Help:Citing sources

From SABR Encyclopedia

For a handy list of the most common citation templates suitable for cut-and-paste usage, see Help:Cut and paste citation reference

The SABR Encyclopedia seeks to be the premier online portal for factual and verifiable information about baseball. With this in mind, edits introducing new information to an article are required to include appropriate source citations specifying the origin of the added facts. It is not enough for the Encyclopedia to have correct information; citations allow readers to go and verify factual claims for themselves, as well as serving as pointers to primary and secondary sources where the reader can go to learn more in-depth information on the topic.

This article outlines good practices for incorporating sources into your contributions. As with all edits to the Encyclopedia, the first priority is to get the information into the edit. As you become a more experienced contributor, you will become familiar with the formatting options for organizing and presenting information in an article. The more you as a contributor can get to know and use the formatting options, the better the Encyclopedia review process will work. This article takes you through these levels in these steps:

• A gentle introduction shows you the basics on including sources in your contributions.
• Using footnotes explains how to indicate that a source refers specifically to one or more facts.
• Citing using templates introduces templates which have been provided in the Encyclopedia to make it easy to cite common types of sources and have the information formatted in a consistent way.

To get started, you should be familiar with A gentle introduction. Once you've made a few contributions and are starting to feel more comfortable, return to this article and continue on with the subsequent sections.

A gentle introduction

The simplest way to add a source is to include it in a bullet-pointed list at the end of the article. For example, if you were writing about a current or recent player, you might refer to a team's media guide, and a webpage. Then, your sources section might look like this:

== Sources ==
* 2010 New York Knights Media Guide
* http://www.mlb.com/randomarticle, retrieved on 2010-03-02.

Some articles will already have a "Sources" section (the word "Sources" surrounded by a pair of equal signs on either side) already set up; if it's present, just add to the list that is there. If not, add it in yourself, and start your list; lists are formatted with a "*" at the beginning of the entry.

The most important principle in citing sources is that someone else should be able to find the source easily. That means you should provide all the relevant information: authors, titles, dates of publication, and so forth. You will probably remember from high school English classes all manner of rules and regulations for formatting your citations -- APA style, MLA style, Harvard style, or one of many others. To get source information into the Encyclopedia, it does not matter which style you prefer, or even that you use any particular style at all; what is most important is that enough information on the source is present to help the reader identify and find it. If you are complete and consistent in citing your sources, that is enough to get started.

Using footnotes

Some sources are used to support particular facts mentioned in an article. In this case, it is useful to communicate this to the reader by using footnotes, which help to connect the source to the fact by placing a footnote in the appropriate place in the article text.

Basic usage: citing a source once

Footnotes are written in articles by surrounding the source with the tags <ref> and </ref>. To pick up on the example above, if you found a particular fact in a team's media guide, and felt it was important that the connection between the fact and the source be recorded explicitly, you might write

Smith claims to be descended from a family that came over on the Mayflower.<ref>2010 New York Knights Media Guide</ref>

The content of footnotes used to indicate sources follows the same principles as the general-purposes sources section described in the previous section; the most important thing is to get all the relevant information on the source into the footnote.

Advanced usage: citing the same source multiple times

You may encounter a case where you want to use footnotes to specifically mention the same source multiple times within an article. There would be nothing wrong with repeating the reference tag multiple times:

Smith claims to be descended from a family that came over on the Mayflower.<ref>2010 New York Knights Media Guide</ref>  
He was also the first Major League player to swim across the English Channel.<ref>2010 New York Knights Media Guide</ref>

A more sophisticated method, which can also save you some typing, is to use the same reference multiple times. To do this, the first time you use the reference, you'll give it a label; for instance, you might abbreviate the source as 2010knights. Then, you can use it multiple times like so:

Smith claims to be descended from a family that came over on the Mayflower.<ref name="2010knights">2010 New York Knights Media Guide</ref>  
He was also the first Major League player to swim across the English Channel.<ref name="2010knights"/>

The first time you use the source, you give the full details in the note, and give it a name. After that, you only need to refer to the source using the name; the Encyclopedia will know to re-use that same footnote again the second and subsequent times.

A few notes on this procedure:

1. The name of the footnote is completely arbitrary, though it makes sense to try to pick something that is derived from the name of the source you're using.
2. You only need to name footnotes if you plan to re-use them somewhere else, but it is harmless if you name a footnote and don't re-use it.
3. The second and subsequent times you use the footnote, note that the reference is closed with a />; the trailing slash is used in the second and subsequent uses of the footnote only.

Examples: See Marv Danielson's page for an example of the multiple-use technique in action.

Citing using templates

As you become more experienced in editing articles, you will find it handy to be able to express all the information about a source in a more consistent and compact way. The Encyclopedia pre-defined a number of citation templates which help to standardize the process of citing sources commonly used in baseball research.

There are several advantages to using citations:

1. They save you typing. You can copy-and-paste versions of the appropriate template as needed, and fill in the fields.
2. They help you provide all the information. When you copy-and-paste the templates, you are reminded of all the fields a complete citation should have.
3. They help you format the information consistently. The citation handles all the formatting for you, putting book and newspaper titles in italics, putting dates in a standard order, and so forth, freeing you to concentrate on content.
4. They make the sources more accessible. As more sources become available online, citation templates will automatically create links directly to the content. For example, if you cite a MLB rule using the {{cite-mlb-rules}} template, a link to the text of the rule you cite will automatically be created in your article.

