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Harvard referencing??

OK, I'll accept that the Harvard referencing system is an example of an (author, date) style of referencing. But as far as I'm concerned, it is only one example of this style and not the definitive example of this style as implied by the current phrasing added by Slimvirgin. Unless someone can provide some evidence that Harvard actually originated this style of referencing, I don't think it should be cited as some sort of archetype for the format. older≠wiser 00:27, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

I don't understand the objection. That's the name of this type of citation. See Harvard referencing and the reference given there (an article not written by me, by the way). SlimVirgin (talk) 00:30, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
My point is that that style of referencing is NOT universally known as "Harvard referencing". There are many other style guides that recommend using (author, date) format. That article and the reference given there only describe the system of referencing used at Harvard and do not suggest that it is in any way the preeminent exemplar of that format. I suppose it is possible that Harvard really was the first to use this style and subsequently influenced others to use a similar format, but the article and the reference don't give any indication of this that I can see. older≠wiser 01:43, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
Editors and publishers in different countries know it as Harvard referencing. Here are the Google searches [1], over 13,000 entries from around the world. Does anything hang on this? The point of inserting it was to direct people to a Wikipedia article that explains what it is. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:54, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
OK, that's interesting. I've never before heard it called "Harvard referencing". It's interesting that nearly all the top hits in the google search are for non-U.S. sites. I'd be interested to see just how widely it is known by that name and how that came to be. older≠wiser 02:18, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
If you know it by any other names, by all means add them: known as Harvard referencing, also known as etc. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:42, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

May I compliment Bkonrad on one of the least compelling cavils that I've ever seen? This style of referencing is universally known as "Harvard referencing". I'm a copy editor. When I work for someone, they say "Use Harvard referencing" and I know exactly what they mean. I work for Brits, Yanks and Aussies, and they all call it the same thing. What does it matter whether Harvard originated it? As Slim points out, anyone who is not familiar with the term can go to the article and see what's meant by it.Grace Note 04:17, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Gee, thanks for the slam. So I never heard of it and you have. Big deal. Obviously, you're much smarter than I. As for "what does it matter whether Harvard originated it?", I was merely expressing an interest in how it came to be known as that -- this is an encyclopedia after all and the article (and the ext reference there) presently gives little information about the background of that citation style. older≠wiser 11:41, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

SEWilco has created an editting tool (i.e. manually controlled bot) for the purpose of standardizing some of the ways that citations appear in Wikipedia articles. As something of a test run, he did such a conversion to a single page, ice core, see the diff [2]. As a result, myself and one other user objected to how he was converting inline URL links into formal reference links.

Apparently such a conversion is supported by statements at Wikipedia:Cite sources and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links), however these statements seem to be only a few months old and I have been unable to locate any significant discussion of them.

As a result of this disagreement, discussion has ensued at Wikipedia talk:Footnote3#Footnotes_vs._inline_web_references, and we are looking for outside input on this issue.

Dragons flight July 8, 2005 23:07 (UTC)


What follows below is a summary of the formatting styles being discussed for the benefit of those who may be unfamiliar with these different styles.

Summary of formatting styles

Inline linking

One way to reference a website is simply to add a link to it in the body of the article. For example, one might write "Zebras like to play checkers [3]", with a simple inline link pointing directly at the site.

Footnote style

Some users dislike inline links like this because they don't provide information on what is available at that site or when it was retrieved. Instead, it has been suggested that we should used the {{ref}} / {{note}} style of Wikipedia:Footnote3 and {{web reference}} for such web references, for example: "Zebras like to play checkers[4]"

References

  • ^ "Those amazing checker playing zebras". Retrieved June 8, 2005.

Where the little superscripted number links to the appropriate reference and the "^" on the reference links back to the little number. This has the advantage of providing additional information on the website source so that it could possibly be found again if the link ever went dead. It also would make website references consistent with book / journal and other references relying on the {{ref}} / {{note}} form.

