Help:Referencing for beginners
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This essay is a how-to guide detailing a practice or process on the English Wikipedia.
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References (or refs), on Wikipedia, are important to validate writing and inform the reader of the source of the text. Any editor can potentially remove unsupported material, and unsubstantiated articles may be deleted. When adding something to an article, it is highly advisable to cite a reference which describes the source of the information to help the reader who wishes to verify it, or to pursue it in greater depth. It is also useful to update or improve existing references.
This article shows you how to provide inline citations. There are other acceptable systems, including the use of inline parenthetical references and general references. As a good practice, the first major contributor gets to choose the referencing system for that article.
Contents
Good references[edit]
A citation to a reference must verify the statement in the text. To verify the statement "Mike Brown climbed Mt. Everest", you cannot rely on a general reference about Mt. Everest or a reference on Mike Brown. You need to cite a source that directly supports the statement about his achievement. Wikipedia does not publish original research (e.g. your own unpublished, or self-published, essay or research).
An encyclopedia is, by its nature, a tertiary source that is a neutrally written summary of existing mainstream knowledge about a topic. However you must not copy and paste text you find anywhere, except for short quotations. Ideally all information should be actually cited to reliable sources to provide evidence that it is verifiable, such as published books and mainstream press publications. Blogs, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, fan sites, and extreme minority texts are not usually acceptable, nor is another Wikipedia article.
If the reference source is a lengthy book, paper, or article, you should give specific chapter, section, or page numbers if possible, to save the reader from having to search the entire document.
Before you start[edit]
Before you add a reference, you may want to check that there is a section where the footnotes will appear. It usually exists unless the article is still in early development; look for a section that contains either the <references /> tag or, to enable more complex formatting, the {{reflist}} reference template. In accordance with Wikipedia page layout standards, this section is usually titled "References", and goes toward the bottom of the page, below the "See also" section and above the "External links" section. If the section does not exist yet, click on the "Edit" tab to begin editing the page and enter this code in the appropriate place:
==References==
{{Reflist}}
Inserting a reference[edit]
Generally references are added directly after the facts they support, at the end of the sentence and after any punctuation. Wikipedia permits editors to use any citation system that allows the reader to understand where the information came from, and strongly encourages use of inline citations to do so. Common methods of placing inline citations include footnotes, shortened footnotes, and parenthetical references.
There are three basic methods to add a reference into the article text. You may use any one, or a combination of methods:
- Using refToolbar to fill out a form with the bibliographic information (requires JavaScript)
- Manually typing in formatting code and bibliographic information
- Using VisualEditor, an experimental tool that is being beta-tested for editing Wikipedia pages
Using refToolbar[edit]
refToolbar, which appears atop the edit box in browsers that support JavaScript, contains useful tools for editing Wikipedia articles. The tool can be used to easily add properly formatted citations without having to learn how to use the {{Cite}} templates. Also, refToolbar has the ability to automatically fill in bibiliographic data for many published books, and academic journal or medical journal articles, which can reduce error-prone and tedious cut-and-paste or retyping of such information.
If your browser does not support JavaScript or it is disabled, refToolbar will not work (see Template:Cite for what to type-in manually).
Click on the play button on the image to the right to view a refToolbar 2.0b video tutorial on how to use the citation dialog. Instructions on using the citation dialog are also included below:
- If you don't see a drop-down menu labeled Templates
on the toolbar above the edit window, click on "
Cite" at the top of the toolbar to activate refToolbar. - Position the cursor in the text where you want the numbered link to your citation to appear. This should be at the end of the relevant phrase, sentence, or paragraph that the citation is verifying (after any punctuation, see MOS:REFPUNC for more information). Do not position the cursor at the very end of the article or in the
==References==section — place it directly after the text the citation verifies. - Click on the drop down menu labeled Templates , and choose the citation type you would like to add ("cite web" for websites, "cite news" for newspaper articles, "cite book" for books, and "cite journal" for academic journals).
- Once you select a type of citation, a new window will appear with a number of blank fields to fill in. Fill in as many of the fields as you can. You may leave some fields blank, but make sure to at least provide a "Title" to avoid causing an error message when you save the page.
