Wikipedia talk:Citing sources

Citation style

Surely parenthesis-author-year-parenthesis is an apropriate citation style for a technical paper, not a general encyclopedia? Popular works generally use footnotes, making the main text easier to read. See the following from Power outage (here altered slighly to follow the guidelines)

It has recently been argued on the basis of historical data (Carreras 2002a) and computer modelling (Carreras 2002b) that power grids are self-organized critical systems. These systems exhibit unavoidable (Carreras 2000) disturbances of all sizes, up to the size of the entire system, and attempts to reduce the probability of small disturbances only increase the probability of large ones (Carreras 2003). This has immediate policy implications (Carreras 2002a).

Compare with -

It has recently been argued on the basis of historical data¹ and computer modelling² that power grids are self-organized critical systems. These systems exhibit unavoidable³ disturbances of all sizes, up to the size of the entire system, and attempts to reduce the probability of small disturbances only increase the probability of large ones⁴. This has immediate policy implications¹.

Andy G 18:10, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I just finished writing entries for two separate printed technical encyclopedias, and both of them required the (Author, Date) parenthetical style. One problem with the numbered style in Wikipedia is that is really hard to maintain unless there is automatic support for it, which is not currently in place. As for it interrupting the flow of the text, I think the point is moot because encyclopedia articles tend to list a set of general reference and review articles at the end, and only occasionally need to refer to specific references in the text. See discrete Hartley transform, for example. —Steven G. Johnson 01:18, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)

(In any case, the citation style is really the least of our worries; the vast majority of articles do not reference properly at all.)

(William M. Connolley 10:30, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)) I like (author, date) myself, because: you can read it in the text instead of breaking up your reading by going to the footnotes; and its better for cut-and-paste.

I was trying to illustrate that (author, date) gets a bit unwieldy when you need to indicate sources for several brief facts. But I suppose what reads best is a matter of personal preference. Although as we've got a nice mechanism for on-web citations like this: [1], I feel it would be better to have a similar method for off-web citations. Maybe footnotes like this: (1), preferably with automated numbering. If it was easier to cite references maybe more people would do it. Andy G 22:55, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

If we want a numbered style, I agree that auto-numbering is a necessity. However, I don't like the current numbering mechanism for on-web citations—any numbering system should jump to end-notes that have more detail on the citation (and which can be printed), not a link. As far as getting more people to do it, you're attacking the wrong problem: the hard part is (a) consulting a good reference in the first place and (b) writing down the citation. The in-text pointer, whether parenthetical or numbered (if automated) is the easy part. Steven G. Johnson 03:50, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I agree with Steven's assessment. Making references easier to add won't encourage users, but it will not discourage users. And it'll make it easier for those inclined to cite. I think end-notes would work best, as well. They probably represent the simplest solution to implement, too. Haphazard bracketed number links are inconsistent and confusing; I suggest that it was a mistake to make such a rudimentary citation method have such a polished final look. This page is too much of a backwater to fuel much discussion. Is their any way we can come to some kind of consensus, and show the wiki developers that a quorum have agreed on some system? Feel free to use my talk page, or propose another venue. — Johny 22:25, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia should allow MLA documentation

There's a site called EasyBib that makes it really easy to generate MLA-compliant bibliographies. I think that simply based on the existence of that site, Wikipedia should allow MLA documentation. I'm going to recommend the use of that site to newbies who aren't inclinded to write references lists all by themselves.

—Vespristiano 18:48, 2004 Jan 10 (UTC)

It looks like this is a for-pay site?? I don't think Wikipedia should rely on such a thing. Besides, it's not like formatting references is hard. The main thing is to encourage people to enter the information; it can be formatted in a canonical way later, if necessary. —Steven G. Johnson 20:47, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Why APA?

