Wikipedia talk:Parenthetical referencing/Archive 1

Why Harvard Referencing is Not a Good Idea for Wikipedia
Harvard referencing was developed to meet the needs of works of original research, which Wikipedia is not. The readership of those works tends to be specialists in the field, who have (or are acquiring) a working knowledge of the players in that field, and who are (or should be) reading works with close attention at part of their employment or field of study. For this type of work, the Harvard style provides advantages.
 * It is easy for the reader to see who makes the assertion.
 * It is easy for the reader to see how recent the assertion is.
 * The reader, who would be checking every instance of every citation anyway, is spared the distracting effect of a footnote or endnote.

In contrast, the intended readership of an encyclopedia is not specialists in the field, or in any field, is reading the article for general information, does not know, and probably does not intend to learn in detail, the players in the field, and will probably not take the time to check sources, since that is the job of Wikipedia editors. For them, footnotes are distracting enough. (Note that most print encyclopedias don't bother with footnotes for detailed citations.)

The use of Harvard referencing is attractive to many regular editors, because most of us are either specialists in some field of research that uses Harvard referencing, or have recently been students at an institution of higher learning that advocates the style because it is widely used in journals. It also simplifies the job of checking sources in a contentious article. Nevertheless, I think it ill behooves Wikipedia to optimze itself for the convenience of its editors, at the expense of the readership. Robert A.West (Talk) 13:00, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Interesting points, Robert. In fact, Harvard referencing isn't used much on WP that I can see. I prefer it myself for the reasons you outline, though I'm trying to come to terms with footnotes. But WP:CITE leaves it up to the individual editor, and we don't recommend one style over another simply because we want to encourage citation regardless of the form it takes. SlimVirgin (talk) 13:09, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I hope I gave no impression that I want to impose anything on anyone, nor that I am trying to decrease the amount of citation. My intention was merely to offer my opinion in the hope of influencing other editors.  Actually, I could see an argument for using Harvard referencing while constructing an article, and then converting to footnotes later, but that may not be practical. Robert A.West (Talk) 13:54, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I have started to do that actually. The problem with the footnotes, especially the system that's easiest to use (the one) is that the full citations are written in the text after the sentence. This is fine for the reader, who sees only the number. But for the editor, the inclusion of all these citations, if there are several in one paragraph, makes editing very difficult, especially when you're copy editing for flow. So there are disadvantages with both systems. The reader may prefer the look of footnotes, but would probably also prefer good writing, which is becoming harder to achieve with full citations (sometimes several in a row) embedded into and around sentences. SlimVirgin (talk)  14:05, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Look at this paragraph, for example. I defy anyone to copy edit it without having to use preview constantly to see where the sentences begin and end:
 * Although most nations and UN institutions regarding the settlements as illegal, there exist dissenting opinions. Some legal scholars have argued that the settlements are legal under international law, including prominent international law expert Julius Stone and Eugene Rostow, Dean of Yale Law School, Under Secretary for Political Affairs under President Lyndon B. Johnson, and one of the dafters of UN Security Council Resolution 242. According to Rostow "the Jewish right of settlement in the area is equivalent in every way to the right of the local population to live there."  SlimVirgin (talk)  14:09, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
 * You have convinced me. It occurs to me that if there were an  template, then one type of reference could be changed into another by use of an editor with a global change feature, or a bot.  By request of a consensus of editors, of course. Robert A.West (Talk) 15:28, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid that's too technical for me. I actually like that footnote system in every other way, but for the writing problem. I'm hoping there might be some way to make the text inside look different from the rest (smaller, different font, different color), but so far everyone I've asked says it's not possible. SlimVirgin (talk) 15:33, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I am not a Wikimedia programmer, but I suspect that there is a feasible technical solution. That said, I guess I just volunteered to try to find one.  Robert A.West (Talk) 15:37, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

