User:Spangineer/inline citations

For relevant Wikipedia policy and guidelines, see Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Citing sources, and Wikipedia:Footnotes.

All Wikipedia articles of medium length or greater should utilize inline citations. Much more than a minor stylistic issue, their importance in making Wikipedia verifiable and usable is paramount.

The purpose of an encyclopedia is to provide an accurate overview of a multitude of topics and act as a starting point for further research. Wikipedia is unique among encyclopedias in that most articles are not written or verified by experts. While this has allowed Wikipedia to grow at an incredible rate, it has also caused the quality of information on Wikipedia to remain dubious. The use of references has helped to solve this problem, but for longer articles, especially those using more than one source, it is difficult or impossible to know the exact source of the information if inline citations are not used.

Note that the term "inline citation" does not refer to any particular method. I personally prefer the new citation method described at m:Cite/Cite.php. However, footnotes using {{note}} and {{ref}}, Harvard referencing and {{inote}} are acceptable, though I agree with those who argue that the last of these is not helpful for the normal reader. I consider embedded external links to be inferior to other citation styles in nearly all cases because they provide limited information and are susceptible to inconsistency when a normal citation method is implemented. However, preference of one system over any other depends on the format of the article and the preference of the contributor(s). In all cases, the reader should be able to quickly identify the reference used to write the specific section of the article.

Reasons

Articles are not static

While not easy, it is possible to write articles using sources to verify every fact. However, because this is Wikipedia, those articles will continue to change. Other facts may be inserted, some may be deleted, and other contributers may not concern themselves with verifiability. As a result, when the original contributer leaves the project (since hopefully Wikipedia will outlast us all), the veracity of the article's contents will become more and more questionable. Heavy use of inline citations helps prevent this from happening, because they make it possible to separate what has come from a verifiable source from unsourced information which was added later.

Contributors are often anonymous non-experts

Nearly all wikipedia contributers are anonymous, their identites hidden either by IP addresses or screen names, and many are not experts on the topics about which they write. As a result, Wikipedia has little credibility and is often not respected as a reference source. To combat this, we must go above and beyond the normal practice of encyclopedias. Because non-experts write the majority of our articles, we must show that those non-experts depend on the work of experts when writing articles.

Ease of verification and research

The ease of verification and research is another bonus, because no serious student will cite a wikipedia article in a research paper or thesis. They should be able to quickly identify and access the source(s) used for any particular fact in the article. This implies that the sources used should be both high quality and easily accessible, making books, magazines and newspapers excellent choices. Out-of-print books, while often reliable, are often not accessible, and thus their use should be limited if possible. Alternatively, websites, while accessible, are generally considered less authoratative. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources for further discussion.

Objections

Inline citations make articles difficult to read

Often, it is possible to write several paragraphs of text using only a few pages from one or two sources. However, for other articles, particularly those that reference works with a much narrower scope than the article itself, more citations are necessary. To prevent an overabundance of citations that makes it difficult to read the article, the author of the text has at least one option. The template {{inote}} can be used for less controversial citations, since this template imbeds the reference in the text and makes it only visible in edit mode.

Other encyclopedias don't use inline citations

First, Encyclopædia Britannica and other encyclopedias are written by experts and Wikipedia for the most part is not, making it necessary that we prove ourselves accurate. Second, why accept mediocrity? Should we not go above and beyond what is commonly expected? What if we got so good at providing sources that Brittanica was forced to do it too?