User:Msikma/Citation style guide

THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS BY A WIKIPEDIA USER. IT IS NOT A GUIDELINE OR POLICY.

Over the years, Wikipedia has become a gigantic encyclopedia with lots of useful information neatly organized in well-readable articles. Due to this, it has become a source of reference for many people. However, in an encyclopedia which anyone can edit, this could sometimes lead to bad scenarios in which misinformation, inserted by vandals, is mistakingly seen as correct. To remedy this problem, statements that could suffer from inaccuracy must cite a source which the user can check to confirm its validity. This document aims to become a general style guide for how to do this properly. It's based on the American Psychological Association (APA) style, but has been adapted to accomodate the needs (and limitations) of the electronic form in which Wikipedia's articles are stored.

As noted in other style guides, providing sources for edits is mandated by Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research, which are official Wikipedia policies.

Basic Rules

Information requirements

A good reference contains at least this information:

• the author(s) of the work, or the institution or group that created the work
• the date on which the work was published
• the title of the work
• whether the work appears as part of a larger work (such as an article in a journal or newspaper, or a chapter in an essay collection)
• where the work was published
• who or which group published the work
• information that would help someone retrieve the work (such as a web page address or an ISBN number)

As much information as is known should be included, and information that is not known should be omitted.

Metadata standards

Besides the templates which can be used to easily and consistently create citations for books and Web sites, there are some rules that the editor must adhere to in the entering of these templates' metadata.

• Authors' names are inverted (last name first); give the last name and initials for all authors of a particular work unless the work has more than six authors. If the work has more than six authors, list the first six authors and then use et al. after the sixth author's name to indicate the rest of the authors.
• Uncited reference list entries should be alphabetized by the last names of the first author of each work. Cited references are listed in order of appearance in the document.
• If one has more than one article by the same author(s), single-author references or multiple-author references with the exact same authors in the exact same order are listed in order by the year of publication, starting with the earliest.
• When an author appears both as a sole author and, in another citation, as the first author of a group, list the one-author entries first.
• References that have the same first author and different second and/or third authors are arranged alphabetically by the last name of the second author, or the last name of the third if the first and second authors are the same.
• If using more than one reference by the same author (or the same group of authors listed in the same order) published in the same year, one must organize them in the reference list alphabetically by the title of the article or chapter and then assign letter suffixes to the year. When referring to these publications in the article, use the letter suffixes with the year so that the reader knows which reference is being referred to.
• Use "&" instead of "and" when listing multiple authors of a single work.
• When referring to any work that is NOT a journal, such as a book, article, or Web page, capitalize only the first letter of the first word of a title and subtitle, the first word after a colon or a dash in the title, and proper nouns. Do not capitalize the first letter of the second word in a hyphenated compound word.
• Capitalize all major words in journal titles.
• The date of retrieval for electronic references should not be an internal link unless it has direct relevance to the reference.
• When a Web page's authors cannot be determined, but it is certain that there are more than one, use the type of site members that must have created the page if this is known (such as "Wikipedia contributors" for a wiki or "Gamespot forum moderators" for a forum). Use "editors" when this is not known.

Citation syntax

The basic syntaxes for both the styles of a references as well as the templates that can be used to create them are listed here. The basic rules apply to all of these unless stated otherwise. There is more information on a particular template available inside of that template, so visit it in case you're still unsure of how to use one. See also the examples section below.

Printed sources

A nonperiodical (e.g., book, report, brochure, or audiovisual media)

Use {{Cite_nonperiodical}}.

Part of a nonperiodical (e.g., a book chapter or an article in a collection)

Use {{Cite_nonperiodical-part}}.

A part of a periodical (e.g., an article in a journal, or newspaper, or magazine)

Author, A. B., Author, C. D., & Author, E. F. (Year). Title of article. Title of periodical, volume number, pages.

In the case of a newspaper or magazine article, include a specific publication date, preferably the month and day. This is not necessary for journal articles. The volume number must be given depending on what system the periodical uses; in case there are no volume numbers, use whichever system it uses to discern separate volumes, such as the month of the year or the season. In case there is also an issue number in addition to a volume number, add that as well in the form of "Title of periodical, volume number, (Issue number)" (without quotation marks). Note that the issue number is not italicized.

Use {{cite magazine}}: Empty citation (help).

Electronic (Web and Internet) sources

Article in an Internet periodical

Use {{Cite_nonperiodical}} with an url and retrieved_date and retrieved_year.

Nonperiodical Internet Document (e.g., a Web page or report)

Use {{cite web}}: Empty citation (help).

Part of Nonperiodical Internet Document

Use {{cite web}}: Empty citation (help).

Adding references

Add information here.