In terms of Wikipedia's design goal of simplicity, I feel that inote remains a nearly ideal citation format. A Harvard-style reference is embedded in the wiki-code, and produces no display on the front-end. For the reader of wikipedia, for whom even the numerical footnote marker is, in the opinion of some, a visual disurbance, and the Harvard-style parenthetical citation is a rather larger visual disturbance, there is no visual distraction, while for the less casual researcher, or more often, another editor, the citation information is right there, in a compact form that only minimally hinders ease of copy-edit. The full bibliographic information, is of course (visibly) placed at the bottom of the page in the references. Shimmin 15:16, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Recent example
Francis, please don't revert my tidying of the example. It was a mess, and quite wrong. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:28, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
 * If we're going to compare mess, yours was worse, and far more wrong, and included several other intrusions never discussed or agreed upon, and didn't give the code of the example on how to build the example. --Francis Schonken 19:44, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Please say which intrusions and which code. If you don't say, I can't know what you mean. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:47, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry, it's up to you to defend your intrusions. I'm sick of your stock method of setting up an edit war first, and say that everyone but you has to discuss first. You didn't even note my corrections, when taking the next step in your revert war. Please defend your changes, before imposing them. --Francis Schonken 19:55, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I did not set up an edit war. I made an edit! You have to stop reverting me whenever I make reference-related edits. Say exactly what your objections are to my edit or leave the page alone, please. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:02, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Don't you go "ditto" on me. You did start an edit war. Say exactly what your objections are to my edit or leave the page alone, please. --Francis Schonken 20:06, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
 * My objections to your edits are that you're reverting my work, nothing more. So please say what you feel is wrong with the first edit I made, and stop playing games. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:15, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Say exactly what your objections are to my edit or leave the page alone, please. And I mean this edit (which included the removal of an error that you could rightly have said to be incorrect, but is no longer there)
 * Note also that this example is not all that "recent", it's there for about two months. So tell us what's still wrong with it (after the corrections I made to it with my 19:36 edit ). Why did you still revert twice to your older version of 19:00 after that? Please tell me why you stick to the older version, that has all the disadvantages I mentioned in my first edit above in this section?
 * "My objections to your edits are that you're reverting my work"... sorry did I hear you say that your work of 19:00 has *per definition* more value than my work of 19:36? If that's where we're at, please start mediation, per the next step at dispute resolution.
 * So please say what you feel is wrong with the 19:36 edit I made, and stop playing games.
 * It's not because you made an edit, that it has more value than my edits, so if you can't even *explain* why you think your 19:00 edit is an improvement over my 19:36 edit, don't be surprised it gets reverted. You even don't defend it as an improvement. You just say "it's my work and from the fact that it is my work I derive the rights (a) not to explain anything, and (b) not to see it changed by anyone, or at least not by Francis because I don't like him". Stop your hate campaigns, we're supposed to assume good faith. --Francis Schonken 20:41, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Francis, I have never seen you assume good faith of me, not once. I am trying to assume it now of you. All my interactions with you involve bickering back and forth (you said X; I said Y; no you didn't; yes you did); and comments that I honestly don't understand. I am therefore requesting that it stop, and that we both concentrate ONLY on content. If this continues, I will pursue dispute resolution because it's too aggressive and wastes too much time.
 * I am therefore requesting that you give a very clear list of your objections to my first edit today, which you reverted. I do not understand what you wrote above, and I do not understand the reason for your reverts. If you list the objections, I will address each one in turn. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:47, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

If I wouldn't have assumed good faith on you I'd already have started an RfC.

I am therefore requesting that you give a very clear list of your objections to my 19:36 edit today

If you can't, which seems to be the case, I don't think you have any real objections.

I do not understand what you wrote above, and I do not understand the reason for your reverts. - oh, this is your typical old trick, rather revert-warring than trying to understand, especially *exactly* on the moment you know that you've made a mistake and can't hold your position. You've played the I do not understand game too many times on me.

