How to include a DOI in your citation

How to include a DOI in your citation

The correct format for adding a DOI to your citations will depend on the citation style you use. Here is a list of citation examples with DOIs in major formatting styles:

Citing a DOI in APA style

Hofman, C. A., & Rick, T. C. (2018). Ancient Biological Invasions and Island Ecosystems: Tracking Translocations of Wild Plants and Animals. Journal of Archeological Research26(1), 65–115. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-017-9105-3

Citing a DOI in MLA style

Hofman, Courtney A., and Torben C. Rick. “Ancient Biological Invasions and Island Ecosystems: Tracking Translocations of Wild Plants and Animals.” Journal of Archaeological Research, vol. 26, no. 1, 2018, pp. 65–115, doi:10.1007/s10814-017-9105-3.

Citing a DOI in Chicago (author-date) style

Hofman, Courtney A., and Torben C. Rick. 2018. “Ancient Biological Invasions and Island Ecosystems: Tracking Translocations of Wild Plants and Animals.” Journal of Archaeological Research 26 (1): 65–115. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-017-9105-3.

The preferred format of a DOI in a citation is using https://doi.org/ followed by the alphanumeric string. It also depends on the style; as you can see that MLA prefers using doi:xxx. Make sure to double-check the citation style you use before adding the DOI.

Tip: Instead of manually adding citations with DOIs to your documents, which is error-prone and strenuous, consider using a reference manager like Paperpile to format and organize your citations. Paperpile allows you to save and organize your citations for later use and cite them in thousands of citation styles directly in Google Docs, Microsoft Word, or LaTeX, including the DOI:

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Frequently Asked Questions about finding DOIs