How to do Citations

Although a lot of the material that we'll be adding to this wiki comes from individual elicitation sessions with Janine or other speakers, sometimes we'll also want to consult other sources. It's important to cite these other sources so that they can get credit and so that people interested in more information know where else to find it. We now have a references extension that allows us to cite references within the text. This is a brief guide on how to use it: for more information, see the guide for Wikipedia, which uses the same extension.

There are two components to citing something: the footnote portion within the text, and the list of sources at the bottom of the article. To see an example of an article with references, check the "edit" part of this page, or keep reading. (Note that the edit part of this page will also contain "nowiki" and "pre" formatting that is designed to allow us to see the wiki formatting as-is within this article.)

The wiki formatting for the within-text portion looks like this:

<ref>Delisle, Gilles L., and Manny L. Metallic. 1976. ''Micmac teaching grammar: Preliminary version.'' La Macaza, QC: Manitou Community College.</ref>

But within the article, it will just look like a small raised number. You put these <ref>...</ref> tags after everything you want to cite. Within the ref tags, make sure to format your reference the way you would format any citation, with author, year, title, etc. The Wikpedia article linked to above has some tips for shortening things if you are going to cite the same source multiple times in one article, but they aren't really necessary.

At the end of the article, make a heading called "References"

 == References == 

And then under it place the following code, which will compile everything cited in the article into a nice list for you.

<references />

The cool thing is, you only have to make the <references /> part once per page, after which any new footnotes you add will automatically be added to the list.

Also note that all the footnote numbers are clickable. Clicking on a number within the text will take you to the corresponding full citation at the bottom of the page, and clicking the up arrow at the bottom of the page will take you up to where it's cited in the text. Go ahead and try it!