Andy,
I pulled this from SAGE Journal's Online Help page:
Citations to OnlineFirst articles
Each OnlineFirst manuscript is citeable using the date of the manuscript's first online posting and the DOI. Digital Object Identifiers (DOI) are assigned to all SAGE content for use on digital networks and the metadata associated with that content is registered with the DOI Foundation (www.doi.org). DOIs provide a persistent, permanent way to identify manuscripts published in the online environment, even after they are assigned to a print issue. Information such as volume, issue, and page numbers are not allocated to OnlineFirst articles (as that information is not known until the issue is completed), therefore these manuscripts should be cited as follows:
Smith, JR, Brown, AB. Article title. Journal Title. Prepublished Month, day, year, DOI: 10.1177/0123456789123456
After the article is assigned to a specific issue, new citations can be made using volume and page number information, while still using the DOI:
Smith, JR, Brown, AB. Article title. Journal Title. 2006, 33: 211-217 DOI: 10.1177/0123456789123456
Each article DOI is registered with CrossRef (www.crossref.org), allowing permanent resolution to each article and giving publishers the ability to link their references to articles whenever they are cited.
More information regarding SAGE Online First articles can be found here:
http://online.sagepub.com/site/sphelp/SageColl_PAP.xhtml
I hope this helps. If you need additional assistance or I did not sufficiently answer your question, please let me know. Have a great day!
Danielle S.
