Skip to Main Content

Criminal Justice, Steve Romero: DOI

DOI

Not all articles have a DOI, but if one is present, if must be included in the citation.

What is a doi?

DOI (digital object identification number) is a unique ID number for articles.  It is similar to the VIN on your car, the ISBN on a book, or your TCC student ID number. 

This number allows researchers to locate articles no matter where they appear.  Because different sources (magazines, newspapers, websites, etc.) may list an article in a variety of ways (changing the words  in the title, reversing the author(s)'s name(s), using initials, full names, or no first names, etc.), having one thing that never changes, makes location easy.

The author must apply for this number, which is why not all articles have them.

Where do I find the doi?

Even if you cannot access the full article for free on the internet, you can see the doi attached  to an article just by Googling it.  (Keep in mind  that using just the abstract  of an article is not acceptable. You must access the FULL article if you choose to use it in a research paper!)

Sometimes locating the doi can be a bit of a hunt.  It may appear at the to of the page:

doi example 1

Sometimes, the doi is at the bottom of the page:

doi example 2

If you are unable to locate a doi, you will need to use the address that leads to either the exact page where you found the information or the homepage of the journal where the article was published.