Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive (citing references)

Citations

I'd like to see some sort of standard set forth for citation signals, legal citations, and style manuals in general. To wit, whether citation signals should be italicized, what signals are used in what situations, and what style manual should obtain in a particular situation. As far as legal style manuals go, the Harvard Bluebook is used by most law reviews and federal courts, but state courts typically have their own style manuals and do not follow the Bluebook's guidelines. The same sorts of conflicts in re proper style probably exist in various other areas of writing, such as newspaper journalism, medical and scientific publishing, and technical writing, but I am not familiar enough with these areas to offer intelligent commentary. --NetEsq

I hope that as it stands this article will do for general writing of the average article. We do suggest UofChgo Manual of Style, college handbooks, and Fowler, which should be enough for anyone.

As for medical, scientific, or legal styles, perhaps those should be referenced from here to their own pages so as not to intimidate new writers who are guided here. Ortolan88 09:50 Aug 24, 2002 (PDT)

When I was trying to create something like this page on Meta, I wrote an introduction to the effect that "good content is more important that presentation -- a style guide is not an imperative, rather a reference for Wikipedia's many copyeditors". Feel free to grab that from there for here. :-) -- Tarquin 09:53 Aug 24, 2002 (PDT)

Bibliographic Citations

This is on Wikipedia:History:

The following is a formatted reference link for external links and references.

Appearance:

Doe, John, "Main page". Wikimedia Foundation, Florida, USA. January 1, 2000. Source:

• Last name, First name, "Linked article name". Source publisher, Location. Month Day, Year.

Surely this is only the guideline for online resources? According to established Chicago Manual of Style practices, this is incorrect for most published print resources, which generally go something like this:

• LastName, FirstName, "Article Title," Periodical Title, Date.

or

• LastName, FirstName, Book Title, London: Arnold A. Knopf, 1963.

and so forth... Jengod

I generally go with "Firstname Lastname, Book Title (Publisher, Location, Date)" or "Firstname Lastname, "Article Title", in Periodical Title, Date", but it's a matter of taste, really. Anything sensible should be OK, I don't think there's a great need to standardise on one form. If you're adding something to an already-existing list, it would make sense to follow the format already established in that list for the sake of consistency (unless said format is ridiculous, of course), but otherwise I wouldn't worry about it too much. Incidentally, you may want to take a look at Wikipedia:Cite your sources. --Camembert

Could someone with experience therefore take a look at List of important publications in computer science which I just spent some time cleaning up (it had nassssty tables all over it) and reassure me that all my work making it possible for an ordinary mortal to read it without significant eye-strain has not all been in vain? --Phil 18:13, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)

scientific references

style ain't really my thing - but just checked this page for the "correct" style for adding a scientific reference... eg Lancet 2004;363:1747,1757-1763. is there such a style recomendation? if so it should really be on this page shouldn't it? (i could link to the online version but you need to pay - so seems a bit pointless) Erich 03:04, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, it seems like that hsould be here. I think we should make the references as complete as possible (including article names) and link to public-access databases such as PubMed when possible. AdamRetchless 20:05, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Recommended style for book references

I looked high and low for a recommendation on referring to printed matter. I wound up finding some articles with a style that looked plausible and went with that for the article in question. Here's a first attempt at a recommendation (I thought it better to put it up for discussion here rather than just drop it in):

To refer to a book or magazines in your article, start a new level-2 heading at the bottom of the article titled "Further Reading", followed by a list of publications. Books in the list should have the following format:

• Author/Editor Name, Book Title (Publisher, City) ISBN 1-2345-6789-0

Magazines in the list should have the following format:

• Author Name, "Article Title" Periodical Title edition # (Date): pages X-Y; ISSN 12345678

Points to resolve:

• Is "Further Reading" the best title for this section?
• Should there be a preferred order of appearance of outside-reading sections (external links, related articles in wikipedia, etc)

adamrice 18:53, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Its at Wikipedia:Cite sources. Thanks. Hyacinth 19:26, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. That covers similar (though not the same) ground I'm trying to get at. Perhaps the '"See also" and "Related topics"' section of the style manual could be expanded a bit...? adamrice 20:25, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)