User talk:Oiyarbepsy/topic/20160603

Clarification wanted in regards to Citations

I am searching for mention of a Monk in Books. I have found few books which refer to him and have added them as citations. I also found many books where he is mentioned in the resources section in reference to his book. My question is can these also be used as a citation for the book mentioned in the wikipage. Eg. "These authors used this book as a resource." Will this be considered a valid citation? Please assist Mcolombowala (talk) 05:57, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

• @Mcolombowala:OK, help me out here. You found a book, say Boof by Alma Bop, and in the resources section, Bop recommends that people also read Snarf by Vindar Hep? If that's the case, you should get a copy of Hep's book before you cite it so you know what's in it. If you're unable to get a copy of Hep's book, you could possibly list it as a see also, or you could list it on the talk page and note that you weren't able to find a copy.

That said, I'm not quite clear what a resource section of a book would contain. Is this section a list of sources? Or more like recommended reading?

Finally, I do urge you to find books that have more than a mention of him. Once you find book that discuss this monk in detail, remove the citations to books that merely mention him.

I hope this helps. Reply to clarify if it doesn't. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 13:31, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

• @Oiyarbepsy: I understand the point that if it is passing mention in a book with say 150 pages it is not worthy of being cited.

If it all sounds too complicated, let it be as I am not using it now.

It is more like if book X was cited in book Y (to mean book Y author used material from book X in writing his book. It is normally an acknowledgement at the end of most books as a resource.) Thus it is mentioned only once but the material from book X may have appeared multiple times in book Y (or not). I was thinking that it would add credibility to book X as book Y Author has used book X in course of writing his own book.

Anyway I have read the books which has been cited and some can be read as ebook preview. I have also mentioned specific quotes which are relevant from the books I cite. Mcolombowala (talk) 14:05, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

• User:Mcolombowala, from what I'm reading, I would say that you should cite both books. I recommend that you use the {{cite book}} template, or you can use the visual editor cite option, enter the URL, and the visual editor should fill in all the author and title details for the book automatically (this doesn't always work, so you do need to check). Oiyarbepsy (talk) 04:09, 5 June 2016 (UTC)