Reference Formatter

The problem it solves

Reference lists often fail for subtle reasons: author order, journal volume italics, DOI handling, mixed Chinese and English punctuation, and inconsistent sorting. Manual fixes miss details, while blind find-and-replace can break meaning. This skill targets citation formatting in academic writing, turning raw reference lists into APA 7th, APA 6th, GB/T 7714-2015, MLA 9th, Chicago (Author-Date), or a custom house style, with Word export when available.

How it works

It starts from the references the user provides, accepting pasted text, database exports, or mixed formats. It then confirms the target style: first any uploaded department or journal rules, then the style the user requests, and finally a default of APA 7th. The skill scans DOIs, URLs, volume and issue numbers, publishers, and other clues to classify entries as journal articles, books, book chapters, web pages, dissertations, or conference papers. Entries it cannot identify are marked for human review rather than guessed.

Core capabilities include:

• Author formatting: applies abbreviations, capitalized surnames, or full names according to the target style; Chinese author names are kept as full names.
• Punctuation and italics: uses Chinese punctuation for Chinese entries and English punctuation for English entries; journal names, book titles, and volumes are italicized when required.
• DOI/URL handling: preserves real DOIs by default and does not fabricate them; missing values are left blank or marked unknown.
• Sorting and layout: sorts Chinese entries by pinyin and English entries by surname, separates sections, and keeps each reference as its own paragraph.
• Pre-export review: produces a change report, waits for confirmation, then exports .docx, falling back to .txt or .md if conversion tools are unavailable.

Boundaries and cautions

This skill only formats real references supplied by the user; it does not invent citations, DOIs, or sources. If metadata is missing, web lookup may be used, but the source must be disclosed and the user should verify it. It is suitable for pre-submission style cleanup, journal switching, merging multi-source lists, and adapting to custom rules; whole-paper layout, in-text citation numbering, PDF extraction, or literature searching belong to separate skills.