Upgrade StorageExcluding URLs from print citations in APA 7
The APA 7 guidance on DOIs and URLs specifies, 'If a print work does not have a DOI, do not include any DOI or URL in the reference.'
I was going to amend the style myself to take account of this rule, but cannot think of a reliable test for determining whether something is a print work.
I was going to amend the style myself to take account of this rule, but cannot think of a reliable test for determining whether something is a print work.
This is an element of the updated guidance for DOIs and URLs in the 7th edition. The sentence online is taken verbatim from the 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association: 'If a print work does not have a DOI, do not include any DOl or URL in the reference' (2020, section 9.34, p. 299). This is a change in policy from the last edition of the manual, which asks for URLs wherever a source was retrieved electronically: 'If there is no DOI assigned and the reference was retrieved online, give the URL of the journal home page' (2010, p. 199). This is also reflected in the approach that the 7th edition takes towards databases: 'The purpose of a reference list entry is to provide readers with the details they will need to perform a search themselves if necessary, not to replicate the path the author of the work personally used' (2020, section 9.30, p. 296).
If this rule is part of the official manual, I would want the style file itself to reflect this, since CSL styles are used in other software where Zotero's option to exclude URLs is not available.
To reiterate what adamsmith and I said above:
A URL included in a Zotero item’s data should be the URL where the full electronic text of the item can be retrieved. This follows the general guidance in the APA manual in section 9.34: “URLs in the reference list should link directly to the cited work when possible.”
The existence of a URL that links directly to the work makes it an “online work” even if there are also print versions of the work. This is the case for virtually every modern item as noted in section 9.34 of the manual: “Because so much scholarship is available and/or retrieved online, most reference list entries end with either a DOI or a URL.”
APA style always errs on the side of providing more information in the reference list when it is useful to aid the reader in quickly locating the item.
In the examples in chapter 10, examples 22, 26, 36, and 41 give examples of books cited with non-database URLs. All of these books have print editions. These examples make it clear that a URL may be included if a direct link to the book exists. This rule did not change between 6th and 7th edition. You should understand the references to “print books” as indicating that if you are reading a print copy of a book without DOI and don’t have a URL to the book at hand, it’s not _necessary_ to seek out a URL and include it. But a URL linking to the item if it is available online is certainly allowed. The only thing that should not be included are generic links to databases like Ebsco that don’t directly link to the item. The discussion of when not to include a URL is directed at students who often tend to include irrelevant URLs that do not lead directly to the item thinking that that is better than nothing. The manual is making clear that URLs should only be included when they lead directly to the item.
All of this is to say, the APA CSL style correctly implements the manual’s rules about URLs and doesn’t need to be adjusted