Wikipedia talk:Citing sources/Archive 7

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:Citing sources. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

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Archive 5

Positioning: External links vs. References

The recently added statement that external links should come after references: is this actually a general agreement, or did someone just decide arbitrarily to make a new rule? Seems to me like I haven't seen any particular consistency on this. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:21, May 10, 2005 (UTC)

AS I understand things, ==External links== is for sites that contain substantial additional information not covered in the article. Where a site has been used for reference it should be included in ==References== irrespective of its inclusion in ==External links==. Because of this, I feel that ==External links== should be placed before ==References== since it is part of the main body of the article (like ==See also==). —Theo (Talk) 09:30, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

This sounds reasonable; I consider that references apply to the entire article, including external links, not to just one section. Courtland 13:19, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

Direct sources/credits for media articles (film, radio, animation, etc).

I certainly understand and relate to the need to supply sources, as well as links to further reading. That's one of the primary problems with so much online information. However, there's certain areas where the citation becomes a bit tricky and/or redundant, and that's particularly true in relation to non-text materials: films, radio shows, etc. I'm not talking about citing information from an audio commentary or so forth, which can easily be mentioned within the article. I'm referring to information derived directly from credits within the production itself: text credits in regard to films and modern TV series/animated productions etc., and spoken credits for audio productions and early television series, provided in the form of opening or closing announcements. In terms of radio, particularly in the later era, from the 40s and especially 50s and beyond, much of what is known about the creators and participants (to say nothing of being able to accurately describe the characters used, tone, quotes, etc). comes from thee broadcasts themselves.

How can one go about citing this information? If I were to simply list the show/film, would it be perceived and deleted as a redundancy? Can one simply include an in text citation number, leading to a note in References along the lines of "Information taken directly from film credits/audio announcements" or something along those lines? Some way to mark that the information is not taken purely from often fallible secondary sources such as IMDb, but from the films/programs themselves?

Whew, that became long winded. Any help on how to approach this for a new user, who expects to do a fair amount of updating in this area, would be appreciated. Aleal 02:12, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Interesting! But if I understand you correctly, how different is this from saying that "I know who the author of the book is because his/her name is on the cover?" Do I understand you? Then the point is that some texts are self-identifying. This is a fact I think few would dispute. We have two choices: either just say "Gone with the Wind, directed by Victor Flemming" and provide no source other than information about the film itself (perhaps even VHS and DVD info, like we provide ISBN numbers for books). Or, we say "According to the credits, Gone With the Wind was directed by Victor Flemming. According to (cite sourc), however, George Cukor was the first and uncredited director." Does this help? Slrubenstein | Talk 20:45, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Styling inline citations

I've seen inline citations come before and after a period, usually with but sometimes without a preceding space (and even with and without spaces between adjacent ones). Many articles are internally inconsistent in this area. Is there a consensus on these, or have I perhaps overlooked part of the official guidelines? Here are examples:

Before with space [1].
After with space. [2]
Before without space[3].
After without space[4].

I frankly prefer the first of those, but I'll naturally go with whatever the community decides. I'd simply like to see some consistency.

(I know the very use of these particular citations is controversial, but that's another discussion.)

Elembis 10:23, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

Before with a space is standard in most publications that use [number] references. —Steven G. Johnson 02:16, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

At some (pre-Wikipedia) point, I was told that a single citation or multiple citations supporting an entire sentence should go after the period with a space; if the sentence contains two or more citations that support different points, put each of them after the corresponding statement and before the period. Thus:

In the last year of the Clinton administration, the federal budget showed an annual surplus of more than $230 billion. [5]
Under Bush, the annual deficit reached record current-dollar levels of $374 billion in 2003 ([6]) and $413 billion in 2004 ([7]).

I use parens in the latter case to set the citation off from the text, although perhaps this isn't necessary where our citation takes the distinctive form of a bracketed hyperlinked number. In this particular example, somebody else didn't like the in-sentence citations and moved them all to the end. I didn't bother reverting, but I still think the reader is somewhat better served if it's obvious which citation supports which fact. JamesMLane 07:31, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

In print, footnote numbers come at the end of sentences, following all punctuation except for a dash, and are set in superscript. Several citations can be grouped into one footnote number, separated by semicolons and in the same order as in the text:

Under Bush, the annual deficit reached record current-dollar levels of $374 billion in 2003 and $413 billion in 2004.¹

1. John Doe, "On the Budget Deficit," The Times, June, 1, 2004; Alias Smith, "Rising Deficits," The Hearald, May, 1, 2005.

I suspect the same style would be appropriate for Wikipedia. —Wayward 09:41, Jun 4, 2005 (UTC)

There may be publications that do it that way but it's certainly not carved in stone. In American law reviews, for example, footnotes are commonly placed within a sentence; they would be placed where I put the external links in my second example (except that, because law reviews generally don't follow "logical" punctuation style, the second footnote would come after the period). JamesMLane 09:54, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I was referring to general publications where humanities-style references are common. —Wayward 10:29, Jun 4, 2005 (UTC)

How about this?

