Zotero doesn't include DOI in APA

dstillman Zotero Team
This discussion was created from comments split from: American Psychological Association 7th edition.
  • hansoh
    I'm unclear why Zotero doesn't include any DOI for any of my styles? APA specifically?
  • adamsmith
    It absolutely does. Do you have an example?
  • hansoh
    @adamsmith --Do I need to do anything special? I wanted to add the DOI to the AMA style, and nothing seems to be working. I thought this might be the fix:

    https://github.com/bwiernik/zotero-shortdoi/releases/tag/v1.4.2

    But my computer says the xpi file is corrupt. Any ideas?
  • adamsmith
    So these are two different questions:
    - DOIs are printed for references in both AMA and APA style assuming they're in Zotero. So you should first check that that's the case.

    If they aren't (which would happen, e.g., if you import from google scholar a lot) the DOI Manager add-on comes in.
    Look at the Installation Guide for that. My guess is that you're left-clicking (i.e. trying to open) the .xpi file in Firefox directly.
  • hansoh
    Oh I see. So I use Google Scholar 100% of the time to import my references.

    If i understand you, the DOI do not automatically accompany the references, so I will need the DOI manager add-on.

    Once I can install the DOI manager -- this will automatically retrieve the DOI for me? Or I will need to go back and re-add them via google scholar?

    Either way, thank you for your help, this is informative. I apologize for my ignorance on this matter.
  • hansoh
    And also, will Zotero give me the option to add the DOI?
  • DWL-SDCA
    You will always get much more accurate and complete metadata if follow the Google Scholar link to the publishers' sites and import to Zotero from there. GS-direct metadata is more accurate now than it was a couple of years ago but it is still missing key items such as the DOI for many items. Even now you can get, with a correct article title, the wrong journal name or the wrong authors. Using that bad metadata in an important manuscript or report could be at best very embarrassing or place your employment in jeopardy.
  • adamsmith
    The DOI Manager will add the DOI wherever it's able to find it, which should be for most journal articles with reasonably complete metadata otherwise.
    You'd have to check the setting -- I think it does so automatically by default, but double-check.

    For any other items you'd have to add them manually, but hopefully that'd be few.

    I don't understand your last question:
    will Zotero give me the option to add the DOI?
    You can paste the DOI into the respective field in Zotero if that's your question?
  • hansoh
    Thanks for being so responsive Adam. I installed the plug-in. My question was basically will I have the option to add the DOI to any of the reference styles (APA, AMA, etc.), Or will Zotero automatically add the DOI to all the references by default moving forward. I guess it doesn't really matter, many journals are now asking for the DOI I've noticed, so I might as well just add the DOI regardless of whether the journal specifically requires this.

    I see that the plug in only fetched 1 DOI for my 40 of my references, so I will need to go back and re-add the articles to zotero. But thanks for this Adam

  • dstillman Zotero Team
    edited December 23, 2022
    But see above — Zotero will almost always save a DOI for you even without that plugin, as long as you save from a publisher site. If you only save from Google Scholar, you won't get DOIs for many items.
    My question was basically will I have the option to add the DOI to any of the reference styles (APA, AMA, etc.)
    It sounds like you're still misunderstanding this. You don't add the DOI to specific styles. Zotero generates references in the format required by the style guide. What matters is the data in your Zotero library, which you can see and edit in Zotero. If something is missing from the data, Zotero won't be able to include it in the references even if it's required.

    This isn't specific to DOIs in any way, nor is it specific to Zotero. You should always check the metadata saved to your citation manager for correctness so that it's able to generate accurate references.
  • hansoh
    No, I understand. Some journals will ask AMA/APA with DOI, some will not ask the DOI. I was just wondering if I could omit the DOI if I wanted.

    What I do hear you saying though is that if I use GS, I will probably not get the DOI, which probably explains why it's not working for me--
  • adamsmith
    1 out of 40 sounds like weird behavior for the DOI Manager, though, so do try to run it manually on some of those items to check again (righ-click --> Manage DOIs --> get long DOIs); if these are journal articles that have DOIs and you have author, title, and date in the current metadata, you should get almost all of them.
  • adamsmith
    And yes -- you'd be able to find citation styles that don't use the DOI (or modify existing styles not to)
  • hansoh
    Thanks so much!
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