Help:Citations
A citation is a reference to a source. Citations should supply sufficient detail to identify the source uniquely.
Why sources should be cited
- To credit a source for providing useful information and to avoid claims of plagiarism.
- To show that your edit is not original research.
- To ensure that the content of articles is credible and can be checked by any reader or editor.
- To help users find additional reliable information on the topic.
- To improve the overall credibility and authoritative character of NDWiki.
- To reduce the likelihood of editorial disputes.
How to reference articles
Single insertion of a reference
For the single insertion of a reference, the "name" parameter is not needed. On the Edit page, this is placed at the insertion point of citation (example):
<ref>ND-100 REFERENCE MANUAL</ref>
Multiple insertion of the same reference
On the Edit page, this is placed at the first insertion point of citation:
<ref name="ND100REFMAN">ND-100 REFERENCE MANUAL</ref>
This is placed at the second and all subsequent insertion points of citation:
<ref name="ND100REFMAN" />
Producing the reference list
Most importantly, add the following code after the "Sources" sections, but before the "See also" and "External links" sections. This code will automatically display the reference list, showing nearly everything tagged with ref tags.
==Notes and references== <references/>
Rules
This list only includes the basics for the rules. For more details, please follow the footnotes provided.
- Do not reference the introductory paragraph(s).[1]
- References go immediately after punctuation and outside of quotation marks, with no space between the end of a sentence and a reference tag.[2]
- Reference articles as sparingly as possible, while still sourcing all of the facts.[3]
- Links should be used in references.
Notes
- ↑ This is done to prevent "congestion" in the main introduction of the article. As most—if not all—information appears elsewhere in the article, do not begin sourcing until after the first heading. If, of course, the information does not appear elsewhere in the article, then it is acceptable to source it in the introduction.
- ↑ This is a stylistic rule adopted from Wikipedia and many other English sources.
- ↑ For articles with more than one source, start out as general as you can with the reference tags. For example, if an entire section is from one and only one source, tag the section header. However, if there is more than one source, instead tag the next level down: paragraphs. If, at the paragraph level, more than one source is still used, move to sentences. Finally, if that is not enough, tag individual words as necessary, as a last resort.
More information
In addition, you can read Wikipedia's policy at Wikipedia:Citing sources. While not all the rules are the same, most of the basics are explained in more detail on Wikipedia. Wikipedia:Footnotes explains more of the "how to" and technical aspects of sourcing.