Why does the "proposal" for Wikipedia citation call for APA style? Without wishing this discussion to become pedantic, I'd like to observe that author-date citations are most useful for citing recent research by practitioners in a single scholarly field (in this case, the date is unambiguous and significant information). When citing sources that have been published in multiple editions and translations (historical documents, scholarly texts pre-1950, etc.), the date used in the citation (date of publication of the cited edition) can be very misleading to readers. In this case you often see things like (Hegel 1983) referring to recent translations of 19th-century texts. That's not appropriate for a mass readership, I'd say, and I'd propose that MLA style is easier on the reader in such cases. -- Rbellin 19:55, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I entirely agree regarding the undesirability of adopting APA as the citation standard for a general encyclopedia. To quote from the back cover of the 4th ed., "The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Assocation is the style manual most used by writers and students in psychology, the other behavioral and social sciences, nursing, criminology, and personnel areas." And that's it. It was not intended for use in, and (in my opinion) has no place in, history, literature, religion, law, or the arts. I am also not aware of any subdivision of the physical or natural sciences (including medicine), nor of technology, where APA or any similar "short citation" system is used. APA was intended for use by a relatively small scholarly group for very narrow purposes. I object particularly to the notion of including only an author's first initial rather than the entire first name -- and especially for older sources. (Why would you want to cite a work by "Freud, S." or "Asimov, I."?) Having said all that, I personally would recommend the Chicago Style Manual (or Turabian, which is its subset) and/or MLA, both of which are intended for use in much wider areas of knowledge than APA. Michael K. Smith 16:44, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Regarding author/date citations, the main common alternative is numbered citations, and the latter is impractical without technical support in the wiki software. Given author/date citations, it makes most sense to use a style organized with the author last name first, and date soon thereafter. Regarding using initials, note that the article already recommends using the full author names, or the names as printed in the source, since we are not limited in space. The recommendation was only for a style "based" on APA, not slavish dedication to APA guidelines. Anyway, this whole argument is besides the point, because hardly anyone follows any consistent citation style at the moment; the real battle is to get people to cite sources in the first place. —Steven G. Johnson 18:08, Jul 5, 2004 (UTC)

Tools for bibliographic descriptions other than citing references

I started Wikipedia:WikiProject Books because the bibliographical standard for citations might be adapted to other needs. But then again it might not. AlainV 03:07, 2004 Apr 28 (UTC)

References

This community seems very sensitive to the issues of copyright. But when it comes to credit and citation, we do quite poorly. I'm surprised at the number of articles that refer to authors' conclusions and interpretations without crediting the author or citing the source.

Some may disagree with me, but I think this is a serious weakness. It only takes discipline to cite source; hunting down original sources takes time, effort and uncommon selflessness — let's face it, unless you happen to know the source, you're unlikely to invest much effort in uncovering the implicit citations in somebody's articles.

Integrity, transparency, credibility, honesty: that's what's at stake here. What do you think?

Making references easier to add might lower the activation energy. If I'm not aware of a system that's already in place to simplify this, please let me know. — Johny 21:48, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

I strongly agree with Johny. I am active in the area of the Catholic pages, although I contribute in other areas as well. In religion people are attached to their ideas, and so a citation is beneficial to clarify POV. My goal is always to clarify what different religions say, preferably with sources, so the reader can easily see who is saying what. Within each tradition the details are "common knowledge" but from 'outside' a source is helpful so people can make intelligent comparisons. This is very instructive and as a Catholic I have no problem whatsoever with other viewpoints being clearly presented. (Trc | [msg] 20:18, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC))

One thing I have noticed, in inviting people to present citations for their contributions, is that they will sometimes cite some small piece of their contribution. In other words, they may lodge an opinion in the article, and include in the opinion a fact; when pressed they will offer a citation for the fact but not for the opinion, thus averting the prospect of their contribution being scoped rather than being presented in a normalized way. Wikipedia is not intended as a platform for opinions in the first place; but, the 'grey area' is that sometimes it is useful that the factual existence of opinions be included in an article. It is perhaps a mark of editorial obfuscation to refuse to present a source when requested. It is also unfortunate when an editor will refuse to present a source for a contribution, because it is then impossible to verify whether they have even used the work correctly, which is theoretically possible if one can visit a library in the case of a print or subscription source. Trc | [msg] 20:51, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

This is a serious problem, as not citing references is often part of a violation of the NPOV rule, by making it sound like the information cited is being made by the article itself, thus making the article the source of opinions. There seems to be no awareness of this issue, and even some who oppose citations, and who want Wikipedia to look like authoritive encyclopedias where the article writer simply pronounces the truth, whether it be about fact or opinion. These people want articles to be the products of consensus, whatever the editors can agree on as "proper" going into the article, instead of the NPOV way of stating only hard facts, and attributing all opinions to some source. ChessPlayer 22:09, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

It is official policy to include references, see Wikipedia:Cite your sources. Feel free to point it out to anybody who gives you a hard time about adding references, and of course set a good example by adding them to existing articles. The hardcore approach would be just to delete text and articles that are missing proper references, heh-heh. Stan 22:33, 16 May 2004 (UTC)

I agree with you on all counts. Wikipedia does not include enough references, and Wiki markup does not make them easy to include. This is also a shortcoming of traditional encyclopedias, but not one that Wikipedia should emulate. Furthermore, when one does not have the chain of trust implicit in the traditional encyclopedia's choice of contributors, it's especially important that statements of fact be verifiable. Dpbsmith 00:27, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

The problem with citing sources is that we really are an encyclopaedia and not an original research project.