Again, using these templates is optional, but using them will improve the quality of your contributions, and therefore the quality of the Encyclopedia. Experienced contributors will find it useful to become familiar with their use, and to incorporate them into their editing.

Templates for citing commonly-used sources

Below are examples of how to use various templates to cite types of sources commonly used in baseball research.

• For full description of a template and the parameters which can be used with it — click the template name (e.g. {{cite-book}} in the "Template" column of the table below.
• Copy and paste the text under "Common usage" to use the template.

{{cite-book | title= | last=| first=| publisher= | city= | year= }}

{{cite-newspaper | title= | newspaper= | year= | month= | day= | pages= | last= | first= }}

{{cite-web | url= | year= | month= | day= }}

{{cite-ssdi | ssn=  }}

{{cite-scorecard | team= | month= | day= | year= }}

{{cite-baseball-card | year= | team= | league= | maker= }}

{{cite-mlb-rules | | | }}

{{Cite-mlb-rules|6|05|f}})

Newspaper Articles

This is the same citation as above, but this time in more detail:

{{cite-newspaper | title=Shlabotnik Fired After First Game | newspaper=Waffletown Brunch-Herald | year=1964 | month=4 | day=1 }}

This would create a reference that looks just like what you'll see if you click on the footnote at the end of this sentence^[1]. So for a newspaper, you need to set:

• title: The title of the article. (For obituaries with no title, use title=Obituary.)
• newspaper: The name of the newspaper the article appeared in.
• month: The month the article appeared (an integer from 1 to 12).
• day: The day the article appeared (an integer from 1 to 31).
• year: The year the article appeared (four digits).

And you can optionally set:

• pages: The page number(s) of the article.
• last: The last name of the author, if the article is bylined.
• first: The first name of the author, if the article is bylined.

The order doesn't matter.

Books

The book template is still a work in progress, but it does have all of the fields you need to enter information:

{{cite-book | title=On managing | last=Shlabotnik | first=Joe | publisher=Red Baron Press | city=New York | year=1962 }}

This creates this citation:

• Shlabotnik, Joe. On managing. New York: Red Baron Press, 1962.

The fields are:

• title: The title of the book.
• first: The first name of the primary author of the book.
• last: The last name of the primary author of the book.
• authors: If there are multiple authors, the additional authors of the book, listed in natural order, separated by commas:

authors=John Smith, Jane Wilson, Rogers Hornsby

• publisher: The publisher of the book.
• city: The city in which the publisher of the book is located (follow standard MLA guidelines).
• year: The year of initial publication.

If you leave out some pieces of information and include others, it may look a bit off right now (random punctuation in the wrong place). The template will be updated eventually to deal with this situation, but for now please do enter whatever information you have, and don't worry about the appearance.

Web sites

This template is for citing resources on the World Wide Web. It currently accepts the following parameters:

• url: The URL of the article or other resource. Note that "http://" should always be included; it is part of the URL.
• month: The month in which the URL was accessed (an integer from 1 to 12).
• day: The day of month on which the URL was accessed (an integer from 1 to 31).
• year: The year in which the URL was accessed (four digits).
• title: The link text to use. Optional - if linktext is omitted, URL will display.

This will create a reference that looks like the first footnote in this article, which had this code:

{{cite-web| url=http://library.duke.edu/research/citing/ | year=2009 | month=5 | day=7}}

Social Security Death Index

This template is for citing an entry in the Social Security Death Index. It currently recognizes the following parameters:

• ssn: The Social Security Number of the entry. It is encouraged to note an SSN when possible, so it is possible to re-locate the entry in the event there is some uncertainty whether the entry belongs to the person who is the subject of the article.

Scorecards

This template is for citing scorecards, scorecard inserts, and the like. In use, it looks like this:

{{cite-scorecard | team= | month= | day= | year=}}

It accepts the following parameters:

• team: The team issuing the scorecard. If it wasn't an official team card, note the actual source/publisher in parentheses.
• month: The month in which the game was played (an integer from 1 to 12, or ?).
• day: The day of month on which the game was played (an integer from 1 to 31, or ?).
• year: The year in which the game was played (four digits).

Baseball cards

This template is for citing information from a baseball card. In use, it looks like this:

{{cite-baseball-card | year= | team= | league= | maker=}}

It currently accepts these parameters:

• year: The year the card was issued.
• team: The team the person played for. This is an optional field.
• league: The league the person played in. If it's a team card, please don't include League; if it's a league card, please do include that information.
• maker: The manufacturer and/or sponsor of the card. This is an optional field.

Official rules of major league baseball

This template will create a link to the official rules of Major League Baseball, hosted at Baseball Almanac. This template links to the copy at Baseball Almanac because it is an accurate copy, officially permitted by the League, and because MLB's own website only has the rules available in PDFs, which are awkward and do not allow linking to individual rules.

The Baseball Almanac rules do not allow linking to individual rules yet, but they will soon.

The template works in the following format. This example would render a link to rule 6.05(f) (a batter is out when hit by a pitch on a swinging third strike):

{{Cite-mlb-rules|6|05|f}}

Footnotes

1. ↑ "Shlabotnik Fired After First Game". Waffletown Brunch-Herald, 1964-04-01.