User:Circeus/Referencing styles

A large number of referencing styles are used throughout Wikipedia articles. This essay aims to describe and explains the reasons for providing the various forms of referencing.

No footnotes
Footnote-less systems have the advantage that the reference is more readily available. their main disadvantage is that they force the reader to jump up and down the page without the assistance of links. They can also prove to be disruptive to the flow of the article.

Embedded links
Embedded links or citations are a rough system of referencing. Because it still requires all links to be properly cited in a "References" section, and that embedded links in text are otherwise frowned upon, this system is in practice being slowly faded out. Another disadvantage is that, unlike with Footnoted systems, it creates multiple links to the same source, which would use only one link in the Cite.php format. This system is not in use in any recent featured articles. In fact, it is actively repressed at the candidacy stage.

Harvard, or author-date citation
Harvard referencing (article) is a system widely used in academia. "Harvard Referencing" refers only to references that are placed directly in the text, not to those used, e.g. in footnotes. Those are treated as a mixed system.Harvard referencing is rare amongst featured articles, and exists in three variants:
 * Straight Harvard referencing (Example needed)
 * Linked Harvard references: T-34
 * The very rare linked Harvard "footnote": Retreat of glaciers since 1850 (This system is a form of templated footnote.)

Harvard footnotes may prove troublesome because they disrupt the flow of text. Because they are a very formal system, it is arguable that they are not appropriate to Wikipedia in general. Some formulation common in Harvard systems, such as "Doe (2005) commented that" create clunky prose, especially when the author is linked. Finally, the formal system to cite pages in Harvard is "(Doe 2005:56)," where "56" is a page number. This verges on the jargonistic and is unintuitive compared to the variant "Doe (2005), 56" common in featured articles.

Content of footnotes
There is disagreement over what exactly should be in the footnotes. Some users assert that content footnotes should never be mixed with citation notes. They mostly use the template system to separate them.

Segregation between footnotes and references
There is also some level of disagreement over the level of separation between notes and content. There are several reasons for this:
 * Some documents may be called repeatedly, but with different page numbers
 * It might be desirable to keep the notes as short as possible (for example if they are content notes that must themselves be cited by an inline reference.)

As a practical consideration, articles that relies on many book references usually end up including a form of segregation or another. In all cases, a reference that is given in an abbreviated form must have a full form readily located either earlier in the notes or in a separate "References" section.

Total segregation
Relatively few articles do this. Usually, a few of the notes contain a full reference. Full segregation is usually seen as needlessly adding steps in looking up references that could be readily available.

Mixed systems

 * Single references are in notes. This is the most common system. If an item is only used in a single note (repeated or not), it is listen fully in the references section (Vijayanagara Empire). This often results in all the references being in footnotes, especially if all or a majority of the references are webpages (Hurricane Isabel, Pashtun people).
 * Full references are later abbreviated. Some articles first give a full reference for the book, and then later use an abbreviation to refer to it with a different page number (Samuel Adams). This system is used in a minority of articles. It is more usual for all abbreviated references to be listed separately from footnotes.

Abbreviated notes may also be linked, similarly to the Harvard footnotes discussed above. This system is becoming more frequent.

Abbreviating a footnote
Again, there area number of systems in use. For the following references: The following sets of notes may be found, and they are all correct as long as none of them is ambiguous.
 * Author (year), page
 * Doe (2004), 23
 * Doe (2006a), 34-44
 * Doe (2006b), 63
 * Smith (2000), 55-57
 * Smith (2002), 34
 * Author (year:page) (Harvard system)
 * Doe (2004:23)
 * Doe (2006a:34-44)
 * Doe (2006b:63)
 * Smith (2000:55-57)
 * Smith (2002:34)
 * Author, pages
 * Doe, 23
 * Doe, 34-44
 * Doe, 63
 * Smith, 55-57
 * Smith, 34
 * Author, abbreviated title, pages
 * Doe, Foo in History, Foo, 23
 * Doe, Foo Years, 34-44
 * Doe, Decline, 63
 * Smith, Historical outlook, 55-57
 * Smith, Foos of the World, 34

Similarly, an article may use primarily one of these systems, with another used to supply when the primary one creates ambiguity. For example Anton Chekhov uses primarily an "Author, page" system, but adds titles when there is ambiguity.

Conclusion
Cite away! Just make sure that
 * 1) Your citations are unambiguous.
 * 2) Your citations don't have too many redundant elements.