And no, not all our interactions have been bickering back and forth. But you seem to have short memory there. --Francis Schonken 20:58, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
 * You seem intent on playing games, so I'm taking this further. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:37, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Please stop it
Your just sanctimonious, not improving the Harvard references page.

Here's my preparation for the 3RR (and don't think you're above that)
 * Base version: 19:00
 * First revert: 19:27
 * Second revert: 19:49
 * Third revert: 20:00
 * Fourth revert: ... depends on you.

--Francis Schonken 20:13, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Please tell me what was wrong with my 19:36 version of the harvard referencing page
...For your convenience I copy it here:


 * A technical implementation of Harvard references with the help of templates is described at Footnote3 (ref_harvard or ref_harv + note_label combination of templates)

Harvard referencing, also known as the author-date system, is a citation system developed by Harvard University and used by publishers all over the world (pdf). It is one of three citation styles recommended by Wikipedia. The other two are embedded links and footnotes. See Citing sources for more details.

The advantage of Harvard referencing over the other two systems is that a reader familiar with a field can often immediately recognize a citation and thus read a document more quickly without continuously visiting the reference section. Similarly, if the same reference is cited more than once, a Harvard reference is far more mnemonic than a simple integer, so even the casual reader can be helped by this system. The disadvantages of the system are that it takes more space (which is why Nature (journal) for example doesn't use it) and that the rules can be complicated or unclear for non-academic references, particularly those where the author is unknown. The system may also be unfamiliar and distracting to a general readership, who are unfamiliar with journal articles.

Under the Harvard referencing system, a book is cited in the text in parentheses, or round brackets, after the sentence or paragraph for which the book was used as a source, using the surname of the author and the year of publication only, with the parentheses closing before the period, as in (Author 2005). If the same author has published two books in 2005, and both are being referenced in the text, this is written as (Author 2005a) and (Author 2005b).

Newspaper articles may be cited by the byline, as in (Traynor 2005), though this is less commonly done, with most editors preferring to give the name of the newspaper and the date of publication after the sentence (The Guardian, December 17, 2005), or linking to the article using an embedded link, like this. 

References section
Complete citations must also be provided, in alphabetical order, in a References section following the text.

For a book: in the case of (Author 2005), this might be:
 * Author, A. (2005a). Harvard Referencing, New York:Random House. ISBN 11112222X.
 * Author, A. (2005b). More Harvard Referencing, New York:Random House. ISBN 11112223X.

For an article: in the case of (Traynor 2005) or (The Guardian, December 17, 2005), this might be:
 * Traynor, I. "Judge tells Ankara to decide on fate of leading author", The Guardian, December 17, 2005

Whether or not to use only the initial, as in Traynor, I. or the full name., as in Traynor, Ian, is a matter of personal preference.

As with all citation advice in Wikipedia, the most important thing is to provide some information about where you found your material, even if you don't know how to format the citation.

Example using Harvard references and numbered footnotes
This section serves as both an example and an explanation of how to use Harvard references (Footnote3 template layout), combined with numbered footnotes (Footnotes tags). It is an imaginary extract from an article on Foo. The "Notes" and "References" sections are of "===" level in this example; in a real article they would be of "==" level.

See also example at Wikipedia talk:Footnotes/Mixed citations and footnotes.

Foo was invented by Nescio Nomen in the 17th century.

A century later, Foo was refined by Negidius Numerius.

It was also Negidius Numerius who established that N. Nomen was the original inventor of Foo.

Consensus
(copied from talk pages)

Sorry, I'm not in the clear about what you meant by "I see no consensus for these changes on Talk:"

The previous version was the version "without changes", so why did you revert it to a version with "non-consensus changes"?

The version you deleted, is in its entirety on the talk page, under the header Please tell me what was wrong with my 19:36 version of the wikipedia:harvard referencing page. It has been there a few days, nobody objecting or indicating flaws regarding this version. And was then moved to the project page.