The disadvantage is that to get to the external material one would have to click on the little link and then click again on the link in the references section. Personally, I think this is a big disadvantage since it makes it harder to get to outside material and it doesn't provide a way of distinguishing reference links to books and hard resources from those which are immediately available over the internet.

Hybrid style

A potential compromise exists by way of a mixed form with both an inline link and a formal reference, which is to say using "Zebras like to play checkers [5]." Along with:

References

But not using the {{ref}} / {{note}} formulation to link between the two. This preserves the direct link from the text but also gives the detailed reference information. However, since the two aren't linked, it is more likely that one may get removed or changed without the other being fixed. Also, there is some concern this could create very long references sections out of what in some cases are fairly innocuous but plentiful links.

Hybrid style 2

A potential compromise exists by way of a mixed form with both an inline link and a linked formal reference, which is to say using "Zebras like to play checkers.[6]" Along with:

References

This creates both types of links but is visually larger, even using a minor code trick of using the sentence-ending period be a short text link. This could be presented differently in several ways: two images can be stacked (images of numbers 1-99 could be addressed), or is there a way to tuck an external link under a superscripted link number? (SEWilco 9 July 2005 00:03 (UTC))

Mediawiki software & footnotes

Are there any plans for the mediawiki software we use to support footnotes?

I generally avoid them myself because they're too messy with syntax to be used often, in my opinion, but footnotes are good otherwise. Neonumbers 12:55, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Hyphen usage in page ranges

Why is there a "you should use" notation about using "amp;ndash;" instead of "-"? Courtland 15:06, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

Because a hyphen is typographically wrong for ranges of values. —Steven G. Johnson
Publishers have long used the en dash to denote elision in elements that form a range. —Wayward 09:46, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

Citation templates

Why? As far as I can see, these just make citations harder to edit, especially for the less computer-literate. And I'm fairly techy; I program in ASP etc, but find these templates substantially more of a pain to use (and edit when others have used them) than the plain versions. I think standardisation of style can be perfectly well accomplished by looking at similar webpages. The strict standardisation imposed by templates is neither that worth having (when it works), nor does it always work in every situation (without a proliferation of templates). At the risk of repeating myself, why?. Rd232 11:24, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

  • I do not like the templates myself, but I'll venture an answer to "why". Standardisation lends content to automated analysis and action. Therefore, using templates here would help in the design and implementation of bot-assisted clean-up methods. Courtland 11:40, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
  • Standardization also encourages more consistent appearance. And editing citations is likely to become easier when more support for citations is added. (SEWilco 03:30, 20 July 2005 (UTC))

It is, however, complex and it is unrealisitic to expect average editors to use these. I'd be very suprised if any of this ever caught on. Dan100 (Talk) 12:31, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

Citations vs. encyclopedic writing

When there is a certain amount of common knowledge that exists, citation to a particular reference is actually a problem of being biased in favor of an individual reference over all other references that may indicate explicitly or implicitly that knowledge. I think that this needs to be addressed. There is nothing wrong with citations, but one can go overboard. When asked to write for most encyclopedias, citations are left to the discertion of the author, in particular, the author will cite only things that are obscure, controversial, etc. Facts such as "The Earth is a planet in the Solar System" are not generally cited. I think there needs to be a balance between citations and encyclopedic style.

It would seem to me that the real purpose of citations is to prevent plagarism and give proper credit to ideas and discoveries. It should not be to fill a page with as many footnotes as possible. Such a practice is generally considered by most professional editors to be improper.

No, the real purpose of citations is to help the reader. You don't have to cite things for "the sun rises in the morning", but no one has suggested this, nor have we suggested that the purpose is to fill the page with as many footnotes as possible. —Steven G. Johnson 02:08, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
While no one here has suggested this, I have had a conversation over at Talk:creation science and on other creationist pages that has caused me to bring up this concern. Among other things I have found problematic is that certain editors believe that cited remarks and quotations should be immune to deletion because they are properly referenced. Obviously sometimes quotations and cited statements should be removed for editorial reasons.
This page is not about what content should or shouldn't be in Wikipedia, nor should it be. It is about the fact that, for the content that is in Wikipedia, references should generally be provided. Please take the inclusionism/deletionism debate elsewhere. —Steven G. Johnson 04:23, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

