What is a DOI?
A DOI or Digital Object Identifier is an identification number used for works in a digital format. Many resources, but not all, will have a DOI number that, when available, should be included in the reference citation at the end of your paper.
***NOTE - Not all journal publishers provide a DOI to the database, and not all articles have a DOI. For online sources that do not have a DOI, you will use the URL address in the reference citation instead.
To check for the DOI, look at the page with detailed information about the article.
The DOI will look something like this:
- https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9353.2006.00286.x
- 10.1080/19393210.2012.675592
Please note that when creating your reference page you should utilize the first option above. You can take the second option and add https://doi.org/ before it to use it in your reference page.
It can usually be found at the top of the title page with the article information:
You can also check for an article's DOI through free DOI lookup.
For information on how to create a reference citation in APA format, please see the APA: Formatting Your References List through the UAGC Writing Center. Here you will find information on how to format a citation with the DOI and without the DOI if none is available.