Dear users,

I am surprised that you’d click into this page. Thank you for showing interest. Technologies are meant to improve life, and this is what the website aims to achieve.

As a psychology undergraduate, I have piles of papers to write, and what frustrated me the most is finding the original citation of theories. Somehow, the process is harder than it should be. I never get a direct answer from the top 10 searches, and always had to dig deep into other paper’s reference list. Finding the original definition of a theory is equally time-consuming, especially when I already know what the theory is about. The website is hence built, hoping to minimize the searching and digging time for researchers, that can be used for something more contributing to society.

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Steps to a new entry:

1. Gemini provides basic information of the theory
2. Verify source through Google Scholar, APA PsycNet (e.g., citation count, content, “history of XX theory” papers)
3. Read through the original paper to find quoted definition of the theory; if none is found, turn to another popularly cited paper.
4. Input data into the website </aside>

I must admit as an undergraduate, I am not the most knowledgable in citations and theories. I verified each source manually, and read the papers themselves to locate the quoted definition. For the “unavailable ones”, it is usually because there is no one sentence definition, which is common for theories with stages. There must be flaws, and your feedback will be incredibly useful, so please consider telling me through the embedded form in the home page.

I don’t have a huge vision as in how this website will evolve. But if it is able to help even one person, it is meaningful enough.

Once again, thank you for visiting and I hope you can always “Find exactly what they said, and where they said it.”

29 May 2026

Milestones of the CiteOrigin