The invention provides a reference format checking method. The method comprises the following steps: 1, expressing a reference bibliographical particular format rule through Schema, wherein a reference bibliographical particular format comprises at least one of the following bibliographical particulars: an author, a title, a reference type, a publisher, a publication date and a page number; 2, reading references, and partitioning the bibliographical particulars; 3, recognizing the reference bibliographical particulars, extracting the recognized bibliographical particulars into XML (Extensible Markup Language) nodes, judging whether the reference bibliographical particulars include a literature type tag or not at the same time, and if not, adding the literature type tag of the reference according to the bibliographical particulars, wherein the bibliographical particulars include at least one of the author, the title, a publication place, the publisher, the publication date and the like; 4, verifying the description particulars by using the reference bibliographical particular format rule.