So, if you have objections to that version, please mention/discuss them at Wikipedia talk:Harvard referencing, but don't overwrite them with a version to which there were objections, without the content of these objections being handled, as far as I know of.

tx. --Francis Schonken 16:34, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
 * The version that was there had been there for some time, you reverted it, yet apparently refused to explain specific objections, or provide reasons for the reversion. You also appear to be giving examples of Harvard referencing using the cite template as though it is obligatory or the only way to do it, when it is neither, and there is no conensus for that change. Jayjg (talk) 16:44, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your swift reply, but there seems to be an error at hand. The version to which you reverted has not been "there for some time" - I mean, not at any time. Where did you get that desinformation? didn't you check edit history before making that bold statement? Re. your content remark on the version discussed on the talk page, I'll copy that remark there, and will reply to it there, no need to do that here I suppose, as you suggest yourself "Comment about the content of a specific article on the Talk: page of that article, and not here." (well, it's not exactly an article in "article namespace", but I see no reason not to proceed likewise). tx. --Francis Schonken 17:04, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

The "ref_harvard" and similar templates are examples of some of the least useful templates we have on Wikipedia. The add absolutely no value to the user, while forcing him or her to conform to a confusing and strict syntax. Wikipedia would be better off without these templates at all, but in the interim, they should not be used as examples of even good referencing, much less as examples the "proper" way to reference. Rather, they more properly belong on pages showing examples of useless templates invented "for their own sake", rather than for the purpose of aiding the editor or reader. Jayjg (talk) 17:10, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Tx, makes it a bit clearer. Note that I'm not a big fan of these templates either, but they exist and are afaik the best available technology - at least currently - for those editors that want to link the inline part of a harvard reference with the corresponding entry in the list of referenced works ("link" in the meaning of "clickable back and forth").
 * There's indeed no obligation to make harvard references clickable "back and forth" as described in the previous paragraph, even less is there an obligation to use the ref_harvard or ref_harv templates to implement that, there is not even a recommendation to do so. I now understand that that was one of the reasons why SlimVirgin mutilated the example I had once constructed on the page. Indeed, the page could be clearer that editors shouldn't feel compelled to use them. However I see no reason to remove an example of how they *can* be used from the page either.
 * Note that some editors choose to use these templates and a recommendation to discourage that has not been decided either.
 * So I see no reason to remove an example showing how to do that from the harvard referencing project page.
 * Anyway, we're not talking about "errors" then, that was why I was so confused by SlimVirgin's comments that insisted I had made an "error". Well, did I? I still can't see any.
 * We're talking about whether or not the ref_harvard templates should be "hidden" from wikipedians visiting the harvard referencing project page. Well, I don't think that a good idea. So, I defend the inclusion of at least one example that does that.
 * Note that my original remarks regarding the version that is currently on the project page (...messier..., ...far more wrong..., ... several intrusions never discussed or agreed upon..., ...not giving the code of the example on how to build the example." ) are not handled yet, so I see no reason to keep this version. --Francis Schonken 19:16, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Ref_harvard should be mentioned
I wouldn't consider Footnote3 "some of the least useful templates we have on Wikipedia." There are over 150 articles using the system. Additionally, while footnote templating has deprecated, Harvard templates are still useful for creating "endnote" quicklinks to the footer and its reference in the text. The Footnote3 project page reads: "For linked Harvard references, realised with the ref_harvard or ref_harv + note_label templates as explained below, this how-to guideline continues to be active." Instead of deleting ref_harvard from this article altogether, I think it would make more sense to include it but mention that it is not an official policy. The footnotes procedures are constantly changing; see also Wikipedia talk:Footnotes and Wikipedia talk:Citing sources to keep up with the latest practices! --J. J. 20:36, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Everyday audience and first names
I started a discussion on adding clarity for nonacademics. Please see the citing references talk page. Maurreen 12:51, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Example
I notice that the example has just been removed from this article (SlimVirgin's edit summary was "why would an article have both?"). I concede that the example is not as good as the example that is further up the Talk page, but it puzzles me that the article now has no examples at all. Is it practical to work on improving the example in the Article page, or to do it in User space in a sandbox? To answer the question "why would an article have both?" the Harvard reference would be to cite a source, while the footnote is text for disambiguation, further explanation, or to avoid over-simplification. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 10:36, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Can you clarify? SlimVirgin (talk) 11:32, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I meant, why was this example removed?diff --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 16:09, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I removed it because articles shouldn't mix up Harvard references and footnotes. I can't see why anyone would want to. If you want the author's name in the text, you can say "Smith (2005) argued that ..." What would the benefit be of having some citations in footnotes and others as Harvard references? SlimVirgin (talk) 16:12, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Status of article?
I am fairly new to Wikipedia, so forgive me if it is unclear to me the status of this article. Is it eligible for a tag? --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 10:46, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Hi Hrothulf, no it's not a proposed guideline. It's just a description of the way Harvard referencing's used in Wikipedia. SlimVirgin (talk) 11:30, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