-Joshuaschroeder 14:59, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Since there have been no objections, I am going to include a form of the above in the guidelines on the page. Joshuaschroeder 01:22, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

A good rule of thumb is that if you are going to move a properly cited segment from an article is to put it on a Template:todo list on the talk page --Alterego 02:52, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
I guess I don't understand what you're getting at here Alterego. Let's try to illustrate this with an example. Say you are looking at an article that needs to be tightened up and remove a related but unnecessary quote from the page. Are you saying you should put this quote in a todo list? What purpose would that serve? Joshuaschroeder 06:02, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

"Inclusionism"

I would suggest that it is not good practice to set up as a guideline an aim to reduce the amount of information available in Wikipedia. I am not opposed to cleaning up things and providing focus to an article and its supporting information ... things that grow organically need trimming just as any bush does. However, I am opposed to the sentiment behind statements like "...remove a related but unnecessary quote..." or "Obviously sometimes quotations and cited statements should be removed for editorial reasons." The notion expressed is one of (it seems) _if it doesn't belong in the article as a professionally written piece it doesn't belong in Wikipedia at all_ . Rather I would suggest that the default behavior be "preserve information"... which does not mean that information is inviolate from removal from the article space but that if it is removed from the article space the removal is acknowledged and made available for discussion in the discussion space. History-pages do provide an archival reference, but the granularity of histories is such that things get lost to sight quickly.

Now I think that some things are "obviously" to be expunged: vandalism, advertising, POV editorializing. What I am getting at is the notion that "redundant" and "superfluous" are not synonyms and need to be distinguished from one another in this environment. Redundancy can work in our favor as it can be tremendously annoying when someone goes to a source and finds that either a) it is no longer available or b) the excerpting/interpretation of information from one source was less than perfect. I do agree that the article space should be clean and favor readability, coherence and single-voice parsing over inclusionist tendencies; this principle should not carry over to either article discussion space or to (not mentioned above) WikiProject space, where non-article information might exist that either supplements or extends the articles under a particular WikiProjects stewardship (not equal in any way to ownership, another thing I oppose in the Wikipedia environment).

Thanks for sitting through the words. Thoughts? Courtland 10:34, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

I think your point that the aim is not to reduce the amount of information available in Wikipedia is a good one. I think there should be a Wikipedia "Law of Conservation of Information" to that effect and would support such a guideline of policy. However, I am of the opinion that the addition is totally compatible with this aim. If you look at the article itself, the example given is a removal of a quote to Wikiquote -- which effectively conserves the information presented.
While Wikipedia is amateur in its nature, I think it is useful to use professional standards as a bellwether with the knowledge that we are engaged in a project that is much larger in scope. This is why I think it important to be clear how to use citations. I have read more than a few high school and college essays that read like halting treatises rather than coherent arguments sometimes with three or four citations per sentence. We need to encourage citations while also encouraging good writing. Joshuaschroeder 12:03, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Reversion

I appreciate the interest in my edit, but the best way to deal with these concerns is in talk or via edits rather than wholesale deletion. Please do so. These additional guidelines are not outrageous and as there are editors who use this set of guidelines to claim improperly that their edits are sacrosanct. We need the disclaimer to prevent abuse on articles I work on. Please offer criticisms, but don't just revert. Joshuaschroeder 01:54, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

