Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Answers to some of our most popular questions

Click on any question to expand the answer

What exactly does Recite do?

It checks that the citations in the body of your work match up with the references at the end. It also checks for some stylistic errors in citations. Please see our Product Tour for a run through of the main features.

I don't think I have a Google account, how do I login/signup?

We use Google accounts for authentication, and to create a really simple profile when you login for the first time.

A Google account is NOT a Gmail account - any email address can be a Google account.

If you don't have one, you can make a Google account from any email address by visiting this link.

Do you offer a student rate?

As most of our users are students, we've priced Recite at a rate accessible to all - effectively everyone gets access at our student rate.

Also, many undergraduate essays will fall within our free tier limitations, so will be checked for free.

Does Recite use AI to check my citations?

Recite does not currently use AI (Artificial Intelligence) or ML (Machine Learning) techniques to check your citations. Instead, we use a combination of traditional programming techniques, along with a large number of rules developed over many years of experience in academic referencing, to check your work.

Recite is therefore not trained on any data, nor does it "learn" from the documents you upload. All documents are deleted within 36 hours (generally a lot less) and are never stored unencrypted.

Does Recite help detect AI usage in a document?

Recite doesn't try to "detect" AI usage in documents. However, many of Recite's features can help highlight potential AI usage, such as missing references and incorrect DOI links (which are common in hallucinated references). The ability within Recite, to easily verify references with reputable sources, via our Google Scholar and Crossref links, can also be very valuable.

Many of our educational customers therefore use Recite as part of their overall approach to assessing students' work for AI usage.

When Recite says I have no errors, is my work error free?

Realistically, no. Recite checks your paper against a growing number of rules, which enable us to highlight issues to you - we unfortunately do not check everything and therefore do not guarantee your work is error free. In particular, Recite is only checking within your document, and is therefore unable to check that what you've written is correct.

When checking your reference list entries, we don't know what specifically you're referencing (journal article, book chapter etc.), so are unable to advise whether your formatting in this area is correct. We do however, point out common formatting issues with the author/date portion of references, as these are generally standard across different reference types. Our paid plans do include integration with Crossref which enables us to give further formatting advice where a match is found in their database.

My professor/supervisor says I need zero errors before they'll accept my work, what can I do?

We're grateful that your professor / supervisor has introduced you to Recite. We hope you find it useful for your work now and in the future. But, and whisper this, it seems they don't quite understand how Recite works. Please feel free to show them this FAQ to help explain: the direct link to this FAQ is: https://reciteworks.com/faq#no_errors_desired

Recite is designed to highlight "possible" issues with your work. It is designed to be over cautious. We've always felt that throwing up false positives is much better than risking false negatives and missing genuine citations. Because of this Recite will, for example, deliberately throw up any four digit number that "looks like" a valid date as a possible reference. That doesn't mean you or Recite have done anything wrong, or that there is anything to correct: Recite is just doing its job: being over cautious. In these cases all you have to do is review these possible issues yourself, and if you are happy they aren't citations, you simply ignore them.

The idea with Recite, is not to end up with zero issues. Instead you should aim to get to a point where you know why each remaining issue is being highlighted, and that you are happy it doesn't require any further action.

How do I download my results?

If you're on one of our paid plans you get a simple "Download PDF" link which automatically generates a PDF of your results.

If you're using our free tier, Recite automatically formats your results for printing, so using the "print to pdf" (or "Save to PDF") in your web browser is your best option (available on most modern systems). There's also a "Change Print Settings" link in the top bar on the results page, which allows you to tweak a few settings before "printing".

Recite says my work "... contained no detectable reference section" or "... is a reference list only", how do I fix this?

Make sure -

  1. Your document has a reference list (and some citations!)
  2. That the list is headed correctly (for APA, it should be "References" - NOT "Reference List" or any other variant or language)
  3. That the heading is on a line on its own, with a clear line break before and after
  4. That you're uploading a complete document (not just a reference list on its own) - Recite compares your citations with your references, so does need the full document to work (if you only have a reference list, see the entry below)

Recite appears to include things at the end of my reference list which aren't references, what's going on?

Recite is very good at detecting where your reference list starts and ends, but occasionally it makes a mistake. Inserting an extra carriage return (line break) after your last (real) reference entry usually fixes this.

Alternatively, if you click the 'Adjust' button for the last "real" entry in your list and add a couple of extra line breaks after that entry (separating it from entry non-reference content after it), you can then click 'Resubmit' to reload your results.

My results don't seem to make sense, Recite is telling me I've not referenced things when I clearly have, what's going on?

As above, Recite is very good at detecting where your reference list starts and ends, but occasionally it makes a mistake. Take a look at the Reference List that Recite has detected and see if it actually matches with your list. It's likely that Recite has "seen" something in your list that has made it stop prematurely and is therefore ignoring some of your references. Looking in your document around the area that Recite has stopped at, normally shows something fairly obvious that you need to amend.

If Recite appears to have appended an entry to another, or split one entry in to two, you can use the 'Adjust' button on that entry to correct it.

Also, as noted below - Recite only works on documents with a single reference list.

Do you store my document on your servers?

Documents are never stored unencrypted and only exist in a readable format, while in-memory (a few seconds). All documents are removed within 36 hours (generally a lot less).

I have a paid account, but I keep being told I'm on the free plan and I need to upgrade - what do I need to do?

As Recite uses Google accounts for authentication, and people often have more than one Google account, it's possible that you're logged in to the wrong account. Check your payment receipt to see which account you were using when you paid.

Google will often remember the last account you logged in to, so it's possible that you're logged in to a different account than you think you are. If you check your "my account" page, it will say which account you're currently using. To switch Google accounts, logout of Recite, then head over to google.com and also logout there. Then, when you login to Recite, you'll be asked to login to Google again and you can choose the correct account.

If you're sure you're logged in to the correct account, try logging out and back in again. If you're still having problems, please contact us.

I want to cancel my subscription, or update my card/billing details, how do I do that?

You should be able to do this via a link in the "My account" section on Recite.

If you login to Recite as normal, then click on your name in the top navigation, you'll see a page detailing your current subscription, minimal details we grab from your Google login and some other information. Towards the top, you'll see two buttons labelled "Cancel Subscription" and "Update Payment Information" which allow you to do just that. Note: these buttons are only displayed if you have an active (not cancelled) subscription.

We totally appreciate that users don't necessarily need access to Recite all of the time, so feel free to cancel and resubscribe as and when you need to.

Please bear in mind that cancelling doesn't prevent you from using any paid time left on your subscription.

If you can't work out how to do it, or would like us to do it for you, just get in touch via our contact us page.

Do you have a refund policy?

For individual consumer purchases:
If you're unhappy with your purchase for any reason, drop us an email at [email protected] and we'll refund you in full*, no questions asked. All we ask is that you do this in a timely manner - within 24 hours for 3 day and monthly plans, and 30 days for annual subscriptions. *We reserve the right to retain any payment processing fees which are not returned to us upon refunding your payment.

For institutional licenses and bulk purchases:
Please contact your account manager or sales representative.

Do many people use this service?

Every month, thousands of students, academics, researchers and proof-readers, use Recite to check documents and save a ton of manual checking. As of 1st January 2026, we've checked over 349,000,000 citations against more than 152,000,000 references.

How do I cite Recite?

To cite Recite in publications use:

Recite (2026). Recite [Web-based software]. 4cite Labs Ltd. https://reciteworks.com

The above format is based on APA 7th Edition, but you can adapt it to whatever style you're using.