Reference Verifier in R

Parse, verify, and highlight questionable academic references — catch fabricated or erroneous citations before they catch you.

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🛡️ Badges

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📑 Table of Contents

• Overview
• Features
• Usage
• Example Session
• Installation
• How It Works
• Limitations
• License

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📚 Overview

ref-verifier is an R-based utility that validates bibliographic references by:

• Parsing plain-text references (APA, MLA, Chicago)
• Verifying DOIs via the Crossref API
• Cross-checking publisher and ISSN metadata
• Running title searches via Crossref and OpenAlex if DOI is missing or invalid
• Scoring matches using title similarity, author surname overlap, and year proximity
• Producing a color-coded gt table for quick review

Ideal for:

• Journal editors verifying manuscript references
• Peer reviewers checking citation accuracy
• Researchers cleaning up bibliographies

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✨ Features

• ✅ Supports APA, MLA, and Chicago formats
• 🔍 DOI and title-based verification
• 🧠 Intelligent scoring system for match confidence
• 🎨 Interactive, color-coded output via gt
• 🌐 Integrates with Crossref and OpenAlex APIs

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🛠 Usage

Step 1 — Prepare your references file

Create a plain-text file (e.g., references.txt) with one reference per line.
DOIs may be included or omitted.

Example:

Smith, J. (2020). Example Article. Journal of Examples, 12(3), 45–56. https://doi.org/10.1234/example
Doe, A. (2019). Another Study. Example Journal, 5(2), 100–110.

Step 2 — Run the verifier

source("R/ref-verifier.R")
results <- verify_references("references.txt")

Step 3 — Review the output

View in RStudio’s Viewer pane or export to HTML:

gt::gtsave(results, "verification_report.html")

Color codes:

• 🟢 Green — high confidence match
• 🟡 Yellow — partial match or minor discrepancies
• 🔴 Red — likely incorrect or fabricated

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📂 Example Session

# Load the script
source("R/ref-verifier.R")

# Verify references from file
results <- verify_references("my_refs.txt")

# Save the report
gt::gtsave(results, "my_report.html")

Open my_report.html in your browser to view the results.

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🚀 Installation

1. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/salvatoremaione/ref-verifier.git
   cd ref-verifier

2. Install required R packages

   install.packages(c(
     "dplyr", "purrr", "tibble", "readr", "stringi",
     "stringdist", "httr", "jsonlite", "stringr", "gt"
   ))

3. Open the project
   Use R or RStudio in the cloned project directory.

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🧠 How It Works

flowchart TD
    A([Start]) --> B[Read references file]
    B --> C{DOI present?}
    C -- Yes --> D[[Clean DOI & Query Crossref]]
    C -- No --> E[[Search by Title via Crossref & OpenAlex]]
    D --> F[Retrieve metadata]
    E --> F
    F --> G[Compare with reference data]
    G --> H[Calculate match score]
    H --> I[Assign color code]
    I --> J[[Generate GT table output]]
    J --> K([End])

    click D href "https://api.crossref.org" "Open Crossref API documentation"
    click E href "https://docs.openalex.org/api" "Open OpenAlex API documentation"
    click J href "https://gt.rstudio.com/" "Open GT package documentation"

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Step breakdown:

1. DOI Check — Cleans DOI (if present) and queries Crossref for metadata.
2. Metadata Match — Compares publisher, ISSN, year, and title for mismatches.
3. Fallback Search — Uses Crossref and OpenAlex title search if DOI fails or is missing.
4. Scoring — Combines:
   • Title similarity (string distance)
   • Author surname overlap
   • Year proximity
5. Color Coding — Assigns traffic-light colors for quick match confidence review.
6. Output — Generates a gt table for easy inspection.

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⚠️ Limitations

• Requires internet access for API queries
• Accuracy depends on metadata quality in Crossref/OpenAlex
• Non-English references may have lower match accuracy

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📜 License

MIT License — see LICENSE for details.