MERGE: Two articles, different spaces, maintenance nightmare
I just followed a link from Talk:Harvard referencing to get to this article. I say Yikes! Do we want two separate articles to cover the same info in two separate Wiki spaces? I say no, no, and no. I vote MERGE. I'm not gonna put merge tags on the articles just yet... will wait for comments. --Ling.Nut 13:45, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
 * One is an article in the encyclopedia; one is for the benefit of editors. Different audiences. SlimVirgin (talk) 16:13, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

My revert
Toohoo, I reverted your edits because it's too much change at once for a project page, and some of your edits weren't correct e.g. that we don't link Harvard references in the References section, because we do. Can you discuss your proposed changes here first please, and say why you think they'd improve the page? Many thanks, SlimVirgin <sup style="color:purple;">(talk) 06:57, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Not "too much change at once". Rather "too much of a mess to fix by nibbling away at a little at a time".
 * Please give me an example of the linking that you claim exists. Also, since you say "some" rather than "one", please give a 2nd example. Then I'll go on to your last question.
 * TH 15:26, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

My restoration
Folks,

I restored the changes I made earlier. Below are the reasons. If I miss some issue of interest to you, please ask me about it.

1. Above here, Ling.Nut predicted that the existing structure of the HR and WP:HR articles would lead to a "maintenance nightmare". Just below that, SlimVirgin responded: "One is an article in the encyclopedia; one is for the benefit of editors. Different audiences."

That response is incorrect or misleading. It implies that information must be duplicated in the two articles. That is incorrect. We can have two articles, for two audiences, with almost no duplication, therefore no maintenance nightmare.

2. Above here, you will find SlimVirgin's statement that this article is "just a description of the way Harvard referencing's used in Wikipedia".

That statement is misleading. It would be correct to say that this article "just describes some ways in which some WP writers have extended author-date for use in WP, with no justification from any well-known author-date guidebook, and with no debate in any open WP forum -- but possibly with very good reasons for extending author-date they way they extended it".

3. Exactly what Ling.Nut predicted would happen -- given the old structure of information repeated in HR and WP:HR:, we had a maintenance nightmare. Prove it to yourself by looking at the two articles as they were on the last day of September, 2006.

4. A little ways above here, SlimVirgin claimed that I was wrong in what I said about [hyper]linking in author-date. I asked for an example of the hyperlinking that I believe does not exist. SlimVirgin never replied.

I think that SlimVirgin misunderstood the issue. Yes, references can be hyperlinked to sources. But what I said was that citations are not hyperlinked to references and Wikipedia provides no tools for a writer to hyperlink citations to references manually. This statement still appears correct to me. (But see extension #1 in the article for a work-around -- the writer can link straight from citation to source if source is online, and still provide a good author-date reference in References.)

