Plagx.Cite 0.2.3

Plagx Cite for .NET

A free academic writing tool by Plagiarism Checker X.

Plagx Cite for .NET is a free, open-source citation generator and reference checker for C# and .NET apps. It turns sources into correct APA 7 and MLA 9 references and in-text citations, so researchers and students can build a clean reference list in seconds. It also checks BibTeX files for duplicate references, broken DOIs and missing details before you submit.

Use it as an APA citation generator or MLA citation generator: create a reference list, bibliography or works cited page, generate in-text citations, turn a DOI into a citation, import and export BibTeX, and find duplicate references.

• No dependencies, .NET 8 or later
• Works in ASP.NET Core, Blazor, desktop apps, Azure Functions and console tools
• Uses CSL-JSON, the reference format used by Zotero, Mendeley and Crossref
• Plain text, HTML or Markdown output
• Same output as the JavaScript version, plagx-cite on npm

Try the live demo →

Developer downloads: NuGet · Maven Central · PyPI · npm · GitHub

Need a quick citation online? Use the free citation generator.

Plagx Cite is a free academic writing utility by Plagiarism Checker X. It is a citation generator that builds and checks APA and MLA reference lists. Plagiarism checking and AI-generated text detection are available in Plagiarism Checker X, linked at the end of this page.

Install

dotnet add package Plagx.Cite

Quick start

using System.Text.Json.Nodes;
using Plagx.Cite;

var reference = new JsonObject
{
    ["type"] = "article-journal",
    ["title"] = "Deep learning for text similarity",
    ["author"] = new JsonArray(
        new JsonObject { ["family"] = "Smith", ["given"] = "John Allen" },
        new JsonObject { ["family"] = "Lee", ["given"] = "Kate" }),
    ["issued"] = new JsonObject { ["date-parts"] = new JsonArray(new JsonArray(2020)) },
    ["container-title"] = "Journal of Academic Writing",
    ["volume"] = "12",
    ["issue"] = "3",
    ["page"] = "45-67",
    ["DOI"] = "10.1234/jaw.2020.045",
};

Cite.FormatReference(reference);
// Smith, J. A., & Lee, K. (2020). Deep learning for text similarity. Journal of Academic Writing, 12(3), 45–67. https://doi.org/10.1234/jaw.2020.045

Cite.FormatReference(reference, style: "mla");
// Smith, John Allen, and Kate Lee. “Deep learning for text similarity.” Journal of Academic Writing, vol. 12, no. 3, 2020, pp. 45-67, https://doi.org/10.1234/jaw.2020.045.

Cite.CiteInText(reference, page: "50");               // (Smith & Lee, 2020, p. 50)
Cite.CiteInText(reference, narrative: true);          // Smith and Lee (2020)
Cite.CiteInText(reference, style: "mla", page: "50"); // (Smith and Lee 50)

References are JsonObjects in CSL-JSON form, so a Zotero or Crossref export works with Cite.ParseJson(File.ReadAllText("library.json")).

API

All methods are on the static Cite class in the Plagx.Cite namespace.

Formatting references and citations

• style: "apa" (default) or "mla"
• format: "text" (default), "html" (titles in <i>, text escaped) or "markdown" (titles in *…*)

Supported reference types: article-journal, article-magazine, article-newspaper, book, chapter, paper-conference, report, thesis, webpage. Other types fall back to a sensible general layout.

BibTeX import and export

var refs = Cite.ParseBibTeX(File.ReadAllText("library.bib"));
Console.WriteLine(Cite.ToBibTeX(refs));

ParseBibTeX handles @string macros, # concatenation, common LaTeX accents ({\"u} → ü), organisation names in braces, and BibLaTeX date / journaltitle fields.

DOI lookup

var reference = await Cite.LookupDoiAsync("10.1038/nature14539", mailto: "you@example.com");

Cite.NormalizeDoi("https://doi.org/10.1038/NATURE14539"); // "10.1038/NATURE14539"
Cite.ExtractDois(text);                                    // every DOI found in the text

LookupDoiAsync calls the free public Crossref API. If a DOI isn't registered with Crossref, such as arXiv or Zenodo DOIs from DataCite, it falls back to doi.org content negotiation. No API key is needed. It throws ArgumentException for an invalid DOI and DoiLookupException when the DOI can't be found. Pass your own HttpClient (for example from IHttpClientFactory) with http:.

Duplicate references

Cite.FindDuplicates(refs);
// [DuplicateGroup { Indexes = [0, 4], Reasons = ["doi"] }, DuplicateGroup { Indexes = [2, 7], Reasons = ["title"] }]

References count as duplicates when they share a DOI, or the same title and first author. Case, accents and punctuation are ignored.

Checking a reference list

var result = await Cite.CheckReferencesAsync(refs, checkDois: true);
// result.References = 4, result.Errors = 2, result.Warnings = 1
// result.Issues[0] = CheckIssue { Level = "error", Code = "duplicate", Ref = "smith2020b", ... }

Errors are duplicates, invalid DOIs and DOIs that can't be found (with checkDois: true). Warnings are missing titles, authors or years. Cite.CheckReferences(refs) runs the same checks offline, without the DOI lookups.

Good to know

• Titles are used exactly as you give them. APA wants sentence case for article and book titles, and MLA wants title case. Plagx Cite does not change capitalisation automatically, because doing so would break names and acronyms.
• The output follows the main APA 7 and MLA 9 rules for common reference types. Always check the final list against your institution's or publisher's guidelines.

Development

dotnet test

Plagx Cite - Free Citation & Reference Toolkit

An open-source citation utility for students, researchers and developers. Format references, organize citations and manage bibliographies.

Developed by Plagiarism Checker X.

Plagx Cite helps with source attribution; it does not detect plagiarism or AI-generated text. For full document checks, explore Plagiarism Checker X and its AI Content Detector.

License

MIT © Plagiarism Checker X