For additions that are redundant (repeating justifications for citations that have already been given) or obvious (you don't need to add references for the fact that the sun rises in the morning), deletion may sometimes be the most appropriate form of editing. —Steven G. Johnson 04:23, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
(See also above: this page is not about the inclusionism/deletionism debate for what should/shouldn't be in Wikipedia. It is only for the policy that things in Wikipedia should generally be referenced.) —Steven G. Johnson
What you describe in the addition as "obvious" I describe as necessary for the guideline to function properly. I don't wish to be repetitious, nor do I wish to get into the "inclusionism/deletionism" debate. All I want is a concise descriptions of when to cite and when not to, just as one would see in a normal editor's handbook such as the Modern Language Assocation's. Surely you cannot be serious when you state that all the additions that were made fall into the two categories you outlined. I will reinclude the section trying to accomodate the first point, but I need some guidance as to what is "obvious" about the second. Joshuaschroeder 04:58, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
I thank you for trying to edit the article to include one of my points, but you have missed a few others:
  • referencing and citations are different. A citation is used to indicate a reference directly. Just because there are references or rationale for references doesn't mean we covered the rationale for citations. Also, you should be aware that there isn't a total consensus on how frequently in-text citations should appear and it is somewhat of a judgement call from article to article.
  • citing common knowledge or points that have multiple references is problematic because it endorses a particular reference over all others. Not every statement of fact needs a citation.
  • there are particular instances when citations are appropriate/required. The list I included is not outlined elsewhere in the article. It is nice to have a list to reference so that people are not confused and demand citations for points that either cannot or should not be cited.
Thank you. Joshuaschroeder 11:48, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
The rationale for in-text citations is indeed covered already in the article and is more general than your description. It's mainly there for when it's hard for readers to determine which reference supports a particular statement. Note also that it's important to be consistent in the article with terminology to be clear on the distinction between the complete reference information at the end (which we call both citations and references), and the pointers in the text (which we call in-text citations).
It is obvious that you don't need a citation for the sun rising in the morning. On the other hand an article on the solar system should indeed have references, but since it will likely have a few general textbook references it won't need many in-text citations. Thus, the rationale for "the earth is a planet in the solar system" not needing citations is not just that it is common knowledge, but that this fact will be mentioned in every reasonable reference in solar system and hence the reader will have no trouble finding it.
The list you included is misleading because it is not exhaustive and indeed misses the general point of in-text citations — they are not there merely to handle a specific set of cases like you suggest, and rather address the general problem of helping the reader find more information and support for particular statements whenever it is unclear where to do so. —Steven G. Johnson 14:36, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
To respond to your points: while the rationale for references and citing is covered in the text, that is not the intent of what I'm writing which is to explicitly state the editorial style of citation. All of my work is on in-text citations. I will change the section title accordingly.
While it is obvious to you and to me that you don't need a citation for the banal statements, it is not necessarily obvious to some editors with POV-chips on their shoulders. It would be nice to have this as part of the guidelines, even though it seems ridiculous to the more enlightened of us. Common knowledge indicates that reasonable references include the fact (though it isn't true that every reference will explicitly say that the Earth is a planet in the solar system).
If the list isn't exhaustive, please let me know what other cases aren't covered by it. I think the problem is that in-text citations have been considered by some editors to be a panacea for removing POV and have also been considered necessary for statements that really don't warrant a citation (such as stylistic summaries of points). While the point of in-text references we agree upon, the fact of their existence in terms of how footnotes and references get presented plays out differently in many articles.
I'm just not convinced, sorry. The article already states that inline citations are optional and are only to reduce confusion, describes the formatting style, describes the fact that large numbers of citations are not desirable, and says that just because something is cited does not mean it is appropriate. Adding more verbiage to repeat these points with more details just makes it less likely that editors are going to read the guidelines - as a rule of thumb, one finds that readership drops off over the course of any article, which is one of the rationales for the inverted pyramid style. At some point, we have to rely on the judgement and sense of editors; yes, I know and sympathize that some editors are not sensible, but the philosophy of Wikipedia is that those editors will eventually be overruled by others. We don't modify the guidelines to address the actions of individual kooks every time there is a POV war on some article. —Steven G. Johnson 15:35, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
It seems that your definition of "states" and mine are not the same. Where in the article does it explicitly state that in-text references are optional? It says that sometimes there are cases where there is no reference required, but it doesn't state explicitly that this means that in-text citations are optional. Moreoever there is no place I can find that says that large number of in-text citations are not desirable. Also there is nowhere in the guideline where it states why someone should or shouldn't include an in-text citation. These points simply are not addressed. If you think that they are, can you show me the sentences you think do it so that I may make them more explicit? Thank you. Joshuaschroeder 23:06, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
"In addition to listing a reference at the end, you may choose..." What part of may choose don't you think means "optional"? The very next paragraph goes on to say under what circumstances in-line citatations may or may not be useful. —Steven G. Johnson 18:36, July 24, 2005 (UTC)


