Education sector has embraced and increasingly use digital technologies to address its longstanding challenges. However, considering that every technology has its limitations, I evaluated the progress of citation and reference technologies in solving the chronic problem of plagiarism in academic writing. In this pursuit, I confirmed with several technologies for citation and referencing exist. The technologies still face several challenges but have overall demonstrated good progress and bright prospect. Contrarily, academics increasingly disregard abiding by citation manuals, which might render the technologies fruitless. I therefore call the academic community to rejuvenate ethics among academics to abide by principles of academic writing, and to take full advantage of the available technologies in this endeavor. I equally recommend the simplification of the existing citation guidelines to make them memorable and user-friendly.