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Guide to referencing
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| Using references (citations) |
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I thought you might find it useful to have some information about references (refs) on wikipedia. These are important to validate your writing and inform the reader. Any editor can removed unreferenced material; and unsubstantiated articles may end up getting deleted, so when you add something to an article, it's highly advisable to also include a reference to say where it came from. Referencing may look daunting, but it's easy enough to do. Here's a guide to getting started.
A reference must be accurate, i.e. it must prove the statement in the text. To validate "Mike Brown climbed Everest", it's no good linking to a page about Everest, if Mike Brown isn't mentioned, nor to one on Mike Brown, if it doesn't say that he climbed Everest. You have to link to a source that proves his achievement is true. You must use Reliable sources, such as published books, mainstream press, authorised web sites, and official documents. Blogs, Myspace, Youtube, fan sites and extreme minority texts are not usually acceptable, nor is Original research, e.g. your own unpublished, or self-published, essay or research.
The first thing you have to do is to create a "Notes and references" section. This goes towards the bottom of the page, below the "See also" section and above the "External links" section. Enter this code:
The next step is to put a reference in the text. Here is the code to do that. It goes at the end of the relevant term, phrase, sentence, or paragraph to which the note refers, and after punctuation such as a full stop, without a space (to prevent separation through line wrap):
Whatever text you put in between these two tags will become visible in the "Notes and references" section as your reference.
Copy the following text, open the edit box for this page, paste it at the bottom (inserting your own text) and save the page:
(End of text to copy and paste.)
You need to include the information to enable the reader to find your source. For a book it might look like this:
An online newspaper source would be:
Note the square brackets around the URL. The format is [URL Title] with a space between the URL and the Title. If you do this the URL is hidden and the Title shows as the link. Use double apostrophes for the article title, and two single quote marks either side of the name of the paper (to generate italics). The date after The Guardian is the date of the newspaper, and the date after "Retrieved on" is the date you accessed the site – useful for searching the web archive in case the link goes dead. Wikilinks (double square brackets which create an internal link to a wikipedia article) function inside the ref tags. Dates are wikilinked so that they work with user preference settings.
You may prefer to use a citation template to compile details of the source. The template goes between the ref tags and you fill out the fields you wish to. Basic templates can be found here: Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles/Citation quick reference
The first time a reference appears in the article, you can give it a simple name in the <ref> code:
The second time you use the same reference in the article, you need only to create a short cut instead of typing it all out again:
You can then use the short cut as many times as you want. Don't forget the /, or it will blank the rest of the article! A short cut will only pick up from higher up the page, so make sure the first ref is the full one. Some symbols don't work in the ref name, but you'll find out if you use them.
You can see refs in action in the article William Bowyer (artist). There are 3 sources and they are each referenced 3 times. Each statement in the article has a footnote to show what its source is.
When you become familiar with the process, the next step is to have one section, "Footnotes", with links embedded in the text, and another, "References", which lists all of your references alphabetically with full details, e.g. for a book:
If you're ready to go into it further, these pages have detailed information:
I hope this helps. If you need any assistance, let me know. |
Comments
edit"This person raised $1 billion in funds and is noted businessman. He has been featured in the New York Times and other publications, would source links overcome this issue in your view?" Yes, sourced links would overcome the issue. I append your text with notes. Understate and keep to facts, not interpretation and sales pitch. This isn't the place for a resume: it's an encyclopedia. I have put writing guides at the top of the page. Tyrenius (talk) 21:08, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
- Pleased to be of help. You might like to look at featured articles for the best approved writing and referencing. Tyrenius (talk) 22:49, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
- Excuse capitals in the text. It's to make it stand out. You haven't read the ref guide. If you don't do that, I can't help. The media coverage section should be used as references. You can use references that are in print form, provided you give full details. External links should normally only be in the text when used as part of a reference. Other relevant EL can be put in their own section. Tyrenius (talk) 23:22, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
- There are still lots of statements without a specific reference to verify them, and good references that are not being used for material but just tacked on at the end of the article. Tyrenius (talk) 03:14, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
Image copyright problem with Image:Richard Rakowski.jpg
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Thank you for uploading Image:Richard Rakowski.jpg. However, it currently is missing information on its copyright status. Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously. It may be deleted soon, unless we can determine the license and the source of the image. If you know this information, then you can add a copyright tag to the image description page.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thanks again for your cooperation. NOTE: once you correct this, please remove the tag from the image's page. STBotI (talk) 17:24, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
Your request
editHi, what is the name of the article you created? I can always create it again and move it to your user space until it is finished. Bearian (talk) 15:18, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
- It's rewritten and back in article space now: Richard Rakowski. Tyrenius (talk) 16:01, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Richard Rakowski rewrite
editYou have IMO done a very good job of recreating the article to conform to wikipedia encyclopedic requirements. It should be chronological in sequence, rather than CV reverse order, and I have attempted to correct this. You may like to check it over. Some dates are missing and it would be good if these could be inserted, particularly Rakowski's birth date (at least the year) in the lead section. It would also be appropriate, I think, and lead some color to have a significant quote from Rakowski about his life's work or a particularly significant aspect of it, if this is sourced. If the quote is enclosed in these tags, it gives it large speech marks for significance:
- {{cquote| TEXT HERE }}
Tyrenius (talk) 16:06, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
- Birth date and place would be added value. I don't think anyone's going to quibble re. refs for that data. Tyrenius (talk) 00:47, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
Signature
editAs a courtesy to other editors, it is a Wikipedia guideline to sign your posts on talk pages, user talk pages, and WikiProject pages. To do so, simply add four tildes (~~~~) at the end of your comments. Your user name or IP address (if you are not logged in) and the date will then be automatically added along with a timestamp when you save your comment. Signing your comments helps people to find out who said something and provides them with a link to your user/talk page (for further discussion). For further info, read Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines. Thank you. Tyrenius (talk) 00:59, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
File permission problem with File:Rakowski UN Meeting.jpg
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Thanks for uploading File:Rakowski UN Meeting.jpg. I noticed that while you provided a valid copyright licensing tag, there is no proof that the creator of the file has agreed to release it under the given license.
If you are the copyright holder for this media entirely yourself but have previously published it elsewhere (especially online), please either
- make a note permitting reuse under the CC-BY-SA or another acceptable free license (see this list) at the site of the original publication; or
- Send an email from an address associated with the original publication to permissions-en@wikimedia.org, stating your ownership of the material and your intention to publish it under a free license. You can find a sample permission letter here. If you take this step, add {{OTRS pending}} to the file description page to prevent premature deletion.
If you did not create it entirely yourself, please ask the person who created the file to take one of the two steps listed above, or if the owner of the file has already given their permission to you via email, please forward that email to permissions-en@wikimedia.org.
If you believe the media meets the criteria at Wikipedia:Non-free content, use a tag such as {{non-free fair use}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:File copyright tags#Fair use, and add a rationale justifying the file's use on the article or articles where it is included. See Wikipedia:File copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.
If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have provided evidence that their copyright owners have agreed to license their works under the tags you supplied, too. You can find a list of files you have created in your upload log. Files lacking evidence of permission may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. You may wish to read Wikipedia's image use policy. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Kelly hi! 15:14, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
