Wikipedia:Citing sources/Further considerations

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 is designed to help newer editors get started quickly. This page provides additional information for interested editors.

Pre-emptive archiving

See also: Wikipedia:List of web archives on Wikipedia

The content of any webpage may change at any moment, or disappear completely. To ensure link accessibility and stability, please consider pre-emptively adding an archive URL from an archive source such as the Internet Archive or WebCite. Wikipedia citation templates all allow for archive information to be included along with the original reference.

Internet Archive

See also: Help:Using the Wayback Machine

The Internet Archive allows on-demand archiving as well as periodically crawling web pages on its own schedule through one of their services known as the Wayback Machine. Where possible and subject to copyright protection, it makes an archive copy of each page.

Enter the original URL of the web page of interest into the form at web.archive.org and then click BROWSE HISTORY to see if a particular URL has already been archived. Alternatively, prepend https://web.archive.org/web/*/ to the URL of interest.

The next screen may show a calendar indicating the snapshot dates for all archived copies of that page. Click a date to see that archived copy. For some requested pages, the Wayback Machine will return an error message explaining why that particular page has not and cannot be archived.

If the page has not yet been archived, there may be a box near the bottom of the page with a link inviting the user to Save this url in the Wayback Machine (this may also occur if the page has been very recently archived for the first time, as archived pages often do not instantly become available).

• If the user does not have a Wayback Machine account or is logged out, clicking this link will show the current version of the requested web page and start the process that will attempt to archive the page.
• If the user has a Wayback Machine account and is logged in, clicking this link will instead bring up the form at web.archive.org/save, with the URL of interest preloaded; this provides additional functionality, such as the option to save not only the page itself but also all pages linked from it, and the option to additionally save a screenshot of the current state of the web page in question. Once the desired options have been selected, click SAVE PAGE to start the archiving process.

If the archiving process is successful, the archived copy will become available shortly after the process is completed (there may sometimes be a delay of up to a few hours before the archived copy can be accessed).

If the page has already been archived in the Wayback Machine, but you wish to save a new version (because the page changed since being last archived), you can archive it again by typing in the URL https://web.archive.org/save/https://www.url.com in your browser (where www.url.com should be replaced with the URL of the document you wish to save). Alternatively, enter the URL of interest into the form at web.archive.org/save and then click SAVE PAGE.

Archive.today

See also: Wikipedia:Using archive.today

Archive.today features on-demand archiving and it also has crawlers that automatically archive links on Wikipedia. When using archive.today the long form should be used //archive.today/YYYYMMDDhhmmss/http://www.example.com instead of the short form //archive.today/JcmUw.

Templates

Many citation templates explicitly address pre-emptive archiving, including Template:Cite web and Template:Cite news (all Citation Style 1 templates do). These have the following parameters available:

• |archive-url= (a URL to the archived copy);
• |archive-date= (the date it was archived);
• |url-status= (indicates the status of the original URL).

For pre-emptive archiving, set |url-status=live. Later, if the external page goes down, someone can simply put |url-status=dead. The formatting of the reference is adjusted accordingly so the accessible link (the original or the archived version) is made prominent.

Archiving bookmarklets

Archiving of a page being viewed can be easier with the use of bookmarklets. These cause the archiving to be performed by clicking on the bookmark.

Bookmarklets to create an archive of the current page
(all open the response from the archive site in a new tab or window)

Archive site	Bookmarklet
Archive.org	javascript:void(window.open('https://web.archive.org/save/'+location.href))
Archive.today	javascript:void(window.open('https://archive.today/?run=1&url='+location.href))

Cleaning of URLs used in references

When adding references it is sometimes necessary to clean up the referenced URL into a standard or canonical format.

These actions may include, but are not limited to those detailed below.

Add a trailing slash to root homepage URLs

• http://www.example.com

becomes

• http://www.example.com/

Although most browsers will treat both links the same, the trailing slash may give the reader a little more confidence that the stated URL has not suffered a cut and paste error or simple typo, such as example.co or example.ne where example.com or example.net was meant.

Remove default filenames

• http://www.example.com/somefolder/index.html or http://www.example.com/somefolder/default.asp

becomes

• http://www.example.com/somefolder/

Should a website change the site technology, and therefore the page name, from e.g. index.html or default.asp to index.php the longer format URL is likely to become a dead link. The final more basic URL is more likely to continue working.

Remove session IDs

• http://www.example.com/somepage?sessionid=5345512676730914

becomes

• http://www.example.com/somepage

Session IDs identify a single usage session by the original editor and should always be deleted from reference URLs.

Beware of sites with separate URLs for desktop and mobile access

Where a site has multiple URLs depending on which type of device the reader is using, choose the desktop version of the page URL where available. e.g. choose http://www.example.com/somepage rather than the mobile site at http://m.example.com/somepage

Other considerations

Editors will encounter these and many other situations. In all cases, apply common sense when making a decision. Above all, make sure the referenced URL works when it is accessed.