Thanks for responding. Joshuaschroeder 11:17, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Re: Merge request

Why would we merge a "semi-obsolete proposal" into a "guideline"? -- Jmabel | Talk 20:15, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

  • ?? was there a merge template affixed to the cite sources article? Thanks for providing some more information that educates the less observant among us :) . Courtland 10:39, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
There was. I removed it and changed the obsolete Wikipedia:References page into a redirect. —Steven G. Johnson 04:24, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

templates for papers/theses

I couldn't find any template for papers/these that are not part of any journal or those I found online. So I created these:

I have used them at Economy_of_India#References. Compare with the earlier citations, where I have used Template:Web reference_author or variants. I haven't added these to the Citation templates, since I wanted to get some feedback. pamri 13:44, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

added it. pamri 04:23, July 25, 2005 (UTC)
Why add it? Where was the feedback? (SEWilco 17:13, 25 July 2005 (UTC))
None for a day. I found it useful at an article I was doing and hence I have added it. pamri 17:33, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

Documentaries

Isn't there any template that allow me to add a reference to a documentary or a DVD? Cedar-Guardian 07:04, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

  • Well, if it is a reference to a documentary film then see if there is a movie template, maybe {{imdb}}. If it is a reference to a TV documentary then you'd need a TV program template. If it is a reference to a web site about the documentary then use the existing web template. The DVD may have an ISBN which should be automatically wikified. (SEWilco 16:02, 27 July 2005 (UTC))
I found the documentary in the Imdb site, but the Template:imdb only refers to persons (actors, directors...). CG
Use Template:imdb title. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:59, July 28, 2005 (UTC)
I'm using temporarly this template, but another template should be created (maybe {{Movie reference}} or {{Documentary reference}}, that takes Title, Director, Year... along with a link to its entry in the imdb site as arguments. CG 08:10, July 28, 2005 (UTC)
Created Template:Cite video based on the APA style format 5 using the example at http://www.english.uiuc.edu/cws/wworkshop/writer_resources/citation_styles/apa/film.htm

pamri 14:37, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

Use of ASINs in citations

Hi, all.

I decided today that ASINs weren't, fundamentally, any use for references. So I started removing them. After about a hundred I asked the mailing list, and got a couple of "go ahead" comments; at about two hundred I got collared by another editor & reported for vandalism. This, I decided, was A Bit Of A Hint to stop and think about what I was doing.

So, I'd like people's thoughts. Using ISBNs instead of ASINs (since they're usually identical!) seems clearly preferable, but removing ASINs wholesale? Contentious...

Comments appreciated at User:Shimgray/ASIN, so we can try and hash out a consensus on this. Shimgray 00:52, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

A clean

This page has been suffering from very bad instruction creep. This page should be about the policy of citing sources in order to support articles as much as a part of the manual of style. I've moved the huge example styles and template systems to their own pages and linked to them instead, and removed the duplicate/crufty advice that had built up.

Hopefully now people will actually read the page and take it on board, instead of taking one look at the monster ToC and going "no thanks". Dan100 (Talk) 15:56, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

The examples were the most useful part of the page. When I first spotted the page, I spotted it and found what I was looking for. It should be restored. lots of issues | leave me a message 01:10, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

  • I agree. It seems that the most useful part of this has been removed, and the language has become overly formal in a way not needed in Wikipedia space. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:33, August 11, 2005 (UTC)
  • Ditto. I don't mind having the examples on a separate page, but the layout should be restored back to the table that used to be here. I found that easiest to read. --Howcheng 22:24, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

