User:Ederchil/Sandbox

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This is a test page by User:Ederchil. It is currently a WiP for "Help: References".

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.

General notices

Reliable sources

See also: Canon

As to what counts as a reliable source, in the tightest sense it is simple: primary material. From there, we have secondary and "semi-secondary".

Semi-secondary

Semi-secondary, as we call it for the sake of convenience, are texts by Tolkien that are about Middle-earth; these could be The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, but also material published in Vinyar Tengwar or Parma Eldalamberon. For the state of cnaon of The History of Middle-earth, see Tolkien Gateway: Canon.

Secondary

Secondary texts are texts about Tolkien's work by other authors. We have a short rule for it: if they cite primary, we cite primary, and if they come up with original research, we cite them.

Sources to avoid

We'd rather not use the following sources:

Note: Needs some more. WaW? Some-guy-with-a-website/blog credibility?

Common Knowledge

There are, of course, things that do not need to be cited. These things are common knowledge. J.R.R. Tolkien is the author of most of the books here. No need to mention it, or cite it, in the text. Bilbo Baggins was a Hobbit. Old English was the language of what is now called England, around 600 AD. The Shire is located in Eriador, in the north-west of Middle-earth. If it needs to be explained every time that "J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings, stated that so and so", it really takes out the flow of the text, and treats our readers as a bunch of imbeciles to boot.

Weasel words

Weasel words are terms that add vagueness to a phrase, primarily by citing a source of unspecified quality and veracity. It is, in short, and anonymous authority without a specified quantity. Phrases like "Some readers", "many fans", et cetera, add nothing to the quality of the overall article.

Weasel fanwank

Weasel words are most notorious in the case of conflicting theories - Legolas' hair, Balrog wings, the changes made to Gimli and Faramir by Peter Jackson - where onesided statements are sometimes used to "fanwank" an issue, and justified by "but many fans think so", while other views are dismissed as "a small faction".

Avoiding weasel words

Neutral point of view

Referencing and Sourcing

There are two ways to cite your sources: precise and not precise (we leave out "not at all" here). All references should be in a subsection, named "References". These go below all else, except for "External links".

Not precise

If an article only has one source, for example, Iorlas and Buldar, there is no need for extensive notes. The source can simply be bulleted. This method can can also be used when several chapters from the same book are quoted; not until secondary material is added the following method is necessary

Precise

A must on longer articles with multiple sources, including secondary sources (notes by Tolkien, analyses from scholars, information from The History of Middle-earth). Like most wiki-based encyclopedia's, Tolkien Gateway uses the Cite/Cite extension. A short how-to:

With this method, sources are cited within the text. They appear wherever you type <text><references/></text>, which is, in our case, the aforementioned References section.

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

Plain and simple. 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"/>.

These tags should be given sensible but short names; for example, "Mutton" for "Roast Mutton", "FotN" for "Of the Flight of the Noldor" or "L131" for Letter 131.

Citation

About pagenumbers

As there are many different editions and translations of Tolkien's work, including page numbers is not very accurate: for example, page references in the Index of The Return of the King do not match with every edition of the other two volumes; sometimes the difference is as much as ten pages. The name of the chapter suits better, as it also provides a clearer picture of the position of the quote in the story. No-one knows off the top of his head what happened on page 208.

About notes

When a fact is stated in a note to the text, this can be cited: not numbers are always the same. Please bear in mind that some chapters in The History of Middle-earth have multiple note sections.

Primary material

The Lord of the Rings

The Hobbit

Unfinished Tales

The Silmarillion

Semi-secondary material

The History of Middle-earth

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien


Forged into Help page unto here. Note: Won't forge the rest until Hyarion gets the ME-cite template, or something equivalent.


LotR

Note: Disambiguated chapter titles such as Strider (chapter) are piped away.
Update note: We go with the "Four book" method.

50th Anniversary edition

Note: Editors are separated from the author by a semi-colon.
Update note: I forgot whether we went with this or not.

Appendices

Note: Even though they are published in The Return of the King in many editions, the Appendices are appended to The Lord of the Rings proper; they are, one might say, a fourth volume.

Hobbit

Update note: editions (where relevant) in letters, capital first letter.

UT, Sil

HoMe

Update note: LoL should also include canto number.

Etymologies

HoTH

The Letters

Semisecondary

"Nomenclature"

Note: Because the printed text in Lobdell (ed.) A Tolkien Compass, 1st edn. is no longer freely available, I vote for only referencing to this occurance of the source.

Other semi-secondary material by Tolkien

Note: This method applies to ALL magazine articles.
Update note: I can't remember which of the two was to be standard...

Works by other authors

Works that we "have"

Works that we don't "have"

Websites

Author/Editor websites

"Institute" websites

Documentaries

Note: I haven't got a clue how to do this properly. Oh, and in the light of renaming every adaptation, that seems to be the EE's official name.
Update note: added year, DVD first.

Adaptations

Films

  • Film, "Scene"

Radio series

  • Series, "Episode"
Update note: the 1981 series should be referenced by 26 episodes as broadcast, not 13 as published.

I'm totally lost here

TAI

Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator. When referring to images, mention the number, the page, or both?

Adaptations

  • Especially with PJ: Decipher Cards. They all have a number (and they're all on decipher's website). So: Decipher, LotR TCG, "image number: Title;subtitle"? With a link to Decipher fanhq?

Notes

Tolkien left a lot of notes, which are sometimed cited by authors - this one is in reaction to Eriador. JRRT, Unnamed note dated XX month XXXX, cited in: et cetera?