"Include URLs of paper articles in references" tickbox doesn't work

JohnDuffy
Hi, I've got some journal articles with DOIs and URLs. Where there are page ranges listed in the Pages field, and the "Include URLs of paper articles in references" tickbox is either ticked or unticked, the DOI and/or URL is 'always' included regardless.

I had expected that the DOI should appear or not appear according to the tickbox. It doesn't work. I'm using the latest download (redownloaded today) of the SBL style.

As a workaround I'm considering simply adding the DOI number as text to the Extra field (without the "DOI: " or https://), so that it appears as just text.

Are there any other suggestions as to what I could do?
  • adamsmith
    The box is really only for URLs, not for DOIs, regardless of whether the DOI is printed in URL form. The behavior for DOIs is in line with the SBL Manual.
    The checkbox will definitely determine if a URL is printed for article items with a page range (it will always appear without a page range). If that's not what you're seeing, you'd have to say more.
  • JohnDuffy
    Thanks adamsmith. I now understand. Although with the DOIs being presented as URLs that can be a little confusing.

    However, I would have expected the same behaviour (the unticked tickbox suppressing DOIs) for print journals which have page ranges listed, since SBL 2nd ed. does not want DOIs for print journals which have page ranges listed, even though they can be accessed online also.

    The same applies to print books which have DOI fields in Zotero, where the DOI ought to be suppressed too, but isn't.

    It seems that I need to manually more or remove DOIs from the DOI field in all print resources.
  • adamsmith
    If you are literally consulting the original printed issue of a journal then yes, you'd want to remove the DOI. But if you are, like I assume 99.9% of people, reading (or printing) the digital version of an article, that's an "electronic" article and should be cited with DOI according to both SBL and CMoS to which it refers.
    Ditto for books -- include the DOI if you consult the digital copy, don't include it if you (as is still quite common) are using the actual print copy.
  • JohnDuffy
    Thanks. That is helpful, although I'm a bit surprised that I'd need to include the DOI if it is a print book in digital form, with pages shown in facsimile format with page numbers which looks just like the hard copy.
  • matt.quintana
    edited July 13, 2023
    @JohnDuffy I think Adam is wrong here. If you are citing a PDF or scan of a print book in digital form, or a PDF of a journal article, then you do not need to include the DOI or URL. In other words, if the digital copy you are looking at is identical to the print version, it is completely unnecessary to include a link to the digital version. A PDF of the final typeset journal article that also appears in print does not constitute an "electronic" article. I can think of no academic publisher using the SBL style—not even SBL Press!—that would include the DOI or URL for such cases. (See further this blog post from SBL: https://sblhs2.com/2018/05/03/electronic-journals-with-individually-paginated-articles/)

    In regard to your original question, the solution I've come to is either removing the DOI entirely (it's not really necessary anymore after I have a PDF of the article) or manually deleting it in my bibliographies.
  • adamsmith
    In the post referenced by the above: https://sblhs2.com/2016/08/09/hts-teologiese-studies/ online articles with print counterpart are given with DOI, though it's described as optional. CMS includes DOIs for basically all journal articles in their examples. I can't speak to what SBL press etc. are doing, but both the SBL manual and the CMS on which it is based have many examples of citations with DOI for which print versions exist.
    I'd strongly recommend against removing the DOI from items. It is their most useful identifier, increasingly required in citation styles (and also used by Zotero and various add-ons for a range of internal functionality)
  • dstillman
    Yes, the DOI allows Zotero and other tools to uniquely identify the item — for retraction notifications, metadata updating, duplicate detection, citation analysis, etc. — and it allows your readers to locate the full text online. Removing it is a terrible idea.
  • JohnDuffy
    Thanks everyone. For my last essay I moved the DOI to the extra field, to retain it but not have it apoear in the footnotes or bibliography. But I'll consider keeping it for future essays. I'll chat with the faculty also to see what their practice or expectations are too. For book or journal publishing, hopefully in the future, I'll consult the publisher on that. Thanks again.
Sign In or Register to comment.