Manusights Reference Sentry

About

Reference Sentry checks the reference list of any bioRxiv preprint you open and inline-flags citations that are retracted, have an expression of concern published, or have been corrected.

WHY THIS MATTERS

Retracted-citation rates rose 47% in published biomed papers between 2020 and 2025. AI-assisted writing tools regularly cite retracted or fabricated DOIs. Reviewers increasingly check the reference list as a sanity test before deeper engagement with a manuscript. Reference Sentry surfaces the same flags a careful reviewer would catch.

HOW IT WORKS
- Open any bioRxiv paper page.
- The extension reads the rendered reference list and extracts DOIs.
- It checks each DOI against the Retraction Watch database (live, via Crossref Labs) and Crossref's correction-notice metadata.
- Flagged references get a colored badge inline; a summary banner sits above the reference list.

WHAT GETS FLAGGED
- RETRACTED (red) — the cited paper has been retracted. Do not cite.
- EXPRESSION OF CONCERN (orange) — editorial concerns published; verify before citing.
- CORRECTION (yellow) — an erratum exists; verify against the corrected version.
- HIJACKED JOURNAL (dark red) — cited venue is a known hijacked-journal impersonator.
- WITHDRAWN (gray) — cited journal has been removed from DOAJ.

PRIVACY

The extension only runs on bioRxiv paper pages. It sends DOIs (and a random install identifier) to manusights.com; no page content, no browsing history, no personal information. Full policy: https://manusights.com/extension/privacy

ABOUT MANUSIGHTS
We build AI peer-review tools for academic researchers. The reference-integrity engine that powers this extension also powers our free reference-integrity tool at manusights.com/tools/reference-integrity and is part of every paid AI review.
  
LIMITS
- bioRxiv-only in v0.1 (arXiv, PubMed, Google Scholar planned for future versions).
- Rate-limited to roughly 200 lookups per hour per user. Heavy academic-reading sessions may briefly cap out.
  
Bug reports and feedback: [email protected]