", "detect fake citations", "validate bibliography", "check if papers exist", "查文献真伪", "检查论文引用", "验证参考文献", "识别虚假引用", or uploads a PDF/Overleaf document and wants to verify whether the cited papers genuinely exist. Provides systematic verification of academic references against Google Scholar, CNKI, arXiv, and other academic databases to detect AI-hallucinated or fabricated citations.

Systematically verify academic references to detect AI-hallucinated or fabricated citations. Queries Google Scholar, arXiv, CNKI, and other databases.

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Core Workflow

Phase 1: Citation Extraction (Token-Efficient First)

ALWAYS use targeted extraction before full-document reading — saves 80–95% tokens.

Input Type	Primary Method	Fallback
arXiv link	arxiv.org/html/{ID} → find references section	Full HTML, then PDF
PDF file	Last 15–20% of pages only	Expand to 30% → 50% → full
Overleaf link	Regex cite-keys from .tex → filter .bib/.bbl	Inline bibitem in .tex
Pasted list	Parse directly	—

Phase 2: Multi-Platform Querying (Priority Order)

1. DOI → https://doi.org/{DOI} — resolves = ✅ confirmed
2. arXiv ID → https://arxiv.org/abs/{ID} — match = ✅ confirmed
3. Google Scholar → search "Full Title"
4. arXiv search → arxiv.org/search/
5. CNKI → cnki.net
6. Fallbacks: Semantic Scholar · PubMed · IEEE Xplore · ACM DL · DBLP

Phase 3: Authenticity Judgment

Status	Label	Criteria
✅	VERIFIED	Found in ≥1 authoritative DB
⚠️	UNCERTAIN	Partial match
❌	NOT FOUND	No match across all queried channels
🔴	FABRICATED	Non-existent venue, unresolvable DOI
🔗	BROKEN CITATION	[?] marker in PDF body

Phase 4: Report Output

See examples/sample-report.md for full example.

Support Files

File	Purpose
references/citation-extraction.md	Format rules
references/search-strategies.md	Per-database query tactics
references/verification-criteria.md	Decision flowchart
scripts/extract_references.md	Full decision tree
examples/sample-report.md	Complete report example
examples/bibtex-example.bib	Annotated BibTeX

Databases

Google Scholar · arXiv · CNKI · Semantic Scholar · PubMed · IEEE Xplore · ACM DL · DBLP · DOI Resolver · Crossref