User:Phil wink/Notes and references

There are a bewildering number of methods and options for citing sources on Wikipedia. They are described in detail at Wikipedia:Citing sources (WP:CITE). The purpose of this essay is not to explain their use, but to advocate for my own preferences. I do not pretend to be an expert in all methods, only to know what I like. If this helps clarify your thinking on citation (whether in agreement with me or not) good. Several of my preferences are based on making editors' work easier; I am not insensitive to users' needs, but often (in my view) competing methods yield results that are about equally useful to users, while creating different amounts of difficultly or ease for editors... so then editor ease becomes decisive.

Plain refs

I favor primarily short inline citations using plain <ref>...</ref> markup. This requires both a Notes and a References section (in that order, as exemplified below). I say "primarily" because <ref>...</ref> can accommodate various types of content, and I feel that they all have their place, but in the primary context of short references. Content includes (each is shown as full "editing" text, and exemplified by a real footnote with identical content):

1. A short reference: <ref>Attridge 1982, p 45.</ref>
2. Multiple short references in one note: <ref>Attridge 1982, p 45; Wright 1988, pp 2-4.</ref>
3. A combination of short reference and text: <ref>Attridge 1982, p 45. For a contrary opinion, see Wright 1988, pp 2-4.</ref>
4. Just text: <ref>Gosh, what an interesting fact!</ref>
5. A long reference, which may be plain text, or include its own internal markup, as in this example: <ref>{{cite web|title=Sestina of the Lady Pietra degli Scrovigni|url=http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/180701|publisher=[[Poetry Foundation|The Poetry Foundation]]|accessdate=20 March 2012}}</ref>
6. Combinations of these.

The main virtues of maintaining a "short reference foundation" for citations are:

• One can avoid repeating full citations over and over, making (I think) both Notes and References more legible, and reducing the scope for typographical errors.
• Short references are much less disruptive to text flow during editing; also less likely to be accidentally broken up or misplaced. Consider the difference between working around <ref>Attridge 1982, p 45.</ref> and working around <ref>{{Citation|last=Attridge|first=Derek|authorlink=Derek Attridge|year=1982|title=The Rhythms of English Poetry|location=New York|publisher=Longman|isbn=0-582-55105-6}}, p 45.</ref> within the article text to be edited.

Yet, the same overall structure accommodates reference types 3-6 as noted above. Even within a "short reference foundation" I think it's perfectly acceptable — sometimes preferable — to use occasional long references, for example:

• When the reference is not broadly germane to the article and only used to cite a single fact.
• When the reference cites authorities in their capacity of getting something wrong (I did this in Syllabic verse).
• When you're bringing an old "references-only" article up to this "notes-and-references" standard and wish to conserve existing references as they stood.

In the first 2 cases, one may wish to avoid privileging these citations under References. In the last, laziness or editorial conservatism (I'm not knocking either) may cause one to leave well enough alone.

Fancy refs

I see more drawbacks than advantages to the additional features available with <ref>...</ref> and documented most fully at Help:Footnotes (H:FOOT). They require, not only additional work on the part of the editor setting them up, but the same additional expertise for all future editors. These features include:

• <ref name="name">...</ref>, which allows one citation to be nicknamed and re-used. Except in cases where the same reference with the same page number(s) is used over and over again, I'm not convinced screen real estate is valuable enough for the bother.
• <ref group="notes">...</ref>, which allows one to group similar citations under distinct headings (e.g. Notes for explanatory prose footnotes, versus References for actual source citations). Possibly for some long and detailed articles, this might be beneficial. But most long footnotes I've written combine explanatory text with short citations; I value the interaction, and it would be purposeless to try to decide which side of the fence they fell on.

Notes

Either <references /> or {{reflist}} can be used to display inline references. Without modification, they do exactly the same thing, and in the past I've mostly used <references /> out of habit. However, since {{reflist}} has some additional formatting features available, it is probably the better choice.

References

I quite like {{Citation}} for references. Each element is labelled explicitly, and the citation formats itself. Alternatively, you may prefer {{Cite book}}, {{Cite web}}, {{Cite journal}}, {{Cite encyclopedia}}, and the similar templates documented at Help:Citation Style 1 (WP:CS1). The 2 should not be mixed — go with either {{Citation}} or the suite of specific templates. Either way, note how much clearer the {{Citation}} is for editors to read and manipulate when it is formatted vertically:

*{{Citation
 | last=Attridge
 | first=Derek
 | authorlink=Derek Attridge
 | year=1982
 | title=The Rhythms of English Poetry
 | location=New York
 | publisher=Longman
 | isbn=0-582-55105-6
}}

...versus...

*{{Citation|last=Attridge|first=Derek|authorlink=Derek Attridge|year=1982|title=The Rhythms of English Poetry|location=New York|publisher=Longman|isbn=0-582-55105-6}}

This convenience is strictly for the benefit of editors; either format gives exactly the same result when rendered:

• Attridge, Derek (1982), The Rhythms of English Poetry, New York: Longman, ISBN 0-582-55105-6
• Wright, George T. (1988), Shakespeare's Metrical Art, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, ISBN 0-520-07642-7