DOI to CSE Citation Converter

What is a DOI?

A DOI (Digital Object Identifier) is a permanent identifier assigned to a journal article, book chapter, dataset, or other scholarly work. It starts with 10. followed by a publisher prefix and a document suffix – for example, 10.1038/s41586-020-2649-2. Unlike a regular URL, a DOI never changes: the registration agency keeps it pointing at the work even when the publisher moves its website. That permanence is what makes a DOI the best possible input for a citation generator. When you paste a DOI into CiteTools, we query CrossRef – the largest DOI registration agency – for the article’s authoritative metadata: authors, title, journal, volume, issue, pages, and publication date. The citation is built from the publisher’s own record, not from text scraped off a web page, so author order, page ranges, and dates come out right.

How the DOI to CSE conversion works

1. Paste a DOI such as 10.1038/s41586-020-2649-2 into the input field – the bare identifier and the full https://doi.org URL both work.
2. CiteTools fetches the article’s metadata from CrossRef and validates the record.
3. Copy the formatted citation, or switch styles and export formats without re-entering the DOI.

Example input:

10.1038/s41586-020-2649-2

About CSE Style

Council of Science Editors, name-year system - used in biology, geology, and other natural sciences.

CSE style, from The CSE Manual: Scientific Style and Format, 9th edition, is used across biology, geology, and the other natural sciences. CiteTools writes the name-year system. A reference gives the authors as surname and initials, then the year, the title in sentence case, and the abbreviated journal name. Volume(issue):pages follow, and the DOI closes the reference as an https://doi.org address. The list runs in alphabetical order, and the in-text citation is the surname and the year in parentheses. CiteTools lists up to five authors and cuts a longer list to the first author and et al.

Frequently asked questions