5. A little ways above here, SlimVirgin said to me "some of your edits weren't correct". To me, "some" means "more than one" -- so I asked for a 2nd example. SlimVirgin never replied.

That puts SlimVirgin at a count of zero for errors he or she has found in my earlier changes.

So here's what I did: I restructured HR and WP:HR so that there are two articles, for two audiences, with almost no duplication, therefore no maintenance nightmare. I did that by putting, at the top of HR, a pointer to WP:HR, and at the top of WP:HR, a pointer to HR. HR is a base article about author-date in general. WP:HR discusses only WP-specific aspects of author-date.

WP:HR is now easier to maintain not only because (a) it contains almost no duplication of info in HR, and (b) it is much smaller than it used to be.

I also used author-date for all the citations and references in the article. SlimVirgain wanted to use a non-author-date style! Talk about confusing the reader!

SlimVirgin wanted to use non-HR style for citations and references because it is "more commmon" in WP. This argument makes no sense. WP has no policy that says "editors must use the most common styles". If there is ever a place where we want to use author-date, I think it would be in an article on author-date.

I also gave examples showing how to integrate author-date with footnotes. As the discussion on this Talk page shows, that issue has been a source of great confusion for readers.

6. SlimVirgin claimed that I made "too many changes". But that's what it took to remove the maintenance nightmare that the two articles had become. (Plus the multitude of little errors and omissions in giving the rules of author-date.) I believe it will take less time for concerned parties to see all these changes at once, rather than deal with them one at a time for weeks.

7. Above here, you can see SlimVirgin's claim that "articles shouldn't mix up Harvard references and footnotes. I can't see why anyone would want to". I've discussed this issue above, but here I will try to make it clear: writers who use author-date for citations still need footnotes when they want to write a commentary on a detail issue that most readers might not be interested in; or when they want to provide a longer quote from a citation.

By the way, I won't tolerate any nonsense from SlimVirgin. I'm not the first person who has run into SlimVirgin's obstructionism. See, for example, above, where SlimVirgin calls his or her changes "tidying", and another writer replies, "If we're going to compare mess, yours was worse, and far more wrong". I haven't examined that issues to see who I agree with, but given what I've seen of SlimVirgin's failure to respond to questions, failure to give reasons for changes, failure to remove multiple and significant errors and omissions from this article in which he or she takes such a proprietary interest, and opposition to others' efforts to fix those problems, I'd put my money on the other party.

TH 21:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I have almost no idea what you're talking about, but I will say this: regardless of anything that is happening in the real world, on Wikipedia, we are moving toward using footnotes in all articles. It isn't mandatory but it is happening. Therefore, if someone starts using footnotes for some comments in an article where the citations are given as Harvard refs, I guarantee that the whole article will be converted to footnotes. That is just a fact about Wikipedia, and this is a policy page about Wikipedia, so we're not going to pretend that articles use both Harvard refs and footnotes. Of course it's possible, and there's no rule against it, but I have never seen it, and I doubt they would last long if someone were to try it. If you think I am wrong, please produce some examples. SlimVirgin <sup style="color:purple;">(talk) 21:46, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I will try to be more constructive. Could you please list succinctly what you feel is wrong with the current version on the page? That'll help me to understand your concerns. SlimVirgin <sup style="color:purple;">(talk) 21:54, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Disagreement about placing references w.r.t. punctuation
It is mentioned: "Linking to the article using an embedded link, like this. [1] Embedded links, like footnotes, are placed after punctuation." Nobody taught me this, but the following bindings have always been implicit to me: Christian Campbell 13:40, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
 * The '[1]' above should immediately follow the period (no leading space) because it binds to the sentence. The space disconnects it visually and syntactically.
 * Embedded links, like footnotes, should be placed after the thing in question. If the reference modifies a sentence, it should follow the sentence' stop, as the stop is syntactically part of the sentence. If the reference modifies just a phrase, it should precede the phrase' stop; that is it should immediately follow the phrase itself, as the stops are parts of sentences and not of constituent phrases which sit amoung that syntax. Placing an embedded link or footnote after a stop is "too late" to modify that phrase as a new phrase has begun (and so, to me, visually and syntactically modifies nothing, or a null thing). Placing it after the full stop modifies the entire sentence, and if the link or footnote isn't for the entire sentence then it is misleading.