In research, you really do need to cite your sources, to prove you are enlarging on what others have created, you are developing what others have originated and not just copying what someone else has written.

In an encyclopaedia, you are referring often to what is in the public domain anyway. What is more, continuously citing others makes it so much more unreadable for the often casual reader. If you look at other encyclopaedias, how often do you come across: “(such and such) is the case, according to (author So-and-sos)?

It is different, of course, if you are actually writing about a particular concept, article, book or theory originated by another author. Of course, you must refer to every part of his work if you want to describe it.

However, take a geographical entity, when all you want to do is describe its settings, its famous buildings and scenery, it borders on the ludicrous to keep citing what other people have said about it unless their views throw a different light on what you might have seen yourself. All you need do is walk out the area concerned, clap eyes on what it is famous for and its sights and describe them.

Take an article by Tiscali Reference, an encyclopaedia, about ‘’Garcia Marquez, Gabriel (Gabo). You would look in vain for any source, where the information has come from. And why would you? It doesn’t matter whether the writer of the encyclopaedia article has read all the works of the author himself, and therefore knows them. He doesn’t have to quote himself as the source, or whether he has gleaned it from other sources. Surely, it is something that is more often than not commonly obtainable knowledge open to all of us?

After all, an encyclopaedia is a work of convenience for all of us, which if we try hard enough, we can search for laboriously ourselves, but that is what it does. It helps us find all the facts in one place and saves us time.

Dieter Simon 01:08, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

Dieter writes, "In research, you really do need to cite your sources, to prove you are enlarging on what others have created, you are developing what others have originated and not just copying what someone else has written." In an encycopedia, you need to cite your sources, to prove you are not arbitrarily enlarging on what others have created. -- Jmabel 03:42, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

Yes, Jmabel, I see your point. If you are actually quoting the words someone else has used to describe a subject, of course, you must cite this source. I was however referring to the adoption into the encyclopedia of a generally known subject, such as bibliographical details of a writer, geographical locations (often you can find this in brochures), technical details of a car engine, etc. Yes, if you are citing a specific aspect of someone else's research and findings of a subject, and you find it apposite to it, or an aspect of an article which only another source has given, then that has to be cited in detail.Dieter Simon 11:19, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

No, even for "generally known" facts a citation is a good idea. For one thing, it tells someone where they can go for more information. For another thing, even if you know something off the top of your head, searching for a good reference to cite forces you to check your facts, which might be wrong or incomplete. I could go on, but reasons for citations are already described in the article. —Steven G. Johnson 21:23, May 17, 2004 (UTC)

I'll be the first to admit that I do poorly in this area, and have to wonder where to begin to improve my referencing skills. And how does one reference what one personally knows and has observed, anyway? POV or not, one of the things that makes Wikipedia great is that it can draw on so many people's knowledge. Hmmm. ;Bear 02:16, 2004 May 18 (UTC)

Remember, the main point of references is to help the reader, not to give a map of your psyche. If you personally have knowledge of something, then that should make it all the easier to identify a good reference book/article/site for the information, both to provide a way for people to check the veracity of a Wikipedia article and to give a resource to go to for more info. Remember, you're not necessarily going to be around if someone wants clarification etc. (And when you look it up, you might surprise yourself and learn something too...often, even experts can find that they have learned only a small corner of a field.) —Steven G. Johnson 02:43, May 18, 2004 (UTC)

OK, this is all good, but how about this case in point: I can put a lot of (hopefully interesting) detail into the history of Madrid, New Mexico because I lived it. For instance, the population over the winter of 1974-75 was exactly 80, up from a low of 10 in the '60s. I did the census myself (the 80). How do I cite that? Publish it elsewhere on my own website and cite that? ;Bear 21:19, 2004 May 20 (UTC)

Remember, Wikipedia is not for original research, and your personal census counts as such. You should publish it through a normal channel, e.g. your local newspaper, and cite that. (If something is too trivial to ever appear in any print publication, then it's not encyclopedic enough for Wikipedia, for the same reason that we don't allow people to put up pages about themselves.) —Steven G. Johnson 00:09, May 21, 2004 (UTC)

