Citing Online First Articles

Citing Online First articles for Special Publications

Each Online First article may be cited using the date that the article was published online and the Digital Object Identifier (DOI). DOIs provide a persistent, permanent way to identify articles published in the online environment, even after they are assigned to a print issue. More information about the DOI system can be found at www.doi.org. Each article DOI is registered with CrossRef (www.crossref.org), allowing permanent resolution to each article and giving publishers the ability to link their reference to articles whenever they are cited.


While an article is available on Online First it may be cited as follows:

Author, A. B. & Author, C. D. The title of the article. In: Editor, A. & Editor, B. (eds) The Title of the Special Publication. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, XXX, first published online October 1, 2010, http://dx.doi.org/10.1144/SPXXX.XX

The same paper in its final format would be cited:

Author, A. B. & Author, C. D. 2011. The title of the article. In: Editor, A. & Editor, B. (eds) The Title of the Special Publication. Geological Society, London, Special Publications, XXX, xxx-xxx. First published online October 1, 2010, http://dx.doi.org/10.1144/SPXXX.XX