Canadian Legal Citation Checker
Check a citation for common structural and mechanical issues.
Paste one citation, choose the expected source type, and this tool flags a narrow set of mechanical issues. It never says a citation is correct, valid, official, certified, or McGill Guide compliant. Confirm every citation against the current guide and your school, journal, or court requirements.
How to use this tool
- Paste one citation into the text area.
- Pick the expected source type. Choose Not sure for high-confidence structural clues only.
- Optionally check I expected this citation to include a pinpoint and pick the pinpoint type.
- Press Check citation. Review the findings; nothing here is called correct, valid, or compliant.
- Copy the findings or the normalized text, or open the Citation Builder to rebuild the citation from structured fields.
Choose "Not sure" to get only high-confidence structural clues.
No findings yet.
Paste a citation above, pick the expected source type, then press Check citation. Findings and the normalized text appear here.
Related guides
Related student tools
Open source attribution
Uses the same eight source types as the Canadian Legal Citation Builder. Patterns outside those types are labelled "Manual verification required" rather than corrected. Independent tool, not affiliated with or endorsed by McGill University, the McGill Law Journal, or the publishers of the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation.
Independent educational tool. Not affiliated with or endorsed by McGill University, the McGill Law Journal, Thomson Reuters/Carswell, Zotero, CSL, or CanLII. Verify every citation against the current guide and any court, journal, professor, or faculty instructions.