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Help:References

Revision as of 16:02, 7 June 2011 by Sage (Talk | contribs)

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.

Contents

General rules

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.

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.

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:

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{{HM}} is the old 'general-purpose' template, but it has been mostly superseded by the above templates, which offer more flexibility.

Questionable statements

Questionable statements can be challenged with the {{fact}} template. Conjecture and interpretation should be marked with the {{or}}. Fanon, radical conjecture and overinterpretation that goes unreferenced should be moved to the Talk page.
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