If you are citing from a website, make sure to enter the web address of the page in the "URL" field. Click on the
button next to the "Access Date" field to indicate that you checked the information on the website you're citing today.
If you are citing from a book, there is a feature that will automatically fill in many of the information fields, avoiding manual entry of this data. If you can find the ISBN of the book, enter it into the ISBN field in the form, then click on the
icon to its right. The software will look up the book information from a database on the Internet, and automatically fill in many of the fields for you. You should verify that the information is correct, since it sometimes is wrong, incomplete, or badly formatted (especially if there are multiple authors). You should also add page numbers or other information if available.
If you are citing from a journal, a similar feature can use the PMID for many medical journal articles, or DOI for academic journals.
- Once you have filled in the form, you can optionally click the Preview button at the bottom to see the code that will be inserted. If you then click on the "Show parsed preview" link under the code you will see the citation displayed as it would appear in the finished article.
- When you are satisfied with the information in the citation form, clicking the Insert button will close the form and add the code for your citation to the edit window at the location you had selected prior to choosing a citation type. This information will show up as a superscript numbered link when you preview or save your edit.
button next to the "Access Date" field to indicate that you checked the information on the website you're citing today.
icon to its right. The software will look up the book information from a database on the Internet, and automatically fill in many of the fields for you. You should verify that the information is correct, since it sometimes is wrong, incomplete, or badly formatted (especially if there are multiple authors). You should also add page numbers or other information if available.When your edit is saved, the text of citations within the body of the article will automatically appear in the References section. References added using refToolbar can still be edited manually after they are added; details on how to manually create or edit references are discussed in the Manual Referencing section, later in this tutorial.
Building citations without numeric superscripts[edit]
The refToolbar method can also be used to conveniently build correct and complete citations for a "Further reading" or "Bibliography" section of an article, which do not use numbered superscripts. Use refToolbar as described above, and insert the citation in the section you are adding to. Then, manually edit the newly inserted Wikisource text to remove the <ref> and </ref> tags, to prevent the unwanted appearance of numbered superscripts. For books, it is strongly recommended that you include the ISBN, if one exists. You can use the automatic ISBN lookup feature, as described above.
Manual referencing[edit]
Once you have checked that there is a section where the footnotes will appear, the next step is to add an actual reference into the article text. The code to do this goes at the end of the relevant phrase, sentence, or paragraph to which the note refers (after any punctuation, and without a space before the beginning of the <ref> tag).
<ref>freetext</ref>
Whatever text, formatting, or templates you put in between these two tags will become visible in the "References" section as the text of your reference.
- Do not place content in
<ref></ref>tags after the<references />tag or{{reflist}}template — they belong in the body of the article, at the point that you want the link to the footnote to appear.
Test it out[edit]
First, open a new browser window to view . Once there, open an edit box (Windows: Ctrl+Click; MacOS: Cmd+Click), copy the following text (inserting your own text where indicated), paste it at the bottom of your page, and then save it:
==Reference test==
This is the text that you are going to verify with a reference.<ref>Reference details go here</ref>
==References==
{{Reflist}}
(End of text to copy and paste.)
Note the position of the reference after the full stop; see also WP:REFPUNC. When you save the page, you should see this on your screen:
This is the text that you are going to verify with a reference.[1]
- ^Reference details go here
You can also use the Wikipedia:Sandbox for test edits like this.
Information to include[edit]
You need to include sufficient information to enable readers to find your source. For an online newspaper source, it might look like this:
<ref>Plunkett, John. [http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1601858,00.html "Sorrell accuses Murdoch of panic buying"], ''[[The Guardian]]'', London, 27 October 2005. Retrieved on 27 October 2005.</ref>
When uploaded, it appears as:
- Plunkett, John. "Sorrell accuses Murdoch of panic buying", The Guardian, London, 27 October 2005. Retrieved on 27 October 2005.
Note the single square brackets around the URL and the article title. The format is:
[http://URL "Title of article"]
Make sure there is a space between the URL and the Title. This code results in the URL being hidden and the title showing as a link. Use double apostrophes on either side of the name of the newspaper (to generate italics) and quotation marks around the article title.