The table still exists, and is prominently linked to. It is only one of several methods of citing references, so doesn't belong on this page any more than the example system does. Dan100 (Talk) 21:13, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

I noted that in Archive 1 (perhaps others as well) there was some discussion about how to cite legal cases. However, no recommendations have made it into the main page. I'm wondering if the guidelines noted at http://www.rbs0.com/lawcite.htm would be a suitable starting point for citation of United States legal cases? I've applied this guideline recently to the article Aerial photography and might revise Planned Parenthood to conform to the guideline as well. Courtland 02:45, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

Verifying books

  • If someone uses books in their posession as source and gives the name in the sources section. How can others verify the fact of the text unless they also have a copy of that book. Say for example I have an obscure edition of a book that is not readily available, say a book from 1912. How can someone verify this?!?
  • Also say for example you did an interview with a person you were writing an article about, how can others verify this information is geniune if they can't verify the interview took place.
  • I have not noticed that paragraphs point to certain bibliographies in the sources section. Normally footnote numbers or reference abreviations in puncuation (ex: [M$2]) are used to point in the bibliography which source was used. Is it not proper to mark a source which each paragraph of a different subject? --Kim Nevelsteen 17:42, 16 August 2005 (UTC) (Clueless about citation)
    • Books are available for loan at libraries. Most libraries can obtain books outside their collection through a system called Inter-Library Loan (ILL). Where a book is not available for ILL it is usually possible to obtain a photocopy of some pages. Most counties have a central repository of all publications (in the UK it is the British Library). An unpublished interview is not a verifiable source and should only be used as a reference if the author publishes his/her contact information. I regret that I do not understand your third paragraph. —Theo (Talk) 18:17, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
Hi Kim, first an unpublished interview can't be used as a source, because it counts as original research: see Wikipedia:No original research. As for books, if the book is hard to find, you can ask that the editor using it scan in the page and book cover onto a website if he has one; otherwise, as Theo said, it would be up to the editor challenging the information to find a copy of the book or page via his local library. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:25, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
Hello indeed. So when an article is marked as "to be verified" each source should be checked out and verified? When is a website ok to verify text? (maybe I should read about that last question first).
About the third paragraph. How can you know which paragraph of an article was found in which source unless there is a link. I haven't seen to many links that point to the list of sources, or maybe it is just me. --Kim Nevelsteen 18:30, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

If I understand your last point, it is a good one. Ideally, I think, we should adopt one of two options. First, use the standard practice in most US academic disciplines which is to provide in parentheses the last name of the author, date, and page numbers in situ. Many will reject this practice as too academic, though. A second option would be to start moving away from general bibliographies at the end, to bibliographies for each section of the article. Remember, too, that how verification is enforced depends on how controversial a statment is. In other words, the more people question the accuracy of a claim, the more important it is to provide a precise citation. In uncontroversial cases, citations are reso8urces readers can turn to — if they so choose. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:43, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

  • EXACTLY what I ment! An example for clarity and for ... example of course. =) I quote from Intro to DB systems by Date: "... SQL is an extremely redundant language [7.13], in the sense that it almost ..."

Bibliography: 7.13 Jeffrey D.Ullman: Principles of DB and Knowledge-Base Systems: ... (19xx) page numbers, etc... Ah, I must add also that I don't think that HTML "anchors" are used enough in Wiki. Anchors would be PERFECT to link from paragraphs to Bibliography.--Kim Nevelsteen 20:54, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

  • Oops, another idea just popped in my brain (sorry developer, can't help it). Wouldn't it be good to have a input field under the "Edit Summary:" field where people can fill in the source citation? Wiki could add the citation to an *autogenerated* source subsection. Then Wiki could add a generated ?hash? reference HTML anchor from the paragraph or inserted article information to citation that was inserted by Wiki below in the source section. --Kim Nevelsteen 21:04, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

I am glad we are making some progress, but frankly, Kim, I still have no idea what you are want. Can you translate the following into grammatical English:

