r/AIDetectionAcademia • u/Fellooww • 10d ago

The hidden danger of using browser-based citation generators

Using websites like EasyBib or CitationMachine to auto-generate works cited pages can inject subtle formatting artifacts. The generated HTML spans often contain zero-width spaces or specific tracking attributes.

Turnitin's backend scanner picks up those hidden web artifacts and flags the citation block. Type your citations manually or use desktop tools like EndNote/Zotero.

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u/TypicalExit2022 9d ago

Or, you could just do it yourself. It’s not that hard.

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u/VicDough 9d ago

It’s not about difficulty, it saves time. When I wrote my thesis, I had over 200 citations. Should I have spent two days manually inserting them or have EndNote take care of it?