User talk:Pat Muldowney
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Guide to referencing
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| Using references (citations) |
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I thought you might find it useful to have some information about references (refs) on wikipedia. These are important to validate your writing and inform the reader. Any editor can remove unreferenced material; and unsubstantiated articles may end up getting deleted, so when you add something to an article, it's highly advisable to also include a reference to say where it came from. Referencing may look daunting, but it's easy enough to do. Here's a guide to getting started.
A reference must be accurate, i.e. it must prove the statement in the text. To validate "Mike Brown climbed Everest", it's no good linking to a page about Everest, if Mike Brown isn't mentioned, nor to one on Mike Brown, if it doesn't say that he climbed Everest. You have to link to a source that proves his achievement is true. You must use reliable sources, such as published books, mainstream press, and authorised web sites. Blogs, Myspace, Youtube, fan sites and extreme minority texts are not usually acceptable, nor is original research (e.g. your own unpublished, or self-published, essay or research), or another wikipedia article.
The first thing you have to do is to create a "Notes and references" section (unless it already exists). This goes towards the bottom of the page, below the "See also" section and above the "External links" section. Enter this code:
The next step is to put a reference in the text. Here is the code to do that. It goes at the end of the relevant term, phrase, sentence, or paragraph to which the note refers, and after punctuation such as a full stop, without a space (to prevent separation through line wrap):
Whatever text you put in between these two tags will become visible in the "Notes and references" section as your reference.
Open the edit box for this page, copy the following text (inserting your own text where indicated), paste it at the bottom of the page and save the page:
(End of text to copy and paste.) It should appear like this:
You need to include the information to enable the reader to find your source. For an online newspaper source, it might look like this:
When uploaded, it appears as:
Note the single square brackets around the URL and the article title. The format is:
Make sure there is a space between the URL and the Title. This code results in the URL being hidden and the title showing as a link. Use double apostrophes for the article title (it is quoted text), and two single quote marks either side of the name of the paper (to generate italics). Double square brackets round the name of the paper create an internal link (a wikilink) to the relevant wikipedia article. Apostrophes must go outside the brackets. The date after The Guardian is the date of the newspaper, and the date after "Retrieved on" is the date you accessed the site – useful for searching the web archive in case the link goes dead. Dates are wikilinked so that they work with user preference settings to display the date in the format the user wishes.
You can use sources which are not online, but which you have found in a library or elsewhere—in which case leave out the information which is not relevant. The newspaper example above would be formatted like this:
When uploaded, it appears as:
Here is an example for a book:
When uploaded, it appears as:
Make sure you put two single quote marks round the title (to generate italics), rather than one double quote mark.
These formats are all acceptable for dates:
You may prefer to use a citation template to compile details of the source. The template goes between the ref tags and you fill out the fields you wish to. Basic templates can be found here: Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles/Citation quick reference
The first time a reference appears in the article, you can give it a simple name in the <ref> code:
The second time you use the same reference in the article, you need only to create a short cut instead of typing it all out again:
You can then use the short cut as many times as you want. Don't forget the /, or it will blank the rest of the article! A short cut will only pick up from higher up the page, so make sure the first ref is the full one. Some symbols don't work in the ref name, but you'll find out if you use them. You can see multiple use of the same refs in action in the article William Bowyer (artist). There are 3 sources and they are each referenced 3 times. Each statement in the article has a footnote to show what its source is.
The above method is simple and combines references and notes into one section. A refinement is to put the full details of the references in their own section headed "References", while the notes which apply to them appear in a separate section headed "Notes". The notes can be inserted in the main article text in an abbreviated form as seen in Harriet Arbuthnot or in a full form as in Brown Dog affair.
