Why Digital Submission Creates Additional Formatting Considerations
Malaysian universities increasingly require or allow digital thesis submission — a PDF file submitted through an online portal rather than printed copies delivered to the faculty office. Digital submission creates formatting considerations that do not apply to print submissions, particularly for the reference list. In a digital thesis, reference list entries should ideally contain working hyperlinks to DOIs and URLs so that readers can access sources directly. These hyperlinks need to be verified before submission because a broken link in a digital reference list is unhelpful in a way that a broken URL in a print reference list is not — the digital reader expects to be able to click through.
Activating and Checking Hyperlinks
When you convert your Word document to PDF for digital submission, Microsoft Word automatically converts typed URLs beginning with http:// or https:// to clickable hyperlinks in the PDF. Verify that this conversion has occurred correctly by opening the PDF after conversion and clicking on several DOIs and URLs in your reference list. Check that each link resolves to the correct source — the specific article, report, or webpage you cited rather than a homepage or an error page.
If a hyperlink does not work, return to the Word document and verify that the URL is typed correctly. Check for missing characters, incorrect spacing, and broken line breaks that may have inserted a newline within a URL. In Word, you can right-click any underlined URL and select “Edit Hyperlink” to verify the full URL the link resolves to, which sometimes differs from the displayed text if the URL was pasted incorrectly.
Formatting DOIs for Digital Reference Lists
In APA 7th, DOIs are formatted as live hyperlinks beginning with https://doi.org/ — not as static text and not with the older doi: prefix. In a digital thesis, these should be genuine hyperlinks that resolve to the DOI system. After PDF conversion, click through at least ten to fifteen DOIs in your reference list to confirm they resolve correctly. DOIs that are missing digits, that contain OCR errors from scanning, or that were incorrectly transcribed will produce error pages rather than the intended source page.
For sources without DOIs — websites, government reports, blog posts — verify that the URLs in your reference list resolve to the specific page you cited rather than to a homepage or a page that has since moved. Websites reorganise their content, and a URL that was correct when you wrote the reference may have changed by the time you submit. If a URL no longer works, attempt to find the current URL for the same content, update the reference, and note the current access date if the content is likely to change again. Formatting your reference list for digital thesis submission with these specific checks ensures that your reference list functions as a genuinely usable navigation tool for digital readers, not just an attribution record.