  • Normally footnote numbers or reference abreviations in puncuation (ex: [M$2]) are used to point in the bibliography which source was used.
    • There is no subject in this sentence. Used by whom? What does "in punctuation" mean? Footnote numbers appear in the text and at the foot of the text, not "in punctuation." Reference abbreviations are an altogether other topic, which, by the way, I think we should avoid entirely at Wikipedia. I do not understand "to point in the bibliography" — what do you mean by "point?"
  • Is it not proper to mark a source which each paragraph of a different subject?
    • To mark a source? How does one mark a source?
    • "which each paragraph of a different subject" is a dependent clause. It makes sense unless it is followed by the rest of the sentence, you can't use a dependent clause independently. "paragraph of a different subject" is a nominal clause; it functions as a subject. But where is the verb? Where is the object?
    • Also, what kind of subject is this? What is a "paragraph of a different subject?" How does the word "of" function here?
  • "I quote from Intro to DB systems by Date"
    • What is this "Intro to DB systems by Date" that you are quoting from? Is this an article in Wikipedia? Is this a reference book?
  • Bibliography: 7.13 Jeffrey D.Ullman: Principles of DB and Knowledge-Base Systems: ... (19xx) page numbers, etc...
    • Are you suggesting that this would be the bibliographic entry? What does the 7.13 mean? In the US, bibliographical entries are generally in alphabetical order by the last name of the first author. If you quoted Ullman's book in the article, after the quote "blah blah blah" you could put (Ullman 19xx:yy) (yy being the page numbers).

Your suggestion about an input field for sources is interesting but technical and should not be made on this page, which is solely to improve the article (I am NOT trying to discourage you, it just seems that you have an idea worth pursuing -- but not here). Slrubenstein | Talk 21:26, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

The use of an additional field for sources has been discussed by the developers. You can check out Bugzilla (indeed, as a programmer, you might have fun). As for linking the references to specific paragraphs, I find Template:Inote useful. Some other editors use other approaches. (And I disagree with Stephen: I think that raising this here is entirely appropriate: but do continue it at Bugzilla). —Theo (Talk) 21:53, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I was not trying to discourage any discussion of this idea, I just thought that more people who have the technical knowledge to assess its possibilities and potential problems would be following other pages. SR

The question below answered my question in the third paragraph as well. Thanks. --Kim Nevelsteen 10:11, 17 August 2005 (UTC)


Question

I've read over most of the guidlines/rules regarding sourcing and reliability etc. But I'm afraid I am still quite confused. What is an acceptable source? I don't really have a specific article in mind when I ask this question, but it seems to be interpreted differently by just about everyone. To try to give you an idea what I am asking, here is an article [7] where many of the sources are op/ed's, blog posts etc. I understand that such sources would be acceptable when used in the formulation of "(person who wrote it) asserts...", but too often its given a greater weight. 172.209.76.25

It semms probable to me (based on your posting of this question) that you already have an appropriate sense of which sources are acceptable in each context. I suggest that you trust your judgement. This is not a statement that all editors should trust their judgement on this matter; the example that you cite is just one of many that demonstrate the difficulties that editors have in identifying appropriate sources. Your confusion may arise because you imagine that articles reflect best practice. If you want to see appropriate referencing, I suggest that you watch recent Featured Articles. —Theo (Talk) 09:57, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

indeed! Canadian_Heraldic_Authority The reference markers are excellent. Helped me as well.--Kim Nevelsteen 10:11, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Clarifying "further reading" vs "references"

This article page lists at the top why one might want references; it includes "To provide more information or further reading. " But the rest of the article seems focused on references that are the sources for info used in the article. What about listing books that are probably good sources of info on this subject but that might not have actually be used in researching the article? Do those indeed also go under the "References" heading? Elf | Talk 21:57, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

