Help:References

From Tolkien Gateway

References are the cornerstone of any serious encyclopedia. Though much of our old content remains without references, Tolkien Gateway wishes to properly credit its facts. This way, fanon and overinterpretation can be properly identified as such, and omitted.

Referencing

How To

Tolkien Gateway uses, like most wiki-based encyclopedia's, the Cite/Cite extension. A short how-to:

With this method, sources are cited within the text. They appear wherever you type "{{references}}".

This is the text you type.<ref>And this is the source</ref>

The text in between the <ref>-tags appears in the References section. These tags can be named for reuse:

This is the text you type.<ref name=One>And this is source number one</ref>

Then, you use something with another source,<ref>Like this one</ref>, before returning 
to the first one.<ref name=One/>

Shortcuts

See also Category:Citation templates

The most common sources have templates that can be used to write out references automatically:

Main works

Other works

Generally the format to use them is:

<ref>{{T|chapter#}}</ref>

But there will sometimes be additional options for sources with more complex structures. For detailed instructions, see the individual template pages.

{{HM}} is the old 'general-purpose' template, but it has been mostly superseded by the above templates, which offer more flexibility.

Additionally, the {{Webcite}} template can be used to cite web sources. See the template page for instructions on how to use it.

Standards

The following standards should be applied when writing references using "<ref>...</ref>":

  • Use "p." instead of "page" and "pp." instead of "pages" (Example: "pp. 20-2")
  • Leave a space between "p." (or "pp.") and the page number (Example: "p. 20")
  • Avoid adding a period/full stop at the end of the tag line (Example: "<ref>{{HM|RC}}, p. 20</ref>")
  • Place the tag line after the punctuation mark. However, an exception could be if you want to give a reference for a certain linguistic form of a word (or something similar).

Questionable statements

Questionable statements can be challenged with the {{fact}} template. Fanon, conjecture and overinterpretation that goes unreferenced can be deleted on sight.

See also