Double square brackets around the name of the newspaper create an internal link (a wikilink) to the Wikipedia article (if any) about the newspaper - not really necessary for a well-known paper. If such brackets are used, the apostrophes must go outside the brackets.
The date after The Guardian is the date the newspaper article was originally published—this is required information—and the date after "Retrieved on" is the date you accessed the website, which is not essential but can be useful for searching the web archive in case the link goes dead.
It is best to include the place of publication if it is not already part of the newspaper's name. This avoids possible confusion with other newspapers of the same name. In the example, there are other newspapers called The Guardian published in cities of the world other than London.
References not online[edit]
You can use sources which are not online, but which you have found in a library or elsewhere—in which case, leave out the information that is not relevant. The newspaper example above would be formatted like this:
<ref>Plunkett, John. "Sorrell accuses Murdoch of panic buying", ''[[The Guardian]]'', London, 27 October 2005.</ref>
After you add this information and save your edit, it appears as:
- Plunkett, John. "Sorrell accuses Murdoch of panic buying", The Guardian, London, 27 October 2005.
Here is an example for a book:
<ref>Charmley, John (2006). ''The Princess and the Politicians'', p. 60. Penguin Books, London. ISBN 0140289712.</ref>
After you add this information and save your edit, it appears as:
- Charmley, John (2006). The Princess and the Politicians, p. 60. Penguin Books, London. ISBN 0140289712.
Make sure you put two apostrophes on either side of the title (to generate italics), rather than quotation marks.
Citation templates[edit]
Optionally, you may prefer to use a citation template to compile the details of the source. The template is placed between the ref tags, and you fill out the fields that you want to include. Such templates automatically format punctuation and other markup such as italics and quotation marks.
Basic citation templates can be found here: Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles/Citation quick reference.
Using VisualEditor[edit]
If you prefer to use VisualEditor, you can use that to add the references. VisualEditor is an experimental way to edit pages without needing to learn wikitext markup, but is in the beta testing stages, currently does not work with all Internet Explorer versions, and has a number of known limitations. You can use VisualEditor by logging-in, checking the feature and pressing save.
The video to the right demonstrates how to use VisualEditor to add a citation template, which formats your references for you. You can also insert a plain-text citation using this method.
Position your cursor after the sentence or paragraph that the citation is intended to support. Click the "Reference" icon in the VisualEditor toolbar. A dialog will appear, with a text box in which you can either insert a plain citation or a citation template. If you want to insert a template, click the puzzle piece icon to bring up the templates dialog. Type "Cite" into the template text box, and a number of suggestions will be provided. Choose the appropriate template, and add as many parameters as you can easily fill.
Date format[edit]
These formats are preferred for dates:
- 27 January 2007
- January 27, 2007
- 2007-01-27
Same reference used more than once[edit]
The first time a reference appears in the article, you can give it a simple refname inside the first <ref> code. To avoid name collisions, you can use the author name followed by year of publication, or an abbreviated version of the title. If it will be used often, pick a unique, memorable, and easily typed refname.
<ref name="smith2008">DETAILS OF REFERENCE</ref>
Subsequent times that you cite the same reference in the article, you can use this shortcut instead of re-typing it (take note of the "/" at the end):
<ref name="smith2008" />
You can then use the refname shortcut as many times as you want (but never forget the "/", or it will blank the rest of the section).
For an example article where there are three sources, and they are each referenced three times, see William Bowyer (artist). For more details see WP:REFNAME.
Refname rules[edit]
Generating refnames as suggested above is not difficult, but the complete rules are quite detailed. Names for footnotes and groups must follow these rules:
- Names are case-sensitive
- Names may not be purely numeric
- Names must be unique—you cannot use the same name to define different groups or footnotes
- Quotation marks are optional if the only characters used are letters A–Z, a–z, digits 0–9, and the symbols
!$%&()*,-.:;<@[]^_`{|}~. - Inclusion of any other characters, including spaces, requires that the name be enclosed in quotes:
name="John Smith"(since not all later editors will know of this technical restriction, it is safest to always quote the name). - The quote marks must be the standard straight keyboard marks (
"); curly or other quotes will be parsed as part of the reference name. - Quote-enclosed names may not include a less-than sign (
<) or a double straight quote symbol ("). These may be escaped with<and", respectively. - Please consider keeping names simple and restricted to the standard English alphabet and numerals.
