For publishers and journals
Integrity checks at submission, before peer review starts.
Next Being built. Manuscript Verification is not issued yet.
Manuscript Verification will check each manuscript when it arrives: whether the writing is consistent across its authors, whether every reference exists and has not been retracted, and how AI was used. Editors will see the result before a reviewer is asked.
We reply by email and say plainly where it stands.
01What it will do
What it will check in every manuscript.
This is what Manuscript Verification is being built to do. None of it is issued yet.
- Authorship
- Whether the writing is consistent across the manuscript's co-authors, using each author's writing style and drafting history.
- References
- Each reference checked for existence and retraction status against Crossref, OpenAlex, PubMed and Retraction Watch.
- AI use
- A report of how AI was used, in the format publisher policies ask for.
- Paper mill signals
- Flags for patterns that suggest a manuscript came from a paper mill.
Image and figure manipulation is handled through partner tools.
What the record will contain
- A reference verification table
- Authorship consistency across co-authors
- Declared and detected AI use, mapped to each contributor's role
- Flags for paper mill signals
- A signature and timestamp
02Why it matters
One publisher retracted 11,300 papers and closed 19 journals.
One publisher retracted 11,300 papers and closed 19 journals between 2022 and 2024. Paper mills are industrial. AI-written manuscripts, fabricated references, and citations to retracted work now arrive at journals daily. Editors cannot check them all by hand.
Source: Wiley and Hindawi, 2022 to 2024.
03Getting started
Who it is for, and how to get it.
| Who it is for | Publishers, society journals, preprint servers, funders. |
|---|---|
| Where it plugs in |
|
| Accounts | None yet. Manuscript Verification is Next: it is being built. Join the pilot list and we will tell you when it opens. |
| Live today | Want something you can use now? These records are Live today. |
04Questions
The questions we are asked first.
- Can we use Manuscript Verification today?
- No. It is Next: it is being built and no record is issued yet, so there is no account to sign in to. Join the pilot list and we will tell you when it opens.
- Will it plug into our submission system?
- That is the plan. Editorial Manager, ScholarOne, eJournalPress and OJS are on the Roadmap. An API is Next.
- Does it check images and figures?
- No. Image and figure manipulation is handled through partner tools.
- Is this a detector?
- No. A detector guesses from the finished text. Manuscript Verification is being built to check references against their sources and authorship against how the work was written.