DOI to citation

Cite any paper from its DOI, without invented details

Paste one DOI or a whole list and get a correctly formatted reference in APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 (author-date or notes and bibliography), IEEE or Harvard, plus BibTeX and RIS for your reference manager. Every detail comes from the publisher’s official record in Crossref, the registry behind most journal DOIs, so the authors, year, volume, issue and pages are the real ones.

That is the main difference from asking a chatbot for a citation: language models often produce references that look right but have the wrong year, missing co-authors or even a DOI that doesn’t exist. Here nothing is guessed. If a field is missing from the official record, the tool tells you instead of making it up.

DOIs from DataCite (Zenodo, Figshare, arXiv and many data repositories) are looked up through doi.org, so datasets, software and preprints work too. Your browser contacts Crossref and doi.org directly; the list you paste never goes through our server.

How to turn a DOI into a citation

1. Copy the DOI from the article page, the PDF or a reference list. Full links such as https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14539, “doi:” prefixes and stray punctuation are fine.
2. Paste it in the box. For a reference list, paste up to 20 DOIs, one per line.
3. Choose the citation style your teacher, journal or university asks for.
4. Click Get citations. Each reference appears with its in-text citation, the type of work and a warning if the record lacks something your style needs.
5. Copy one reference or the whole list (italics are kept when you paste into Word or Google Docs), or download a .bib or .ris file for LaTeX, Zotero, Mendeley or EndNote.

Citation styles included

• APA 7th edition: author surnames with initials, the year in parentheses, journal and volume in italics, and the DOI as a link. Up to 20 authors are listed; from 21 on, the first 19, an ellipsis and the last author.
• MLA 9th edition: the first author’s full name inverted, “et al.” from three authors, the title in quotation marks and “vol.”, “no.” and “pp.” in the container.
• Chicago 18th edition: both systems. Author-date puts the year right after the names; notes and bibliography puts it after the journal issue. With more than six authors, the first three are followed by “et al.”, as the 18th edition requires.
• IEEE: numbered references with initials before surnames, the title in quotation marks, abbreviated months and “doi:”. More than six authors become the first author plus “et al.”.
• Harvard (Cite Them Right): the variant most UK and Australian universities teach, with the title in single quotation marks and “Available at:” before the DOI.
• BibTeX and RIS: clean entries with a readable key (for example lecun2015deep), special characters escaped for LaTeX, and capitalised words such as acronyms protected with braces.

With several DOIs, author-date styles are sorted alphabetically as a reference list should be, and IEEE keeps your order with numbers. Changing the style re-formats the list instantly without looking the DOIs up again.

Tips for a perfect reference list

• APA wants article and book titles in sentence case, but publishers register them in title case. Tick sentence case to convert them, then put capitals back on proper nouns such as countries, people and brands.
• Check the warnings under each reference. Online-first articles often have no volume or pages yet; add them by hand once the issue is published.
• Use the DOI of the published version when you can. A preprint DOI cites the preprint, which some journals and teachers don’t accept.
• For LaTeX, download the .bib file and add it to your project. For Zotero or Mendeley, import the .ris file to get the same records into your library.

Good to know

• The citation is only as accurate as the publisher’s record. Typos, odd capitalisation or ALL-CAPS titles in the record are reproduced as they are, so read the result once.
• Sentence case is automatic and can’t recognise every proper noun; it keeps acronyms and words with internal capitals (DNA, SARS-CoV-2, iPhone) unchanged.
• Journal names are given in full. IEEE prefers abbreviated journal titles, so shorten them if your venue asks for it.
• When two references share an author and year, APA and Harvard need “2020a” and “2020b”; add those letters by hand.

Frequently asked questions

What is a DOI?

A DOI (Digital Object Identifier) is a permanent ID for a paper, book, chapter or dataset, such as 10.1038/nature14539. It always starts with 10. and a slash, and https://doi.org/ followed by the DOI opens the work even if the publisher’s website changes.

Where do I find the DOI of an article?

It’s usually printed on the first page of the PDF, near the abstract on the publisher’s page, or at the end of each entry in a reference list. Google Scholar and the journal’s “Cite” button show it too.

Is the citation accurate?

The details come straight from the official record the publisher registered with Crossref or DataCite, so they are the real authors, year, volume and pages. The tool flags any missing field instead of inventing it, and you should still check capitalisation against your style.

Can I cite several DOIs at once?

Yes. Paste up to 20 DOIs, one per line. You get a reference list sorted alphabetically for author-date styles or numbered for IEEE, which you can copy in one click or download as .bib and .ris.

Does it work for books, chapters and conference papers?

Yes. Journal articles, books, edited books, book chapters, conference papers, preprints, reports, theses and datasets are recognised and formatted with the right elements, such as “In” and the editors for chapters.

Why does it say a DOI was not found?

Usually because of a typo, a missing character or a DOI copied from the wrong place. Check it on https://doi.org/. Very new DOIs can take a day or two to appear in the registry.

Is it free?

Yes. It’s free, needs no account to try and works in any modern browser on phones and computers.

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