The proliferation of digital scholarship necessitates clarity in referencing, and APA Style (7th ed.) offers a robust yet streamlined method for including DOIs and URLs in reference entries, urging scholars to cite digital object identifiers when available as the most persistent and stable pathway to online content, regardless of format used, while URLs are reserved only when no DOI is present and the link directs readers meaningfully to the source without requiring institutional credentials or session-specific access; crucially, APA eschews outdated prefixes like "doi:" or "Retrieved from," favouring instead hyperlinked identifiers in plain or default style, which must remain unpunctuated and intact to preserve navigability; entries from standard academic databases need neither URL nor database mention unless they host original or exclusive material, in which case the archive and a usable access point must be cited; examples include the UpToDate or ERIC databases where monographs or non-replicable reports demand traceable paths; the use of shortDOIs or trusted link shorteners is permitted if they resolve accurately, maintaining fidelity to the source’s integrity; APA further reminds that ISBNs and ISSNs are irrelevant to citations, reinforcing that only locational identifiers matter in guiding readers to retrievable digital work; this protocol balances functionality with brevity, acknowledging that while scholarship is increasingly accessed online, its citation must remain stable, verifiable and free of clutter—an antidote to citation galimatias and a commitment to intellectual traceability in digital scholarship.
