---
title: CSE Citation Generator — Free, From a DOI, PMID, or ISBN | Scholar Sidekick
description: Free CSE citation generator. Turn a DOI, PMID, or ISBN into a CSE name-year reference (Scientific Style and Format, 8th edition). No signup.
doc_version: "1.0"
last_updated: "2026-08-19"
---

# CSE Citation Generator

> HTML version: https://scholar-sidekick.com/tools/cse-citation-generator

Generate references in CSE style — the name-year format of Scientific Style and Format (Council of Science Editors, 8th edition), used across biology and the life sciences — from any supported identifier: DOI, PMID, PMCID, ISBN, arXiv ID, ISSN, ADS bibcode, or scholarly URL. Output puts the year directly after the authors, uses the registry journal abbreviation, and ends with the lowercase doi: suffix.

## What this tool does

Takes one identifier per line and returns one CSE name-year reference per line. Metadata is fetched live from the registry each identifier belongs to (Crossref, PubMed, arXiv, OpenLibrary, NASA ADS), so the reference matches what the publisher has on file. Authors are listed as surname + initials, following the CSE Manual (8th edition) cutoff: all authors when ten or fewer, the first ten followed by et al. when eleven or more. In-text citations are author-year, such as (Jumper et al. 2021).

## How to use

1. Open [the tool](https://scholar-sidekick.com/tools/cse-citation-generator).
2. Paste the identifiers into the input, one per line.
3. Copy the references into your manuscript and order them alphabetically by first author, as CSE name-year requires.

## Programmatic access

The same formatting is exposed via [`POST /api/format`](https://scholar-sidekick.com/docs) with `style: "cse"` (a builtin formatter, alongside `vancouver`, `ama`, `ieee`, and `apa`). 10,000+ further styles are available by CSL id. Anonymous access is free with a published rate limit.

## Zotero and Word

For Zotero, install "Council of Science Editors" (the name-year variant) from the [Zotero Style Repository](https://www.zotero.org/styles?q=Council%20of%20Science%20Editors). To move references into a manager, export RIS with the [DOI to RIS converter](https://scholar-sidekick.com/tools/doi-to-ris); for LaTeX, build the .bib file with the [DOI to BibTeX converter](https://scholar-sidekick.com/tools/doi-to-bibtex).

## Related tools

- [Vancouver Citation Generator](https://scholar-sidekick.com/tools/vancouver-citation-generator) - the numbered ICMJE style of biomedical journals
- [AMA Citation Generator](https://scholar-sidekick.com/tools/ama-citation-generator) - the numbered style of the JAMA journals
- [IEEE Citation Generator](https://scholar-sidekick.com/tools/ieee-citation-generator) - the bracketed-number style of engineering and computer science
- [ACS Citation Generator](https://scholar-sidekick.com/tools/acs-citation-generator) - the numbered style of the American Chemical Society journals
- [Citation Style Comparator](https://scholar-sidekick.com/tools/citation-style-comparator) - CSE next to Vancouver, APA and 10,000+ other styles
- [PMID / PMCID / DOI Converter](https://scholar-sidekick.com/tools/pubmed-id-converter) - convert between PubMed identifiers and DOIs
- [Retraction Checker](https://scholar-sidekick.com/tools/retraction-checker) - check a paper for retractions before citing it
- [Citation Verifier](https://scholar-sidekick.com/tools/citation-verifier) - check that a claimed citation matches the paper at its identifier
- [Free tools index](https://scholar-sidekick.com/tools) - all citation tools

## Sitemap

See the full [sitemap](https://scholar-sidekick.com/sitemap.md) for all pages.