Help:Editing/References

IntactiWiki articles must be written in a descriptive style like in the Wikipedia, based on reliable information from outside the IntactiWiki. Those references should always be linked to the portion of text where they belong.

Basic references

Reference information is always placed between an opening and a closing reference tag, like in the following example:

<ref>This is a reference information.</ref>

When you put this reference behind a text, the Wiki engine will create a footnote number at the relevant place and add a numbered footnote to the References section at the very end of the article, like done here.

References using links

You can use any complex portion of text for a reference. Please keep in mind that it will be converted into an article footnote, so you better keep reference texts as short as possible. The following code sample shows how to use a simple external link in a reference:

<ref>[https://www.facebook.com Facebook link to the information]</ref>

The external link is always written in single square brackets, with the URL followed by a space character and the URL description or title.

References using templates

Very often, you will use information from books, documents, journals, websites, etc. Therefore, the IntactiWiki offers a range of templates which can be used for creating properly formatted references. Here is a list of frequently used templates:

• Template:BookInfo
• Template:Citation
• Template:REFbook
• Template:REFconference
• Template:REFcontribution - Please don't use this any more.
• Template:REFdocument
• Template:REFjournal
• Template:REFnews
• Template:REFweb

Templates can use parameters, and the more parameters, the more you may want to use a vertical notation for a reference. The listed templates try to offer copyable template code in both vertial and horizontal notation. The formatting results are the same.

Note: Because the vertical notation is clearer and helps to avoid and find errors, we recommend using vertical notation.

Here is a REFweb example:

Horizontal notation

<ref>{{REFweb |url=http://www.example.org |title=My Favorite Things, Part II |last=Doe |first=John |publisher=Open Publishing |website=Encyclopedia of Things |work=Huge work |date=2018-12-24 |accessdate=2019-09-20 |quote=... Lord Balfour came forward with a unique concern: 'Supposing some unfortunate lady was confined with twins ...}}</ref>

Direct output without reference tags:

Doe, John (24 December 2018). My Favorite Things, Part II, Encyclopedia of Things, Huge work [deprecated REFweb parameter used: use <website> instead], Open Publishing. Retrieved 20 September 2019.
Quote: ... Lord Balfour came forward with a unique concern: 'Supposing some unfortunate lady was confined with twins ...

Note: The warning about a deprecated template parameter is built into the template output itself and helps avoiding deprecated parameters.

Vertical notation

<ref>{{REFweb
 |url=http://www.example.org
 |title=My Favorite Things, Part II
 |last=Doe
 |first=John
 |publisher=Open Publishing
 |website=Encyclopedia of Things
 |date=2018-12-24
 |accessdate=2019-09-20
 |quote=... Lord Balfour came forward with a unique concern: 'Supposing some unfortunate lady was confined with twins ...
}}</ref>

Direct output without reference tags:

Doe, John (24 December 2018). My Favorite Things, Part II, Encyclopedia of Things, Open Publishing. Retrieved 20 September 2019.
Quote: ... Lord Balfour came forward with a unique concern: 'Supposing some unfortunate lady was confined with twins ...

Note: The references tags should always be used and may be integrated into the REF... templates output somewhen in the future. For now, it is still possible to output the formatted reference even outside the References section.

Multiple usage of references

It's quite usual to use a reference multiple times in an article. In order to be able and re-use a reference, you will have to name its tag like in the following example:

<ref name=John>

If the reference name has more than one word, use quotation marks instead.

<ref name="Name of the reference">

If you want to use it after the initial usage, simply write for the second position:

<ref name=John/>

or for the second example above:

<ref name="Name of the reference"/>

The slash at its end informs the render engine that this is a complete ref tag. A leading space character in front of the slash is not required any longer. This behavior is identical to common HTML5 tags.

See also

• Templates available in the IntactiWiki