I'm not sure, but perhaps unchecking the option "Include URLs of paper articles in references" in the export tab of the Zotero preferences solves this.

you can always create a new citation style, not a lot of work, although it'd seem like this should be possible in a simpler way..
Open the chrome panel:
chrome://zotero/content/tools/csledit.xul
select a citation with doi and the APA style.
then look for the access macro, which looks like this:

<macro name="access">
<choose>
<if variable="DOI">
<text variable="DOI" prefix="doi: "/>
</if>
<else>
<group>
<text term="retrieved" text-case="capitalize-first" suffix=" "/>
<date variable="accessed" suffix=", ">
<date-part name="month" suffix=" "/>
<date-part name="day" suffix=", "/>
<date-part name="year"/>
</date>
<group>
<text term="from" suffix=" "/>
<text variable="URL"/>
</group>
</group>
</else>
</choose>
</macro>

and substitute by this (which removes the doi):

<macro name="access">
<group>
<text term="retrieved" text-case="capitalize-first" suffix=" "/>
<date variable="accessed" suffix=", ">
<date-part name="month" suffix=" "/>
<date-part name="day" suffix=", "/>
<date-part name="year"/>
</date>
<group>
<text term="from" suffix=" "/>
<text variable="URL"/>
</group>
</group>
</macro>

then change the title of the style
on the top under
<info>
<title>American Psychological Association</title>

to something like APA- no DOI

copy and paste the entire style into a text editor, use the save as... option and save it as APAnoDOI.csl (the .csl is the important part here)
then open the file with FF (or drag it to FF) and it will install automatically in Zotero.

Really, you should change the <id> field as well, or else 1) you'll overwrite the default APA style and 2) your custom style may be overwritten with a new version from the repository at any time.

Sorry guys, I have the exact same question, but I have no clue, what the <id> is... Could anyone please explain it to me (or just suggest a style that is APA-like but without DOI)?

Thanks
Carina (who loves zotero and thinks everyone here is doing a great job!)

That's great. Thanks for your answer. I hope I manage to do this now :-)

Try this:

http://gist.github.com/raw/83985/7685755b6ce3f2474d2c48bf08031b53116104e6/APA-no-doi.csl

Wow thank you so much to community collaboration. Especially Rintze for that link i was a bit lost trying to find a text editor to save the file in. Now on to figuring out how to remove capitalization

Shouldn't you just edit the capitalization through the fields editor per item? Or is there a smarter way to do it?

Not sure what capitalization is being changed, but CSL allows you to set capitalization & some of this could therefore be done through a modified style. The citation processor does not know about proper names or abbreviations, so many times you will want to modify the database entry in Zotero.

Is the solution mentioned above to get rid of the DOI still the most recent workaround?

I don't know if I'd consider it a workaround: the APA style calls for using DOIs & the "official" CSL file follows that style. Rintze made a second CSL file that does not follow the APA guideline & omits DOIs. I cannot think of anything else that should be done here...

Is there just a way that Zotero can just fix this in the next update so that a bibliography works from the get-go.

Feel free to download Rintze's style.

I'm not certain how the DOI was deemed a part of "APA" style for articles.

Blog post and forum discussion on the topic if you do not have the latest style manual.

It seems that a macro code (which I can't write, but know these codes can do just about anything) could check the capitalization and change things to sentence case or whatever might be required.

Sentence case transformation is possible. It is often avoided because it will not handle proper nouns and other words that should still be capitalized correctly. I try to store most of my references in sentence case, as the other transformations work relatively well on it when they are called for.

Hi,

I wanted to check up on doi's. When I looked at the APA website (I don't have the latest manual) it says:

"We recommend that when DOIs are available, you include them for both print and electronic sources."

This sounds like a recommendation rather than a rule. Does anyone know if this is right - that including doi is only a recommendation?

Thanks,

Nathan

Hi,

thanks for the explanation, though I personally do feel that it matters. Many journals, etc require one to comply with APA format so there is no choice in that - authors pretty much have to do it.

A recommendation seems different to me. I might choose not to follow it (a journal might come back an demand it but I'd deal with that when & if it occurs), and in fact this is probably my preference.

Give this I would rather not be locked into using the doi recommendation by the software I'm using. And it is terrific that zotero doesn't lock us in - by allowing us to edit styles or install new one.

However, I think it would be really great if a non-doi-APA style was available in the style repository and I get the feeling that I wouldn't be alone

(I'd also love to understand how styles are edited myself!)

You make several good points, nevertheless it is frustrating when one wants to produce references that basically conform to APA format without the doi - whether one wants to do a reference list for oneself, students, colleagues, a book chapter, etc - and there isn't an easy option.

I've tried the link Rintze provided above but have found that it adds "Retrieved from ." to alot of my references. That is why I was looking around.

It maybe that there is a style similar to APA that would suit me - I will look. But I imagine that it wouldn't be too hard to indicate to users that a style isn't official i.e. Non-official-APA-no-dois. Or perhaps there are some older 5th or 4th APA edition styles that could be made available.

Anyway thanks for the explanation.

I think making both the DOI and the URL optional would be a great general solution. There are indeed many situations where one is using APA but the paper is not for a journal -- and the DOI and URL take up unnecessary space.

Also, sometimes I'm actually citing the print version but I captured the citation online so it includes a URL. I don't want to delete the URL as that is useful. But I don't want to cite the URL.

Sure. For me, the issue comes up mostly during teaching as I tell students to use APA but don't necessarily want them to use url or doi.

Generally speaking, modifying styles manually is not feasible for most people. I mean, I can do it but if I could not reliably ask students, or even most of my colleagues, to do it. I suspect this is the case for a lot of academics in non-techie fields. Things on menus: ok. Things modified through configuration files: daunting.

I understand that it appears to be equally easy, but it is not for most people. A lot of people don't clearly understand the difference between, say, a Word file and a plaintext file, and often make a mess of things when attempting to modify a setting. The more widespread Zotero becomes, the more of an issue such things will be. I am on the verge of recommending Zotero to students rather than Endnote on the web. I understand the configurability versus ease-of-use trade-off and often the only solution is to have more than one way to do things. Menus for the general public, file manipulation / command line, etc. for a smaller group of people.

For the record APA does require inclusion of a DOI if one exists. APA now has a blog where they can add onto the rules at anytime they chose. If you are particularly inclined to ensure your adherence to the style I would recommend following it.

When do I include DOIs in my references?

If your reference has a DOI, include that DOI.