How CitApp works
Three steps, from a link to a finished reference list.
- 1Get the source in
- 2Sort the source into a category
- 3Take the citation out
Step 1Get the source in
Two ways in. Both save the source with author, title and year already filled in.
Enter a link or a PDF
Paste the address of the page, article or DOI. If the PDF is on your computer, drop it in instead.
Highlight text on a page
Highlight the sentence you want right there on the page and save it. The source arrives in CitApp with your quote attached.
Nurse staffing was measured across forty-one hospitals over three years. Higher staffing produced fewer readmissions within thirty days. The study followed up on outcomes after six months.
Step 2Sort the source into a category
New sources land in Unsorted. Move them into a chapter, a research question, a part of the essay. That is how the reference list knows what belongs together.
Categories
On a phone: use the picker on the card.
Move to…Step 3Take the citation out
The citation is already formatted in the style you chose. Two ways out, depending on where you are writing.
Copy it in the app
The in-text citation sits on the card, and one click copies it. The whole reference list is one button, free for everyone.
Nurse staffing and patient outcomes
Gehring, D. & Lin, J. · 2023
Click to copy.
Generate reference listInsert it straight into Google Docs
Your sources sit in a sidebar next to the text. Click one and the citation lands where your cursor is.
More in every project
Saved the moment you paste
A source you paste is saved straight into your Inbox in your account, so it is there on every device. File it into a category whenever you like, with Move to… or by dragging.
Paste your old reference list
Paste the whole list into the Link, DOI or ISBN box. Each line is looked up by its DOI, link or ISBN, otherwise by title in CrossRef and Libris, and as a last resort the line is read by AI. Lines with a DOI, link or ISBN are saved straight away; a line found by title or read by AI is only added when you press Add.
Check your list before you hand it in
The project header shows how many sources need a look: missing an author, title, year or publisher, or saved twice. Click the number, and Show takes you to the card. The same check sits at the top of the reference list.
Scan a book
Holding a printed book? In a project, choose Scan a book and point your camera at the barcode on the back, or type the ISBN from the title page.
Moving from Zotero, Mendeley or EndNote
Export your library as a .bib or .ris file, then open a project’s menu (the ⋮ button) and choose Import. Or paste a reference list straight into the Link, DOI or ISBN box.
Export to Word, BibTeX or RIS
Generate the reference list and choose Word (.docx) for a formatted list with its italics, or open the project’s menu (⋮) and choose Export all, then BibTeX or RIS, which Zotero and Mendeley read. Every export is free.
Group projects in one shared project
Open the project, press Share and send the invite link. Anyone with the link who signs in can view the project and add sources, so the whole group builds one reference list. Sharing is free.
Every kind of source in its own form
CitApp works out what a source is and cites it that way: a book with its publisher, a chapter with its pages, a conference paper in its proceedings, an arXiv paper as a preprint with its DOI, and an encyclopedia article “In” the encyclopedia. A ResearchGate link gives you the published paper behind it. If a type looks wrong, open the source and change its details.
YouTube videos
Paste a YouTube link into a project. CitApp fills in the title, the channel as author and the upload date, and cites it as a video: APA writes “[Video]. YouTube.” and MLA puts the title in quotation marks. For a quotation, add the timestamp where the page number would go.
In-text citations, the way each manual writes them
The citation on each card follows its style’s own rules: APA, MLA and Chicago shorten three or more authors to the first author and et al., MLA, Chicago and Harvard (Cite Them Right) write “and” instead of “&”, Harvard writes “no date” for an undated source, and Chicago gives the bare page (Okafor 2021, 45). If you copied a citation into your essay before, compare it with the card.
Footnotes in Turabian, MHRA and OSCOLA
In these three styles the citation on a card is the footnote itself, written the way each manual asks: Turabian gives the bare page, MHRA writes p., and OSCOLA leaves the comma out before the year. Type a page and the note updates. Copy it and the book title stays in italics; the Google Docs sidebar inserts the same note.
Your deadline on the board
Set or change the due date from inside the project. The days left stay in view while you work, and turn amber in the last three days.
Stuck?
If CitApp gets the author or the year wrong, fix it with the pencil on the card, and set the right source type, which decides what details the style asks for.