See why your citation looks the way it does.

How it works

1. 1

   Paste a citation, DOI, or title

   Any citation in any style, a DOI, or just a paper title — Corroba resolves it to the real record first.

2. 2

   Pick the style you're learning

   APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE and thousands more. The explanations change to match the style's rules.

3. 3

   Hover any part to learn why

   Every highlighted part explains itself — the italics, the sentence case, the “et al.”, the DOI — plus a full breakdown underneath.

Common questions

Why is the journal name italicised?

In most styles (APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard) the name of the larger work a piece appears in — the journal, magazine, or book — is set in italics to distinguish it from the article or chapter title. Corroba highlights it and says so when you hover.

What does “et al.” mean in a citation?

“Et al.” is short for the Latin “et alii”, meaning “and others”. When a source has several authors, most styles list the first author and replace the rest with “et al.” (MLA does this at three or more authors, for example).

Why is the title in sentence case in APA?

APA (and Vancouver, AMA, and Nature) put article and book titles in sentence case — only the first word, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns are capitalised. MLA and Chicago instead use title case with the title in quotation marks. Corroba applies and explains whichever your chosen style uses.

Is it free?

Yes — explain as many citations as you like, free, with no sign-up.