Article citations have specific elements you can look for to clue you in on the fact that it's an article and not a book, book chapter, or webpage:

• There is both the article's title and the name of the journal it was published in listed.
• There is a volume and issue listed.
• Page numbers are typically listed, though occasionally these are omitted in some entirely digital publications. 
• For some peer reviewed journals, a DOI will be listed. DOI links or numbers can also be listed for books, but this is a less common practice. Also, not all journals or other serials like magazines and newspapers have a DOI. 

Below is an example of a typical journal citation.  As you can see, it lists volume and issue numbers, as well as the journal's name.  

Wright, C.V., Perez, S., & Johnson, D.M. (2010). The mediating role of empowerment for African American women experiencing intimate partner violence. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 2(4), 266-272. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0017470

Let's break that down:

Authors:          Wright, C.V., Perez, S., & Johnson, D.M.

Year:               (2010).

Article Title:     The mediating role of empowerment for African American women experiencing intimate partner violence. 

Journal Title:    Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy

Volume Number:   2

Issue Number:    (4)

Page numbers:   266-272

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0017470

Clicking a DOI link or looking it up on DOI.org will lead you to the full text, but it will be behind a paywall.  How do you get around this?

See if the PG Library has the article by copying the DOI into the search box on our website. Or, just search for the item's title and author(s), which is often easier. 

Some tips on using the DOI to search for an item in the PG Library's information databases:

• The option is available when using the search box on our homepage, EBSCO Discovery Service, as well as ProQuest Central.  
• It's not always required, but in our testing, it can help to delete the "HTTP" or "HTTPS" part of a DOI if it is a URL for the search to work in EBSCO Discovery Service.
• In ProQuest, you must also delete the "dx.doi.org" part as well.  
• Sometimes databases, especially ProQuest, include our proxy domain (libauth.purdueglobal.edu) in the DOI due to technical limitations on the platform.  While we've tested this and it doesn't seem to affect the search in EBSCO, but you need to delete it in ProQuest.  
• If the item doesn't come up, you can try searching using other citation information like title and author.  In our testing, this is often easier to start with (though, YMMV). However, this usually means we don't have it.  For items not in our collection, you can request them using our document delivery service.  Fill out the document delivery form to request an article not in our collection.

Examples:

Usually works in EBSCO: https://dx.doi.org/10.1136/inp.f2703

Works in EBSCO: dx.doi.org/10.1136/inp.f2703

Works in EBSCO and Proquest: 10.1136/inp.f2703