- You may optionally provide names even when the name is not required. This makes later re-use of the source easier.
Page references[edit]
If the repeatedly used reference is a book or a lengthy paper or article, it is very helpful to have separate page references for specific facts. To avoid excessive repetition of standard bibliographic information for each different page reference, you can use the Template:Refpage, which appends the page number(s) as a superscript after the usual reference superscript. For an example of how this is applied, see the article about Frank Oppenheimer.
Alternative systems[edit]
Notes and references[edit]
The above method is simple and combines references and notes into one section. A refinement is to put the full details of the references in their own section headed "References", while the notes which apply to them appear in a separate section headed "Notes". The notes can be inserted in the main article text in an abbreviated form. To add the citation:
<ref name="smith">Smith, 1946, p=157</ref>
it will appear in the {{reflist}} at the end of the article. At the end of the article the mark-up is as follows:
==See also==
==Notes==
{{reflist|2}}
==References==
* Full Citation 1
* Full Citation 2
* Full Citation n
==Further reading and external links==
The separation of "Notes" and "References" in this way is in line with scholarly works.
Footnotes, notes and references[edit]
A further refinement that is used by some scholarly editors is to use notes and footnotes. For example the article on Franz Kafka is referenced this way making use of two helpful templates. {{sfn}} and {{efn}}. Throughout the article you add the reference so:
{{sfn|Smith|1889|p=157}} or {{sfn|Smith|Jones|1892|pp= 213-218}}
that is the name, year and page reference or author, second author, year and page references. The full citation, which is generated by the method above is added (without its reference tags) to the Bibliography section.
{{efn|Free-text note}}
is inserted in the text and will appear in the {{notelist}}[a] This has many uses.
The last sections of the article provide the links for the references and the notes: they take this mark up.
== See also ==
== Notes ==
{{notelist}}
== References ==
=== Citations ===
{{reflist|2}}
=== Bibliography ===
* Full Citation 1
* Full Citation 2
* Full Citation n
=== Further reading ===
* Further Citation 1
* Further Citation 2
* Further Citation n
== External links ==
This method is useful when you are making many page references from a limited number of books. It relies on on the Authors name and Publication year to make the links. Which ever system is used try to be consistent.
Tools[edit]
There are a number of tools available to help with citation placement and formatting, some of which are internal tools and scripts while others are available from external sites. For example reFill and Reflinks edit references by adding basic information to bare URLs in citations. Another example is Wikipedia citation tool for Google Books that converts a long Google Books URL into a filled-out {{cite book}} template ready to be pasted into an article.
See also[edit]
- Help:Citations quick reference
- Wikipedia:References dos and don'ts
- Help:References and page numbers
- Wikipedia:Advanced footnote formatting
- Wikipedia:Parenthetical referencing
Footnotes[edit]
- ^ To get an attractive autolink between the
{{notelist}}and the{{cite_family}}full-citations; the text||ref= harvor||ref = {{sfnRef|''Los Angeles Times''|2009}}must be added to the{{cite XXXX}}code. The former links on name and year but the latter links on the chosen freetext- such as the publication, and year.
Further reading[edit]
Publications[edit]
- Phoebe Ayers; Charles Matthews; Ben Yates (2008). "Referencing Styles". How Wikipedia Works: And how You Can be a Part of it. No Starch Press. pp. 188–193. ISBN 978-1-59327-176-3.
- John Broughton (2008). "Citing Sources". Wikipedia: The Missing Manual: The Missing Manual. "O'Reilly Media, Inc.". pp. 32–40. ISBN 978-0-596-55377-7.
External links[edit]
- The Bookshelf - A collection of high-quality, freely licensed, user-generated informational material about Wikipedia.
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