DOIs: APA Style Update (March 2017)

APA issued an update to their style guide in March 2017: http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2017/03/doi-display-guidelines-update-march-2017.html.

The new recommendation is to use a live link to the DOI instead of just listing the numbers. We can still use the old style while we gradually move to the new recommendation.

So, for example, here’s the old style:

Fred, H. L., & Sheid, M. S. (2016, October). Thirty-three years of dizzy medical writing and editing: A meta-analysis and the hall of shame. Texas Heart Institute Journal, 34(5), 376-380. doi:  10.14503/THIJ-16-5870.

New style:

Fred, H. L., & Sheid, M. S. (2016, October). Thirty-three years of dizzy medical writing and editing: A meta-analysis and the hall of shame. Texas Heart Institute Journal, 34(5), 376-380. http://dx.doi.org/10.14503/THIJ-16-5870

Come Again, What?

Digital object identifiers (DOIs) are the series of numbers and letters that identify or point to academic journal articles. They are assigned by the journal publisher, so the idea is the DOI will be stable over time, unlike URLs.

APA style recommends that if an article has a DOI assigned, we include the DOI in the citation to improve the accuracy of the citation and help readers find the article.

Look for the DOI on TRU Library’s listing for the reading, the first page of the electronic journal article, or on the database landing page for the article.