hermes

Format citations in a reference style

Converts references to APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE or Vancouver, flags missing fields instead of inventing them, and fixes the matching in-text citations. For students and researchers.

context

Citation styles differ in small, rule-bound ways: author name order and initials, where the year goes, sentence case or title case, italics for the journal or the article, "et al." thresholds, DOIs as URLs, ordering of the list (alphabetical for APA, MLA, Chicago and Harvard; by order of first citation for IEEE and Vancouver) and the in-text form (author-date, author-page or numbered). The most damaging mistake is not a misplaced comma but an invented detail: a guessed page range, a DOI that resolves to another paper, or a wrong year. A correct reference with a visible gap is better than a complete-looking wrong one.

task

Format these references in .

references

Only if [BODY_TEXT] is given: Also convert the in-text citations in this text to the same style:

body text

  1. Identify each source's type (journal article, book, chapter, report, website, conference paper, thesis, dataset, software, preprint), because the format depends on it.
  2. Format each reference in : names, year or date, title capitalisation, italics (shown with Markdown *italics*), volume, issue, pages or article number, publisher, DOI or URL in the style's form. If the style has variants (Harvard has many institutional versions; Chicago has author-date and notes-bibliography), state which one you used.
  3. Wherever a field the style requires is missing or looks wrong (a DOI with the wrong pattern, a page range that runs backwards, a year that does not match a preprint and journal version), insert a visible marker such as [missing: issue] or [check: year] and list it.
  4. Order the list as the style requires and detect duplicates.

Only if [BODY_TEXT] is given: 5. Convert every in-text citation in the body text to the style's form, matching each to its reference. For numbered styles, number by order of first appearance and renumber the list to match. List any citation that has no matching reference, and any reference that is never cited.

constraints
  • Never invent or "complete" a DOI, page range, volume, issue, publisher, date or author. Only reformat what is given.
  • Do not look up or correct a reference from memory. If something seems wrong, flag it with [check: …] and say why.
  • Keep the author's spelling of names, including diacritics and particles (van, de, al-), and apply the style's rule for sorting them.
  • If the style named is ambiguous or unknown, say what you assumed.
  • Preserve the meaning and wording of the body text; change only the citations.
output format

Reference list

The formatted list, in the style's order, ready to paste.

Missing or uncertain details

Table: reference (short) | field | issue | where to find it (for example the journal page, the DOI registry or the library catalogue).

In-text citations

If body text was given: the revised text, then a list of unmatched citations and uncited references. Otherwise, one example in-text citation per reference in the style.

2 required values still a placeholder; the assistant will ask for them.

details

kind
Prompt: a task you run by name to get one finished thing back
domain
Research and science
category
Scientific writing
level
Beginner
made for
Student, Researcher / scientist, Writer / author
risk
read-only
version
v1.0.0 · incubating
reviewed
2026-10-02
works in
Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI, Antigravity, OpenCode, Windsurf, Zed, Continue, AGENTS.md, ChatGPT, claude.ai

Edit on GitHubReport a problem

use in

Hodios CLI
npx @hermes-hq/hodios install format-citations --target claude-code
Agent Skills
npx skills add hermes-hq/hodios-dist --skill format-citations -a claude-code
Add the Hodios marketplace (once)
claude plugin marketplace add hermes-hq/hodios-dist
Install the research-science plugin
claude plugin install hodios-research-science@hodios

The plugin brings every entry in this domain at once.

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