APA7 Reference Helper

Format, audit, and polish academic references in APA 7th style, including in-text citations, DOI/URL cleanup, and correction tables for student papers.

Purpose

Use this skill when the user needs help with APA 7th edition references, in-text citations, reference-list cleanup, or a citation-quality audit for coursework, manuscripts, reports, literature reviews, or presentations.

This skill is designed for bilingual academic workflows. It can explain corrections in Chinese while producing references in English APA 7 format when the source metadata is in English.

When to activate

Activate this skill when the user asks for any of the following:

• Format references in APA 7th style.
• Check whether references are complete or standardized.
• Convert rough citation information into a reference list.
• Generate in-text citations or parenthetical citations.
• Clean DOI, URL, journal title, volume, issue, page, publisher, or author formatting.
• Produce a table of reference problems and corrections.
• Prepare references for a psychology, education, medicine, public health, or social-science assignment.

Required output behavior

When handling references, produce the answer in this order unless the user requests otherwise:

1. 可直接粘贴的 APA 7 参考文献列表
   Provide a clean final list. Sort alphabetically by first author's surname when there are multiple entries.

2. 问题检查表
   Provide a compact table with columns: 原条目, 主要问题, 建议修正.

3. 文内引用示例
   Provide parenthetical and narrative citation examples for the most important references.

4. 不确定信息
   Clearly mark missing metadata instead of inventing it. Use [缺失：年份], [缺失：期刊名], [缺失：DOI], etc.

APA 7 formatting rules

Follow these rules strictly:

Journal article

Template:

Author, A. A., Author, B. B., & Author, C. C. (Year). Article title in sentence case. Journal Title in Title Case, volume(issue), page–page. https://doi.org/xxxxx

Rules:

• Use sentence case for article titles.
• Use title case and italic style conceptually for journal titles. If plain text is required, do not use Markdown italics unless the user asks.
• Include issue number only when available.
• Format DOI as a URL: https://doi.org/....
• Do not write Retrieved from for stable academic sources unless retrieval date is necessary.

Book

Template:

Author, A. A. (Year). Book title in sentence case. Publisher.

Rules:

• Do not include publisher location.
• Include edition after the title when available, e.g., (2nd ed.).

Chapter in edited book

Template:

Author, A. A. (Year). Chapter title in sentence case. In E. E. Editor & F. F. Editor (Eds.), Book title in sentence case (pp. xx–xx). Publisher.

Webpage

Template:

Author, A. A. or Organization Name. (Year, Month Day). Page title in sentence case. Site Name. URL

Rules:

• Use organization as author if no individual author is available.
• Include retrieval date only for pages designed to change over time.
• If author and site name are identical, omit the site name.

In-text citation rules

• One author: (Smith, 2020) or Smith (2020).
• Two authors: (Smith & Lee, 2020) or Smith and Lee (2020).
• Three or more authors: (Smith et al., 2020) from the first citation onward.
• Multiple sources in one parenthesis: sort alphabetically and separate with semicolons.
• Direct quote: include page number, e.g., (Smith, 2020, p. 15).

Quality-control checklist

Before finalizing, check:

• Are all years present?
• Are author initials formatted consistently?
• Is the article title in sentence case?
• Is the journal title in title case?
• Are volume, issue, and pages distinguishable?
• Is the DOI formatted as https://doi.org/...?
• Are Chinese explanations separated from English reference entries?
• Are missing fields explicitly marked rather than hallucinated?

Optional helper script

This skill includes scripts/apa7_quick_check.py, a lightweight local checker that flags common structural problems in a plain-text reference list. It uses only Python standard-library modules.

Use it when the user provides or uploads a text reference list and wants a quick audit:

bash

python3 scripts/apa7_quick_check.py examples/demo_references.txt

If python3 is not available, try:

bash

python scripts/apa7_quick_check.py examples/demo_references.txt

The script does not replace academic judgment. Use its output as a triage aid, then apply the APA 7 rules above manually.

Safety and integrity

• Do not fabricate authors, years, journals, volumes, issues, pages, DOIs, or URLs.
• When metadata is incomplete, ask for the missing field only if essential; otherwise mark it clearly.
• Do not use hidden web access unless the user explicitly wants current verification or source lookup.
• Do not claim that a DOI exists unless it is provided or verified.