On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 1:32 PM, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
2008/12/4 Thomas Larsen larsen.thomas.h@gmail.com:
Once way I could conceive of correcting the problem is to have a reference tag that provides only a _link_ to the note via a label and another type of reference tag that actually _defines_ and _displays_ the note. For example:
A popular approach just now (and one I'm trying to convert to using) is:
It was a sunny day on Wednesday<ref>Smith, p.9</ref>. The next day, Thursday, was cloudy.<ref>Jones, p.40</ref>
==Notes==
<references/>
==References==
- David Smith. ''History of Wednesdays.'' History Magazine, 2019
- Susan Jones. ''History of Thursdays.'' History Magazine, 2020
This mostly implements what you're trying to do (ie, as little stuff in the body text as possible) and can be done without major change :-). It looks a little silly when you've only got three references, but works very well for thirty.
A popular approach? No offense, but isn't this just the way it should have been done all along? It is certainly the way many journals and books do it, and it is common sense. There is also a way to set things up so that a second click from the specific reference (Smith, p7) will take you to the full source details in the bibliographic list of references - handy if there are lots of them and they are split up in various ways. But I can't remember an example right now. The best way to find out how referencing systems work in practice is to go to the featured articles page and click on one or two and just see how its been done before.
For example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Lissitzky
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_evolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_evolution#cite_note-34 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_evolution#CITEREFCarrollGrenier...
The #CITEREF anchor is produced by and explained at the Citation template page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Citation
Plus lots of other stuff if you read around from there to other places.
In my view, the real problem with references is people coming along later and changing or moving the text, without reading the source. That can eventually lead to completely misleading statements disconnected from the original source. Adding references can stablise or ossify a piece of text, but when that piece of text goes back into flux, the sources often need to be redone or re-examined.
Carcharoth