More information can be found at:
I hope this helps. If you need any assistance, let me know. |
Alternately, if you're using books and want a short version, you can just copy this and fill in the blanks as needed:
- <ref>{{cite book |last= |first= |authorlink= |coauthors= |editor= |others= |title= |origdate= |origyear= |origmonth= |url= |format= |accessdate= |accessyear= |accessmonth= |edition= |series= |volume= |date= |year= |month= |publisher= |location= |language= |isbn= |oclc= |doi= |id= |pages= |chapter= |chapterurl= |quote= }}</ref>
That's a slightly long-winded version of the template where you'll probably never use most of the fields though, so this version should really be sufficient:
- <ref>{{cite book | last = | first = | authorlink = | title = | publisher = | date = | pages = | isbn = }}</ref>
Hope that helps. One Night In Hackney303 17:39, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Killings at Coolacrease
[edit]Hi Pat
May I draw your attention to the guideline Wikipedia:Conflict of interest? It's an important one, because wikipedia has a strict policy of neutrality, which involves representing all major points if view on a topic fairly and a proportionately.
I am concerned that your contributions to Killings at Coolacrease may be problematic, because it appears that you may be the Pat Muldowney who was one of those who complained to RTE about their television documentary on the subject and who is the author of some of the sources cite in the article. As such, it's a subject in which you have a partisan stake, and you should exercise great caution before editing an article an article on such a topic, In general, where such a conflict of interest arises, is best not to edit the article itself, and instead to leave suggestions for other editors on the article's talk page. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:35, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
AfD nomination of Killings at Coolacrease
[edit]I have nominated Killings at Coolacrease, an article you created, for deletion. I do not feel that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Killings at Coolacrease. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time. Do you want to opt out of receiving this notice? BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:24, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Your Recent Edits
[edit]Pat, BHG has challenged me to help you. As both she you and I know, this will be of little value to you. I have however attached a boilerplate; it is a very quick way to look at the policies that you will be beaten over the head with. In theory they apply to everyone. 82.36.178.185 (talk) 00:26, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
- Pat, there are too many policies there to read in one go. The core policies on articles are the first three listed under "Article standards policies": WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR. But I don't suppose this is news to you, because these policies have been cited many times before, and I don't suppose it will make much difference because you still continue to cite Heaney as if his books were a reliable source. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:38, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
PS
[edit]This is good advice which I personally intend to follow myself 82.36.178.185 (talk) 00:36, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks!
[edit]I became interested in this work about a year ago when a stub appeared at [mathematical biog]. Suspecting that nobody else would provide the information, and since I was gathering it up for various journals anyway, I thought I'd better try to find out how WP works, and eventually got round to posting the information which had been requested. It took almost year to assemble this. OMG!!! Original Research - I've just outed myself! But what a nice paradox in WP policy - for various reasons tedious to explain, I was best placed to produce this information. I'd salvaged a great deal of personal papers which were on the verge of being destroyed, from which the required information could be gleaned. Info which nobody else was in a position to get; but WP policy could then prevent me from supplying the info requested in WP! Actually, I just looked at the page again, and various tags & the like have been attached to it. I doubt whether the people who asked for the information to be provided in the first place will be impressed by such distractions from content. Pat Muldowney (talk) 06:56, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I have added [[links]] to the above. I think you should check what I have done as maths is not my strongest subject. I am sure there are more (and better) links that can be made. I am particularly proud of finding this one [[Functional integration#The Feynman integral|Feynman integration]]. It is basically detective work to discover what is and what is not yet covered by Wikipedia. PS if I do any more work or have any questions I will note them at Talk:Ralph Henstock in the future. 82.36.178.185 (talk) 12:41, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
- lol, I'm sure you are right; I think I better leave that for you!82.36.178.185 (talk) 12:55, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
FYI
[edit]As I was not convinced by WP:COI claims made I left a note on the general COI noticeboard here. To date there have been no adverse comments.
Also I have used your sources to expand Daniel Marcus William Beak#Inter-war service - again no one is querying WP:RS there. 82.36.178.185 (talk) 08:34, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Irish War of Independence
[edit]Hi Pat, just a heads up on the article. This edit here makes no sence. I had to read the debate to work out its meaning, as it is it has no context at all.
 | The Irish War of Independence article is currently subject to Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/The_Troubles#Final_remedies_for_AE_case, as laid out during a previous WP:AE case that closed October 05, 2008. If you are a new editor, or an editor unfamiliar with the situation, please follow the guidelines laid out in the above link. If you are unsure if your edit is appropriate, discuss it on this talk page first. |