Help:Footnotes and references

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Footnotes and reference lists are vitally important to the quality of a wiki article. In order to force a footnote to appear immediately after a quotation or stated fact, use this format:

Text that needs a note.<ref>This note cites a source or explains something in the text.</ref>

It appears as a superscript number in square brackets immediately following the text, like this:

Text that needs a note.[1]

In order for the footnote to appear, it is necessary to define a Notes section of the article:

== Notes ==
<references/>

Look at the first note in the Notes section below to see the result of keying this in:

Text that needs a note.[1]

Clicking on the superscript takes the reader to the note, and clicking on the arrow next to the note number takes the reader back to the text tied to that note.

Citations

Academic standards of writing require citation of source material in the form of footnotes, endnotes, or inline notations, so that the reader can refer back to source materials to verify facts. The TS Wiki policy on style states that the most important thing about citations is to provide enough information that the original source can be located by readers. The Chicago Manual of Style has been applied in many of the early end notes and bibliographic entries, but it is not required. Editors of this wiki come from a wide range of academic disciplines and educational systems, and are accustomed to several different styles of citation. It is reasonable in this wiki to apply styles such as the APA (American Psychological Association), MLA (Modern Language Association), and Harvard systems.

Typically, the initial or main author of a wiki page determines the citation style, and subsequent editors should generally try to match that style.
For source materials that are available in print and on the Internet, it is preferable to provide citations including both.

Here are links to style manuals and university guides online:

Examples of citations

Refer to the Notes section section below to see the citations.

  • Author, title, publisher, and page of a book.[2]
  • Subsequent note from same book.[3]
  • Author, title, publisher, and page of a book.[4]
  • Reference work with no author.[5]
  • Subsequent note from same work.[6]
  • Author and title of article from a book with an editor.[7]
  • Unsigned article, in this case an obituary, from a periodical.[8]
  • Online periodical.[9]
  • Recorded interview in an archival collection.[10]
  • Letter in an archival collection.[11]
  • Archival material.[12]

Bibliographies and other references

Notes

  1. This note cites a source or explains something in the text.
  2. Roderick Bradford, D. M. Bennett: The Truth Seeker, (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2006), 53.
  3. Bradford, 54.
  4. A. O. Hume, Hints on Esoteric Theosophy vol. 1 (Bombay, India: The Theosophical Society, 1882), 29.
  5. The International Theosophical Year Book 1938 (Adyar, Madras, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1938): 213.
  6. Year Book 1938, 213.
  7. Rukmini Devi Arundale, "Rukmini on Herself," Rukmini Devi Arundale: Birth Centenary Commemorative Volume, Shakuntala Ramani, ed.,(Chennai, India: The Kalakshetra Foundation, 2003), 15-16.
  8. "Lama Anagarika Govinda [obituary]," The American Theosophist 73:3 (March 1985): 86.
  9. Theosophical Order of Service, TOS In-Touch.online[1] No. 20 (February 2012), accessed February 28, 2012.
  10. Dora Kunz interview by Peter Michel, 1995, Tape recording, Records Series 08.10, Dora Kunz Papers, Theosophical Society in America Archives, Wheaton, Illinois. Transcription by Sue Wright.
  11. Annie Besant letter to Fritz Kunz, 1923, Records Series 25.01, Kunz Family Collection, Box 1 Folder 9, Theosophical Society in America Archives, Wheaton, Illinois.
  12. Program Proposals, 1993, Records Series 05.07, Parliament of the World's Religions (1993), Theosophical Society in America Archives, Wheaton, Illinois.