Wikilinks to full references

See also: Template:harvard citation documentation

Wikilinks can be created from short note citations to their appropriate full references. For full details about using these wikilinks, see Template:harvard citation documentation § Possible issues.

All of these methods produce this result. Note that clicking on the link in the footnote moves to the full citation, which in some browsers is then highlighted.

The Sun is pretty big, but the Moon is not so big. The Sun is also quite hot.

Notes

References

• Brown, R. (2006). "Size of the Moon". Scientific American. 51 (78).
• Miller, E. (2005). The Sun. New York: Academic Press. ISBN 98-76-54321-0.

Using template Harvnb

Templates {{harv}}, {{harvnb}} and {{harvtxt}} link to the {{cite xxx}} and {{citation}} templates. This is the most common method used in Wikipedia.

The Sun is pretty big,<ref>{{harvnb|Miller|2001|p=23}}</ref>
but the Moon is not so big.<ref>{{harvnb|Brown|2000|p=46}}</ref>
The Sun is also quite hot.<ref>{{harvnb|Miller|2001|p=34}}</ref>
== Notes ==
{{reflist}}
== References ==
*{{citation | last=Brown | first=R | year=2000 | title=Size of the Moon | magazine=Scientific American | issue=78 | volume=51}}.
*{{cite book | last=Miller | first=E | year=2001 | title=The Sun | publisher=Academic Press }}

Using the shortened footnote template

Template {{Sfn}} links to {{Citation}} automatically, and links to {{cite book}}, {{cite web}}, {{cite news}}, {{cite journal}}, if |ref= is set to "harv". {{Sfn}} also combines identical footnotes automatically, so footnote names are not necessary. It links on the |year= and |last= parameters. The method was introduced much more recently than {{harvnb}}.

The Sun is pretty big,{{sfn|Miller|2001|p=23}}
but the Moon is not so big.{{sfn|Brown|2000|p=46}}
The Sun is also quite hot.{{sfn|Miller|2001|p=34}}
== Notes ==
{{reflist}}
== References ==
*{{citation | last=Brown | first=R | year=2000 | title=Size of the Moon | magazine=Scientific American | issue=78 | volume=51}}.
*{{cite book | last=Miller | first=E | year=2001 | title=The Sun | publisher=Academic Press }}

Using the shortened footnote template when the author is not known

Template {{Sfn}} links on the |year= and |last= parameters of the {{cite xxx}} and {{citation}} templates. This can be changed if the authors name is not known by setting a new ref parameter using the {{sfnref}} template: |ref={{sfnref|xxx|yyy}}

The Sun is pretty big,{{sfn|Miller|2001|p=23}}
but the Moon is not so big.{{sfn|Brown|2000|p=46}}
The Sun is also quite hot.{{sfn|Miller|2001|p=34}}
The Moon is also quite cool.{{sfn|Scientific American|78|p=47a}}
== Notes ==
{{reflist}}
== References ==
*{{citation | last=Brown | first=R | year=2000 | title=Size of the Moon | magazine=Scientific American | issue=78 | volume=51}}.
*{{cite book| title=Size of the Moon| ref={{sfnref|Scientific American|78}} | year=2000 | magazine=Scientific American | issue=78 | volume=51}}.
*{{cite book | last=Miller | first=E | year=2001 | title=The Sun | publisher=Academic Press }}

Using freehand anchors

Most citation templates (for example {{citation}}, {{cite journal}}, {{cite book}}, {{cite web}}, {{cite news}}, etc.) can create wikilinks by using the ref parameter to create hyperlink destination anchors, thus allowing the short note citation to link to them using # (in the same way as would a link to a same-page section heading). For references written freehand, anchors can be created with the inclusion of some identifying tags.

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}}
== References ==
*{{cite journal | ref=refBrown2006 | last=Brown | first=R. | year=2006 | title=Size of the Moon | journal=Scientific American | volume=51 | issue=78}}
*{{cite book | ref=refMiller2005 | last=Miller| first=E. | year=2005 |title=The Sun | publisher=Academic Press | location=New York | isbn=98-76-54321-0}}


Using Wikicite

The template {{Wikicite}} method is used in about 1000 articles (as of 1 August 2015).

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}}
== References ==
*{{wikicite | ref=refBrown2006 | reference=Brown, R (2006). "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 51(78).}}
*{{wikicite | ref=refMiller2005 | reference=Miller, E (2005). "The Sun", Academic Press.}}

External links

There exists a tool Yadcard- ISBN reference generating tool that will provide sfn (Shortened foot note)s and (Named reference)s from URL / DOI / ISBN. It is a bookmarklet- ie, it is recorded on a browser as a bookmark, Ctrl-D and can be placed on browser's bookmark toolbar.