My main problem with the citing of sources is that it seems to rarely be done in the body of the article. Its hard to tell if the ==References== section at the end of some articles are the actual references used to write the article, of if they are simply potential references that could be used (sort of a suggested reading). Considering we may have objections to "suggesting" reading, I propose that ==References== be potential, and that ==Sources== be actual (as I have been marking article to which I add sources). Hyacinth 00:11, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

Instead, you shouldn't add references unless you have checked them for consistency with what the article says, in which case the question of whether they were a "source" is irrelevant. (Note also that this is the standard practice for scientific publications: in many cases you might come up with an idea independently, and only later do you perform a literature search and cite the related work. Both to give credit and, again, to help the reader. But you shouldn't cite something unless you've read it, or at least know for sure what it says.) —Steven G. Johnson 00:23, May 21, 2004 (UTC)

I've repeatedly watched my in-text and end-of-article citations be deleted. It seems that no one really wants Wikipedia articles to have good documentation. It's quite discouraging, actually. —Vespristiano 13:34, 2004 May 20 (UTC)

I've never had that happen, so I suspect your case is exceptional. —Steven G. Johnson 17:33, May 20, 2004 (UTC)

Once or twice I have seen a contribution – reference pair get broken during subsequent edits. I suspect that usually it is accidental. Trc | [msg] 20:07, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Web pages that are periodicals

I'd like to propose adding the following text to the policy, under the section "Web pages (not periodicals):

===Web-only periodicals===

• Chalmers, Rachel (Sep. 1, 2000). Guru of the Unix gurus. Salon.
• Gross, Daniel (May 27, 2004, 1:10 PM PT). The Prius and the olive tree: Why are conservatives supporting higher gas taxes? "Moneybox," Slate.

Make the article title a link to the web page. Provide the date with as much precision as the website provides. Refer to the publication by name (Salon or Slate), not by address (salon.com, slate.msn.com), unless, of course, the publication's name is its address (e.g., News.com). If the article is part of a column, give the name of the column (e.g. "Moneybox" above) after the title. Do not make the title of the publication a link. Be careful of linking to very new articles; it is common that an article's URL will change or disappear entirely.

Agree, or disagree? — TreyHarris 06:57, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The more detailed the instructions are, the less likely people are to follow them...remember, the main difficulty is in getting people to cite in the first place. So, the main focus here should be on what information should be listed, not how. (Your recommendations above, while salutory, seem to focus more on the how; e.g. Salon can be inferred from salon.com etc. It seems unlikely that more time precision than the day of publication will be useful, although ultimately people have to apply common sense on a case-by-case basis.) I think the current simple comment about web periodicals (... for online articles, make the article title a link to the URL; it may not be possible to supply a page number in this case) is sufficient and has the advantage of brevity. —Steven G. Johnson 01:19, Jun 3, 2004 (UTC)

(If we want to be very picky about reference-formatting styles, we should be using BibTeX or the like, anyway.)

The more detailed the instructions are, the less likely people are to follow them...

Do you have a source for that statement? I would think the opposite would be true. — TreyHarris 02:15, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Just common sense and experience, although I'm sure references could be found in the usability community. People find reams of style guides, policies, and instructions off-putting, and aren't going to read them, much less remember them or follow them. You want to make citations as easy as possible, since it's hard enough getting people to do them already. —Steven G. Johnson 02:24, Jun 3, 2004 (UTC)

By the way, if your response is along the lines of, but what if people are confused because they don't know the precise way to cite XYZ?, then the answer is to make it clearer that they should just enter something reasonable and not worry about whether to list Salon or salon.com. —Steven G. Johnson 02:33, Jun 3, 2004 (UTC)

References at the end?

(William M. Connolley 11:14, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)) I see the page says, put your references at the end. Even for citing web pages? This is unnatural to the flow of the page. If I write:

Stoats are very nice (square bracket)http://www.stoats.org]

am I breaking the style? What would fit standard journal practice is for the text above to generate a ref [1] in the text (as it does at the moment) but also automatically puts "# [1] www.stoats.org" in a section headed "auto generated refs" at the bottom of the page.

At the end please. That's how you know you're writing an encyclopedia entry and not a journal article. :-) But seriously, a journal article has to defend itself line-by-line, since its goal is to add to the sum of human knowledge, while the encyclopedia is just repeating what people already know.

(William M. Connolley 14:02, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)) I don't know what pages you're writing, but thats not true of, say, Global warming.

