Help:Referencing for beginners

References (refs) on TechInfoDepot are important to validate writing and inform the reader. Any editor can potentially remove unsupported material, and unsubstantiated articles may end up getting deleted; so when something is added to an article, it's highly advisable to cite a reference to say where the information came from. It can also be a good idea to update or improve existing references. Referencing may look daunting, but it's easy enough to do. Here's a guide to getting started.

This page shows you how to use the most popular system for providing 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.

Good references
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 if it doesn't include the fact that he climbed Mt. Everest. You need to cite a source that directly supports the statement about his achievement. You must use reliable sources, such as published books and mainstream press publications. Blogs, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, SoundCloud fan sites, and extreme minority texts are not usually acceptable, nor is original research (e.g., your own unpublished, or self-published, essay or research), or another TechInfoDepot article.

Using the refToolbar
refToolbar is a JavaScript tool built into the edit window that helps editors quickly add references without needing to manually add reference markup or citation templates. There is a video to the right that provides a tutorial of how to use the refToolbar functionality, which is also explained briefly below. If your browser does not support JavaScript or it is disabled, the toolbar will not work, but manual referencing is still an option.

Inserting references using refToolbar
To use this method of adding references, first find the place in the edit window where you wish to add a citation and select that location. In other words, place the cursor at the end of the sentence or paragraph that your source is intended to support. Then click the "Cite" button at the top right (or top center) of the edit window. Next, click on the drop down menu labeled "Templates", and choose the citation type you would like to add. Once you select a type of citation, a new window will appear with a number of fields to fill in. While it is important to fill in as many of the fields as possible, make sure you at least provide a title for the citation, failing to do so will cause a citation error when you save the page. When you are done adding information to the citation, clicking insert will close the window and add the citation to the edit window at the location you selected prior to opening the citation template. This will show up as a clickable number once you preview or save your edit.

If the article did not have any visible references before you started, check to make sure that there is a references section towards the bottom. If not, create a new level-2 section "References" and add the following without the period: reflist. (See Inserting a reference, below.) When your edit is saved, the text of citations within the article will appear in this section. References added using the toolbar 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.

Inserting a reference
TechInfoDepot allows editors to use any citation system that allows the reader to understand from where the information came. Common choices include footnotes, parenthetical references, and inline URLs. This page will show you how to use the footnotes approach:

The first thing you do is to make sure there is a section where the footnotes will appear. It may already exist: look for a section that contains either the or the reflist reference tag. This section goes toward the bottom of the page, below the "See also" section and above the "External links" section, and is usually titled "References". Enter this code:

==References==

The next step is to put a reference in the text. Here is the code to do that. The code goes at the end of the relevant phrase, sentence, or paragraph to which the note refers. (If there is a space between the end of the phrase, sentence or paragraph and the beginning of the, then normal line wrap may cause the resulting numbered footnote to be separated from the text.)


 * 

Whatever text, formatting, or templates you put in between these two tags will become visible in the "References" section as your reference.

Test it out
Open the edit box for (Windows: Ctrl+Click; Mac: Cmd+Click), copy the following text (inserting your own text where indicated), paste it at the bottom of the page, and save the page:

{{pre2| ==Reference test== This is the text that you are going to verify with a reference.

Information to include
You need to include sufficient information to enable readers to find your source. For an online newspaper source, it might look like this:

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 TechInfoDepot 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
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:

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:

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.

Date format
These formats are preferred for dates:


 * 27 January 2007
 * January 27, 2007
 * 2007-01-27

Citation templates
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: TechInfoDepot:Template messages/Sources of articles/Citation quick reference.

Same reference used more than once
The first time a reference appears in the article, you can give it a simple name in the code:


 * DETAILS OF REF

Subsequent times that you use the same reference in the article, you can use a shortcut instead of re-typing it:



You can then use the shortcut as many times as you want. Don't forget the /, or it will blank the rest of the article. Some symbols don't work in the ref name, but you'll find out if you use them. Each reference on a single page must have a unique name.

You can see multiple use of the same references in action in the article William Bowyer (artist). There are three sources, and they are each referenced three times. Each statement in the article has a footnote to show its source.

Alternative system
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 as seen in this version of the article Harriet Arbuthnot or in a full form as in this version of the article Brown Dog affair. The separation of "Notes" and "References" in this way is in line with scholarly works.