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FRIEDSAM MEMORIAL LIBRARY 

What is a DOI?

 

If you're not sure what a DOI is, you're not alone!

To Get Started

• You need to know about it if you use the American Psychological Association (APA) citation format, since it's a new feature used in APA citation formats.
• DOI stands for "Digital Object Identifier."
• You'll see a reference to it when citing articles and other resources that you retrieved online.
• All the details can be found in the 2007 APA Style Guide to Electronic References (available on the Ready Reference shelf in the library, call number BF76.7 .P82 2007). 
• Note that this new guide replaces section 4.16 of the fifth edition of the 2001 Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (pages 268-281).
• Noodletools, our citation manager, has been updated to reflect the new guidelines.

What's It Used For?

• According to the APA, "a DOI is a unique alphanumeric string assigned by a registration agency to identify content and provide a persistent link to its location on the Internet" (p. 3 of the APA Style Guide to Electronic References). So, if an article moves to different sites online, the DOI will always link to its current location.

• For articles that have a DOI, you will use the DOI instead of the database name and Uniform Resource Locator (URL) or Web address in a citation reference.

• A DOI is lengthy and complicated, so it is often best to cut and paste it into your reference list to ensure that you have copied it correctly.

  EXAMPLES--differences are highlighted in red

  An article with a DOI:

  Michelle, C. (2007). Modes of reception: A consolidated analytical framework.
       Communication Review, 10(3), 181-222. doi:10.1080/10714420701528057

  An article that did not have a DOI:

  Pasupathi, M., Stallworth, L. M., & Murdoch, K. (1998). How what we tell becomes
       what we know: Listener effects on speakers' long-term memory for events.
       Discourse Processes, 26(1), 1-25. Retrieved November 9, 2007, from
       Academic Search Premier database.

How Can I Find the DOI?

• The DOI will be listed in the citation information in the database where you found the article.

• The DOI should also be printed on the first page of the article.

• You can also use the CrossRef Free DOI Lookup Tool to find a DOI.

• NOTE: You will not be able to find a DOI for every electronic resource, especially older items. A rule of thumb--if you are using one of the library's databases and there is no DOI listed in the citation information in the database, nor is there a DOI printed on the first page of the article, then that particular article most likely does not have a DOI. Generally, you will find DOIs listed for newer research articles.