Wikipedia:Citing sources/Further considerations

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This page includes some additional considerations for citing sources. The information is here so as not to distract from content on the main Citing sources project page - which should allow new editors to get quickly started. What's here is felt to be of relevance to further interested editors.

Contents

[edit] Pre-emptive archiving

The content of any webpage may alter of course, and may in time disappear completely. In any case where a webpage is referred to from an article, where it may be subject to future change or removal, the specification of an alternate archive URL will ensure link accessibility and stability. When referenced content can be retrieved from an archive source such as the Internet Archive or WebCite then archive information can be included along with the original reference information. Anticipating the possibility of future alteration or deletion, archive URL information can thus be added pre-emptively, at the time of reference's initial inclusion and ahead of any potential issues with the original link.

[edit] WebCite

WebCite allows immediate archiving of individual webpages upon request. This is distinct from the inherent delays of the Internet Archive's automated web-crawling method; for which new or recently published material may take several months to appear, and for which more transient pages may be missed altogether.

Subject to copyright protection,[1] WebCite allows you to pre-empt the possibility of future page alteration or deletion with its archive form - http://www.webcitation.org/archive.php. As part of the archiving process, a message is sent to your specified e-mail address giving a unique archive URL that can be used to access the content. As well as a confirming e-mail, submission of a request results in an on-screen message advising you of the archive URL there and then - so you can use it in your article reference straightaway.

[edit] Wikilinks to full references

Wikilinks can be created for example from short note citations to their appropriate full references regardless of format. For references written freehand, or using any citation template, it simply requires the inclusion of some appropriate identifying tags. In the following example note how the value of the id parameter used in the <cite> tags act like anchoring bookmarks, thus allowing the shortened note citation to use a wikilink (like a link to a same-page section heading would, using #). The same approach could of course also be used to wikilink parenthesised author-date (Harvard) citations to their full references.

Wikilink example edit:

The Sun is pretty big,<ref>[[#refMiller2005|Miller 2005]], p.23.</ref>
but the Moon is not so big.<ref>[[#refBrown2006|Brown 2006]], p.46.</ref>
The Sun is also quite hot.<ref>[[#refMiller2005|Miller 2005]], p.34.</ref>
== Notes ==
{{reflist|2}}
== References ==
*<cite id=refBrown2006>Brown, R (2006). "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 51(78).</cite>
*<cite id=refMiller2005>Miller, E (2005). "The Sun", Academic Press.</cite>

Example rendered result:

The Sun is pretty big,[1] but the Moon is not so big.[2] The Sun is also quite hot.[3]

Notes

  1. ^ Miller 2005, p. 23.
  2. ^ Brown 2006, p. 46.
  3. ^ Miller 2005, p. 34.

References

  • Brown, R (2006). "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 51(78).
  • Miller, E (2005). "The Sun", Academic Press.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ WebCite observes robot exclusion standards as well as no-cache and no-archive tags. Authors may request removal of archived material. Caching and archiving of webpages is otherwise well-established practice (e.g. including by others, such as Google, and the Internet Archive).