I'm sure people do that, but it's against policy; see point 10 of Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not. Perhaps I need to go over to global warming and start deleting the stuff that's not already written up in existing publications? Stan 19:06, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Please realize that, occasionally, in-text pointers to the reference are helpful even in an encyclopedia article. This is true when there are a number of references and it's not clear which reference to look up for more information on a specific item of information that the user might be interested in. I agree that, as a general rule, it's better to list a small number of comprehensive textbook/review-style references at the end so that specific pointers aren't needed, but sometimes it's unavoidable, especially in newer topics. (I've written articles for print encyclopedias, and the same guidelines applied there.) —Steven G. Johnson 20:03, Jun 12, 2004 (UTC)

I don't think print encyclopedia experience is a particularly good guide here; print works will tend to encourage longer articles and less cross-linking, so as to minimize the page-flipping, and when you do that, you're right, the links at the end won't be well-associated with relevant points in the text. But I take that as evidence that a long article needs to be broken up for the sake of the poor reader. For instance, newer topics should be split out so the back-and-forth can be addressed better, and editors can fight over them without trashing main articles that stick to the settled information. Stan 21:50, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Actually, I would argue that, in Wikipedia, citations are far more important than in a print encyclopedia, because in a print encyclopedia there are editors and a company who stand behind the content and who give some assurance that the article authors are experts in a topic. Obviously, you have to use your judgement in particular cases, but I don't understand why you are digging in your heels and insisting that in-text references are never helpful or appropriate. —Steven G. Johnson 22:15, Jun 12, 2004 (UTC)

I wouldn't go so far as to say never; if you have an article that's gotten overly long and haven't had a chance to reorganize it into multiple articles, and there's a technical point with a single source in the middle, then an in-text citation would make sense. I just don't want to open the door to putting a citation in every sentence or every clause, as for instance the ridiculous example currently at the top of this talk page. I think for some people there's a great temptation to try and make an article look more authoritative by sprinkling literature citations throughout (99.9% of readers will not have access to the literature being cited, so it certainly doesn't help them in any way), but if the in-text refs really are necessary and not just for showing off, I think that bespeaks fundamental flaws in the overall article design and content. So I'd say I'm in favor of allowing but deprecating the practice. Stan 05:58, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Not only that, but in a print product a clear POV is known from the outside, which fact is valuable interpretive information. Trc | [msg] 22:22, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The county library where I live does not charge for interlibrary loan, so 100% of Lewis and Clark County residents have access to the large majority of references available at no charge, especially the ones I have added, as they were through ILL at that library. Hyacinth 09:00, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Readers will read the article, then decide if they're interested enough to look outside WP for more. Presumably stoats.org is useful for more than the single statement; if not, it might be better to refer to a more generally informative web site instead. If by its nature the statement only comes from the one place, then it's more like a quote rather than received knowledge, and for quotes I think the inline ref is OK.

First of all, please don't confuse the full citation listing (Janet Q. Webauthor, (1999) "My favorite animal pests", retrieved June 2, 2004 from www.stoats.org), which belongs at the end of the article, with the in-text pointer (Webauthor, 1999). The former is necessary to give a full description of the reference, especially if the website disappears in the future. The latter is often not necessary, but is sometimes useful if it is not clear which reference the reader should look up to find more information on a specific topic in the article.

Second of all, please don't use the current [1]-style auto-generation of web link references, which was very poorly thought-out. First, it is inconsistent, because a reference is treated differently just because it happens to reside online. Second, the autogenerated reference, with just the URL and no descriptive information, not even a title, is insufficient. —Steven G. Johnson 14:39, Jun 12, 2004 (UTC)

&sup1-3 and above

Question: (¹ ² ³ &sup4; &sup5; &sup6;) Why does the footnote solution work through #3? Am I doing something incorrect? Trc | [msg] 00:27, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

References/Books/Further reading/Bibliography (from Village Pump)

There seems not to be any standard regarding the terminology of what I would prefer to call "Further reading" at the foot of articles. At the moment, there is a wide variety of headings in use.

The "standard" is currently References. Whether people follow this is another matter. (For a reader, there is essentially no distinction between sources for further reading and sources from which the information was derived, and we shouldn't impose an artificial one.) —Steven G. Johnson 01:37, Jun 22, 2004 (UTC)

Secondly, there are many (especially history/biography related articles) incorporating 1911 Britannica text which have also incorporated wholesale the 1911 bibiography. With the exception of primary sources (which should be separately noticed and headed), I think these should be removed.

And thirdly, many contributors use headings conflatable with "Further reading" etc, usually headed "References" to note the publications from which they derive the information. These, I think, ought to be the province of numbered footnotes.

