Did you know that the American Psychological Association (APA) recently updated their guidelines for citing electronic references? That's OK, most people don't know.
With papers coming due, now is a good a time as any to spread the word.
The changes are intended to simplify the process, although there is still room for discussion about how much simpler it really is. The key change that I see, especially in regards to journal articles found online, either through a database or a website, is the doi. What's a doi? It's a digital object identifier, like a social security number for an article. When you use the doi, your readers have an easier time finding the exact source you are referencing.
Clear as mud? OK. Take a look below. The first citation is to an article I found in ProQuest Research Library. If you want to read it, you can go do that database, plug in the author and/or title and find the full text. If you don't have access to ProQuest Research Library, you may have to hunt around to get to the full text (K-Staters use the Citation Linker and/or Interlibrary Loan.)
The second citation I found in PsychInfo. But you don't need to know that. All you need to do is paste the doi into Google and, voila!, you are taken to the journal article. Now, whether you have access to the full text is going to depend on whether the journal is open source (free) or if your institution subscribes to the journal, either online or in print. You may need to request it through interlibrary loan.
Marx, J. (2005).
Huntington's research points to possible new therapies. Science, 310(5745),
43. Retrieved from ProQuest Research Library database.
Nance, M. A. (2007). Comprehensive care in huntington's disease: A physician's perspective. Brain Research Bulletin, 72(2-3), 175-178. doi:10.1016/j.brainresbull.2006.10.027
Please note that all journals are not using doi, so there may be occasions when you cannot find a doi.
Still have questions? Check out this video I made, Digital Object Identifiers, to explain it using real examples.
APA wants writers to include the doi when it is available. It's usually found with the rest of the bibliographic info like journal title and volume. It may also be posted at the top or bottom of the first page of the article. If you are an author or editor and cannot find the doi for an article, CrossRef.org offers a doi lookup. I took my first citation and used the "Automatic Parsing of a normal reference" to locate its doi: doi:10.1126/science.310.5745.43
When there is no doi, then you indicate where you found the article. In the case of the first citation above, I found it in a database, so I give the database name. If you found it on the journal's website or on an author's website or elsewhere, you provide that URL.
For more information about changes to citing electronic sources, K-State Libraries purchased several copies of the 24-page guide, APA Style Guide to Electronic References. The guide supplements the
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th edition. APA also has an FAQ that may answer some of your questions.
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