Under Bush, the annual deficit reached record current-dollar levels of $374 billion in 2003 and $413 billion in 2004.<sup class="plainlinks nourlexpansion citation" id="ref_<1>">[8]

<span class="citation wikicite" id="endnote_<1>">^ Associated Press, "Federal Deficit Hits Record $374B," CBS News.com, October 20, 2003. (accessed June 4, 2005); Associated Press, "Government says 2004 deficit was record $413 billion," USATODAY.com, October 14, 2004. (accessed June 4, 2005)

—Wayward 11:41, Jun 4, 2005 (UTC)

Citing Google Print

I updated WikiBib with a citation maker for Google Print books. It should be easy now to go to Google Print, search for your topic, find a book and make a citation for it (it was a real pain to write them out ). Please leave me some feedback to help in improving it. I have it in the works to have a javascript insert for Wikipedia that writes a single citation maker form below the edit field for articles (sort of like Live Preview). Here's the google print citation

By the way, the citations look like this. I can easily change them so let me know. There is no defined standard that I have found on how to properly cite something like this so I'm inventing it:

Barrett, David V. (May 1, 2003). The New Believers. Octopus Publishing Group. pp. 299. ISBN 1844030407. Google Print. Retrieved May 25, 2005.

--Alterego 18:28, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

Since the reference is to the online version and not the printed one, I suggest the following:

Barrett, David V. 2003. The New Believers, 299. Google Print. ISBN 1844030407. (accessed May 25, 2005). Also available in print from Octopus Publishing Group.

—Wayward 21:06, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestion. I went ahead and implemented most of it. Additionally, there is now a realtime preview, and html output in addition to wiki output. I put up a blog entry walking through the steps for finding information as well. See How to cite books from Google Print. More suggestions are welcome! --Alterego 02:40, May 27, 2005 (UTC)

guidelines vs scientific reality

(moved to Template_talk:Book_reference#Change suggested) — MFH: Talk 23:02, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/RFC

An important policy discussion has started concerning ways in which our content-related polices, such as NPOV, No original research and Verifiability could be better enforced. I've made a proposal to give the Arbitration Committee the ability to consult Wikipedia users who are knowledgeable in subject-areas that apply to cases before them. Such consultation is needed due to the fact that the ArbCom does not by itself have the requisite knowledge to easily tell what is NPOV, original research, or a fringe idea in every field. Please read my proposal at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/RFC#Alternate solution #9 by mav. Content subcommittee and comment. Thank you! --mav 02:50, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia entries that do not cite an authority

What wikipedia entry or entries are there, if any that do not cite authority for the information?... oo-- dWs donWarnersaklad 16:54, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What definition of authority are you after? Government, expert in a subject, etc. Under any definition, most wikipedia articles do not cite sources of any kind, much less a specific type of source. Many people are improving that, but it is a bit of an uphill battle. Try the Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check for a project working on fixing it. More activity is going on everyday in articles though. I've unlinked the section title, because it is unlikely to be useful as an article in the article space. What are you after? - Taxman ^Talk 21:22, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

authority
Power over, or title to influence, the opinions of others; authoritative opinion; weight of judgement or opinion, intellectual influence. Power to inspire belief, title to be believed; authoritative statement; weight of testimony. Sometimes weakened to: Authorship, testimony. The quotation or book acknowledged, or alleged, to settle a question of opinion or give conclusive testimony. The person whose opinion or testimony is accepted; the author of an accepted statement. One whose opinion on or upon a subject is entitled to be accepted; an expert in any question.

Would any of you folks out there with online access already to the Oxford English Dictionary send along by email dsaklad@gnu.org the OED definition for the word?... authority

I'm comparing the OED definition with other definitions...
http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=authority
http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/a/a0532200.html
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define%3A+authority

You can lookup words in the Compact Oxford English Dictionary here. What does this have to do with Wikipedia:Cite sources? —Wayward 12:37, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

What examples are there of a Wikipedia entry without any authority for the information?... oo-- dWs dsaklad@zurich.csail.mit.edu 14:14, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The vast majority cite no authority of any kind. Just clicking on random page gives me Pohatcong Creek, Commuter Cars, List of genera by name: R, ESTsoft, Chabanaudia, Megumi Urawa, John F. Miller, Mal Evans, Champeta, Galaxy Trek. The first page that cites an authority randompage gives me Leander, Texas, which cites the US Census Bureau. Tuf-Kat 16:53, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

Inline Citation

What exactly is an inline citation? I can't find a page or reference with this heading, and in all honesty I'm getting tired of fishing for it. TomStar81 15:56, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion, inline is a term used to mean "in the text" as opposed to at the end of the text. So any footnotes, or (Foo, 1998, pg 223) type things count as inline citations. They are important in order to be able to verify individual important facts in an article. This page shows some forms for them. What would be the best way to avoid that confusion? - Taxman ^Talk 19:48, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

For starters, place it out in the open, like an actual example on the FAC canidates page, or as part of the Style and How to Series. Perhaps a section or subsection of the Wikipedia: Cite Sorces page could have this heading, that would show up in the table of contents, which would make finding it easier. Of course having a page entitled "Inline Citations" would probably be best, this way lots of examples could be given :) TomStar81 23:13, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well there is no consensus best way to do it, so any system that accomplishes references in the text is acceptable. I'll see what I can do about making this easier to find. - Taxman ^Talk 00:29, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)