Build the brief around three parts: the conflicting records, the evidence supporting each, and your proposed citation with the residual risk your supervisor should weigh. Keep it to one page so the decision is visible at a glance.
- State the decision in one line: which citation you propose and where it will appear (reference list, in-text claim, or both). Expected result: your supervisor knows what they are approving before reading the evidence.
- List each conflicting record side by side with its source and the specific fields that disagree, such as author order, year, title, or journal. Expected result: the dispute is concrete and scoped to identifiable fields.
- Attach the evidence for each record. A DOI lookup in the Crossref REST API returns the metadata deposited for that DOI, so cite the deposited record you retrieved and note what it shows. Expected result: each candidate citation has a traceable basis.
- Check the publisher-maintained record for updates. Crossref Crossmark lets readers check a publisher-maintained record for corrections, retractions, and other changes to a scholarly work. Expected result: you know whether any candidate has been corrected or retracted.
- Verify the reference against the original source, as ICMJE recommends, and note whether you consulted the article itself or only a metadata record. Expected result: the brief distinguishes what you confirmed from what remains unverified.
- Close with your recommendation, the citation formatted in the journal's style, and the residual risk: which field is still unresolved and what would settle it. Expected result: your supervisor can approve, or name the one check still needed.
Keep sourced facts separate from your judgment. Label the Crossref and Crossmark results as retrieved records, and label your proposed citation as your recommendation. If the records still disagree after these checks, say so plainly and name the next verification step, such as consulting the article's first page or the publisher's article page.