I don't know about evidence that people were retrieving incorrect articles. 
But, I have seen incorrect reference entries in published articles. Examples 
usually were incorrect volume and/or incorrect page numbers. The solution to 
finding the article was (for me) to look for the authors and/or title in 
PsycInfo and find the proper location for the article. Having to create the DOI 
might reduce some of those errors by the authors. 

APA could have several uses for DOIs. It might facilitate APA checking 
reference entries for correct information. In the editing process it is a 
simple matter to click on the DOI to confirm that it links to an actual article 
and the article citation details match. In theory, a reviewer could click on a 
DOI to find a copy of an article. The reviewer could think, "I don't recall 
that finding from the paper these folks are citing." Clicking on the DOI makes 
relatively quick work of checking such information. It could also facilitate 
tracking down plagiarism in articles. Plagiarism checking software would 
require two digital copies for comparison. 

So, while DOIs are redundant from the perspective of old-school manual tracking 
down of sources, without trying hard I can imagine several benefits in our 
digital era.

Paul Bernhardt



-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Clark [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Sun 10/25/2009 12:27 AM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Subject: Re: [tips] APA style and DOI numbers
 
Hi

If a full reference is adequate to produce a DOI, if available, then doesn't 
that mean that the DOI is redundant and unnecessary to find the article?  The 
rationale for this requirement really escapes me, which leaves one in the 
unfortunate position of having to say to students: "do it because the APA Style 
guide says to do it."  On an empirical note, is there any evidence that people 
were retrieving incorrect articles given the information available in past 
editions?

Take care
Jim


James M. Clark
Professor of Psychology
204-786-9757
204-774-4134 Fax
[email protected]

>>> "Christopher D. Green" <[email protected]> 24-Oct-09 7:18:53 PM >>>
Here's some good news from those of you who were dreading having to cut 
and paste dozens of DOI numbers into your reference sections starting in 
January. It is a website that allows you to enter a list of reference, 
and if gives you back the references with all available DOI numbers 
appended:
http://www.crossref.org/SimpleTextQuery/ 

Chris
-- 

Christopher D. Green
Department of Psychology
York University
Toronto, ON M3J 1P3
Canada

 

416-736-2100 ex. 66164
[email protected] 
http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ 

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