Even careful writers slip up when assembling a long reference list. Watch for these five recurring mistakes.

  1. Missing page numbers for direct quotations.
  2. Inconsistent style — mixing APA and MLA in the same paper.
  3. Broken URLs — always prefer a DOI when one exists.
  4. Wrong author order — list authors as they appear on the source, not alphabetically.
  5. No in-text citation — every reference list entry needs at least one in-text mention.

Our generator helps catch all five automatically.