Wikipedia:Digital Object Identifier
 | This help page is a how-to guide. It explains concepts or processes used by the Wikipedia community. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels of consensus. |
A Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is a unique identifier to a published work, similar in concept to an ISBN. Wikipedia supports the use of DOI to link to published content. Where a journal source has a DOI, it is good practice to use it, in the same way as it is good practice to use ISBN references for book sources.
 | It may be better to use other identifiers instead; for example where content is freely available, generally {{PMC}} and {{PMID}} -based links will link to both free content and non-free content, while the DOI links are sometimes only to paywall-restricted content. |
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Why use DOI?
This approach avoids a number of common issues with citations in Wikipedia:
- Broken links as publishers or web server move or reorganise content (error 404).
- Copy-paste errors in citation text.
- Copyright violation, accidental or deliberate; the DOI citation goes to a source identified as appropriate by the rights owner.
- Verifiability enhancements; the DOI will always lead to the correct source, so modifications of abstracts or even content is avoided.
- Preferential treatment. DOI links, like our ISBN book sources, will offer the user a choice of sources where one exists.
- Academic users may receive a local full-text source
When to not use DOI
DOI should most likely not be used when:
- It is not directed to the purported article
- When an open access page of an article is available but the DOI links to a page with a paywall. In such cases, it is better to use URL of the open access page, and include as much metadata (title, authors, publisher) as possible to locate the article in case the URL will become defunct.
References
External links
- DOI Wikipedia reference generator (not functional 09/2021)
- Wikipedia DOI and Google Books Citation Maker