  • Yes. See e.g. the comments about "actively search for authoritative references to cite" and "Adding general or specific citations to articles which lack them (whether or not you wrote it) is an excellent way to contribute". (Of course, before you add a reference, for whatever reason, you should normally make sure that it doesn't contradict the material in the article—in that sense, any reference listed is a source that has been used to write or verify the article.) —Steven G. Johnson 04:34, September 7, 2005 (UTC)
  • No no, we need to clarify this on the page then. Something that has not been used to clarify or add material to an article is not a reference, and should not be called one. There has been heavy consensus for that in FAC voting and on the FA criteria talk page, and even this one or it's archives as I am aware. Something that has not been used as a reference but can offer additional material for the interested reader should go in a separate Futher reading section because that title is clear about what it is. But if we mix in resources that were not used properly as references into the references section it's not only academically dishonest, but leaves it impossible to tell if any sources were properly used. For those reasons I feel a mixed section is just as bad, it's ambiguous. - Taxman Talk 14:44, September 7, 2005 (UTC)
  • It's never been a consensus here. Your proposal has (a) nothing to do with how references are used by professional scholars, largely because it is (b) impossible to implement in practice because there is no clear distinction between sources that were used to write or verify the article and sources for further information. The only dishonest thing is referring the reader to any source that you haven't checked to see that it is consistent with the article; splitting up the references into a vague dichotomy does nothing to help us eliminate such dishonesty (and in fact it encourages it). ("Further reading" sections in professional works, usually textbooks with hundreds of references, are almost invariably simply a highlighted subset of the bibliography.) —Steven G. Johnson 15:22, September 7, 2005 (UTC)
  • A) It's a very easy distinction, and is not vague at all. They were either used in adding or fact checking material or they weren't. B) What other types of media are able to get away with doesn't have too much to do with what we can or should do, because our structure is inherently different. We aren't brick and mortar with inherent credibility like other publishers. We have negative inherent credibility and academia and librarians recommend not trusting our material. To combat that we need to do things better which may mean differently. We need to be accurate with our references and not ambiguous. We don't have that luxury. - Taxman Talk 15:36, September 7, 2005 (UTC)
It's a vague and misleading distinction because (a) many (most?) things that are good sources of information are also good sources of further reading and (b) you shouldn't point the reader to anything if you don't know what it says, and thus any "further reading" has also implicitly been used to check the article (or should have been). You may claim to know better than decades of professional scholarship, but this kind of claim requires extraordinary proof. —Steven G. Johnson 19:05, September 7, 2005 (UTC)
  • They can either go in a single "References and further reading" section (e.g. World Trade Organization), or in a separate "Further reading" section (e.g. Canadian English). When writing articles I prefer to use the latter form, especially when there are a large number of items. I place a (possibly numbered) list of those things that I actually used as sources, and that are cited from the text (using superscripts or {{ref}} — see Jamie Kane) in a "References" section; and I place an unnumbered list of your aforementioned "good sources of information that were not actually used to construct the article" in a "Further reading" section. See also Wikipedia talk:Guide to layout for some other views on this. Uncle G 10:39:28, 2005-09-07 (UTC)

I had a go-round about all this recently with User:Ringbang (see User_talk:Ringbang#References) over the article Henry Darger, where he removed the distinction I had made between "References" and "Further reading". I didn't really want to fight about it, so I let him have his way. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:44, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

  • I wasn't sure about including the reference in Slovak language in Knaster-Tarski theorem. It was the book where I learned about this topic and I somehow felt, that this book should be credited. (Namely the historical remarks come from this book, in the mentioned contribution.) But for English-speaking readers this reference is useless.

Sometimes it happens that sources in other languages are better or a wikipedian has feeling that they deserve to be included - as they were his primary source. In my opinion in such case also sources in foreing languages should be included. I think that references should include both - the sources which where actually used and pointers which are easily accessible.

What would you say? --Kompik 14:11:01, 2005-09-10 (UTC)

  • Make it clear that the book is in Slovak, and there's no problem, at least IME. Finding another work in English would be helpful, but is sometimes not possible - but it should be in addition, not in place of. Shimgray 14:22, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
    • Absolutely. I've probably cited half as many sources in foreign languages as in English. You cite what you use. The addition of an English language source as well is, of course, always a plus. -- Jmabel | Talk 17:39, September 10, 2005 (UTC)
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