Whatever may be decided, I do think that a degree of standardisation is advisable. Djnjwd 22:58, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Djnjwd, I have been trying to get people interested in the Wikiprojects concept for several days now, so that a group of people working together on the same subject can 1) follow the same formatting, as you suggest - ie Bibliography instead of Further Readings where applicable, External Links vs Resources, etc etc... and also so that 2) Categories can be smoothed out, lists can be made complete, the linking between categories is more organized and rational, etc. So far I have gotten little attention and only noticed arguments over what kind of categorization system to use... so it might be a while yet until your suggestions are noticed. It seems very hard to bring people together here on a specific topic, and there are also members opposed to such organization. My only answer for now is to encourage people you know are working on the same subject, to follow a single format/ structure. -- Simonides 00:02, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

What I personally think is that there should be an automatic way to generate numbered footnote references. E.g.;

     X is Y <ref>Z - How X is Y (1996), ISBN 0123456789</ref>,
     P isn't Q <ref>W - How P isn't Q (1997), ISBN 9876543210</ref>

would display as:

X is Y [1], P isn't Q [2]

and at the end of the article there would be an auto-generated references section with a list:

1. Z - How X is Y (1996), ISBN 0123456789
2. W - How P isn't Q (1997), ISBN 9876543210

There's a billion ways formatting and syntax could be done, of course. Fredrik | talk 23:13, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The whole auto-numbering question has been discussed ad nauseam on Wikipedia talk:Cite sources. One problem with your style of proposal is that you assume each reference will be cited in the text exactly once. A more typical case is for a reference to be listed at the end only. (Or a reference might be pointed to from the text more than once). In any case, the main problem is getting people to cite good references in the first place; the whole auto-formatting argument is a red herring. —Steven G. Johnson 01:24, Jun 22, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Cite sources seems to come down on the side of ==references== rather than any other header. Yes, an automatic way would be ideal. You'd certain get my vote. Dieter Simon 23:47, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I am quite opposed to the idea of using ISBNs, because they are misleading. An ISBN usually points to a single edition of a book, not to a title - the edition may be out of print, it may only be available in a certain country, it may be more expensive, it may be harder to find than other widely available editions, it may be out of date, it may not be in the original language, and so on. I think everyone should include only the title and authors, and the year of printing should refer either to 1) year of copyright on latest paperback copy or 2) year of copyright on first printing (perhaps both) and the language should be specified (ex. do not include original copyright year of German publication for a translated English title.) -- Simonides 00:02, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Citation in academic work (essays, theses, research work, etc) does indeed normally preclude ISBN numbers for precisely the reasons you have given, why should you in a work of reference, Simonides? So, I suggest don't use these numbers. As long as you give the details of the particular edition/publication of the work cited plus all the other details, all should be well. Dieter Simon 01:04, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

An ISBN may in some sense be misleading, but in the case of some book-related servers, interconnections are easily accessible. Titles and authors are hyperlinked, for example. Usage of ISBNs facilitates book finding quite handily in this environment. Trc | [msg] 05:25, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Linked ISBNs fit nicely with the hyperlink concept -- they're the closest we can get as long as books are not published free of charge on the Internet.

If a book has been published in many editions, there is probably something at least slightly notable about it; in that case I suggest writing a separate article about it and putting the ISBNs there. Fredrik | talk 11:05, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Citing legal sources

How do we do this? I can't find much info on Wikipedia about this and there are several articles that need proper referencing. - Ta bu shi da yu 12:45, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

How is it done in print? And online? Is there an issue with Wikipedia copying what is done elsewhere? Citing science papers is the same on WP as anywhere else. You could also ask User:Alex756 - he is a lawyer so may have an opinion. Pcb21| Pete 20:26, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

You might want to take a look at Brown v. Board for an example. -- Jmabel

In the citation of Supreme Court cases, it is sufficient to name them by their case titles alone. For example, Brown v. Board of Education is sufficient. There is no need to add case numbers, etc. For Congressional documents, it is sufficient to cite them by their formal names. For example, Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act. It can also be referenced as their official legislative file numbers. For example, the Hawai'i Overthrow Apology Resolution passed by a joint session of Congress can be referenced as United States Public Law 103-150. Statutes of individual states and charter amendments of individual municipalities and counties should be referenced in the same way. Gerald Farinas 15:02, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Capitalization

I'm a little confused by what capitalization we should follow when citing sour Creidieki 00:33, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)