For LHOON
LHOON, could you say what you mean by: "It also may be considered to put a too strong emphasis on the identity of the author and on the year of publication." Cheers, SlimVirgin <sup style="color:purple;">(talk) 07:23, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

My argument is as follows: a Harvard reference like (Smith, 2004) puts the main emphasis on both the name Smith and the year 2004. The name may or may not be relevant, but as a scholarly article should focus on the underlying facts rather than on individual authors, I prefer to put this information in a footnote or reference list rather than into the text body. This is particularly the case with an extended number of references, where all parenthetic referencing tends to clutter the page layout more than when numeric references are used. Furthermore, the explicit mentioning of author names in the article body tends to imply the attribution of a certain authority (which may go all the way to a personality cult) to individuals, which is contrary to the scientific method of free examination (implying the rejection of personal authority) and to the personal humility which characterises the true great mind who realises to be only to be a tiny observer in the great universe. Certainly, anyone's work should be properly referenced and credited, but this is perfectly done by numeric or footnote referencing systems. As for mentioning the year, there is the danger for a judgment too much focusing on recent findings (recentism) with an a priori bias against older sources which may prove their value even in advanced research topics. LHOON 08:44, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I'd say those are very personal views, LHOON. SlimVirgin <sup style="color:purple;">(talk) 09:50, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * They are indeed, which does not mean they are not to be discussed about though! ;-) LHOON 10:22, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Mixing Harvard and Chicago
There is a debate here over whether it is allowable to mix the Chicago and Harvard styles of referencing (like Saffron or Charles Darwin). The debate also concerns a seemingly unclear part of HARV, viz. the Templates section. Please join the discussion at WIAFA talk. Mi kk er (...) 02:59, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Bad link
The web page referenced as ""Writing with Sources: A Guide for Harvard Students" by Gordon Harvey, retrieved October 18, 2005" in the references section is not fully functional. From the Internet Archive, it seems that the last fully functional version was http://web.archive.org/web/20060118054510/http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~expos/sources/. Jorge Peixoto 23:24, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Cite.php technology for Harvard referencing?
Is there any fundamental technical or stylistic objection to having a program similar to Cite.php (or an option within Cite.php itself) that would generate Harvard references with an automatically alphabetized reference list (in Harvard style of course) and automatically generated links and backlinks between the references and the reference list? And if not&mdash;is it because Wikipedia is moving toward deprecation of Harvard references? (I would hope not!) &mdash;Neuromath 02:31, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

New "add-on" template for citing page numbers in Harvard style with Cite.php
In the case of a single source being cited many, many times in one article Cite.php only allows for two results: Either a whole boatload of redundant lines under, or one huge citation line that has so many page numbers listed i1t is useless, and might even include almost every page in any entire book. Template:Rp solves this (until Cite.php itself is made smarter, anyway), by enabling easy addition of Harvard-style page-number citations, such that the results look like: Alleged fact.&#91;4&#93;:18-9 The template discourages use where this is not necessary, of course. If a reference is only cited 4 times in an article, Rp is not called for. NB: The point of this is also that Ref harv is incredibly tedious and error-prone under these specific circumstances (though otherwise useful in other circumstances). Try using Ref harv 50 times in the same article to cite different pages in the same source and you'll see what I mean. Even remembering what ID to use is pretty much impossible after a while, and soon becomes an out-of-order mess, because the ID numbers do not auto-reorganize if material is moved around, as it often is. &mdash; SMcCandlish &#91;talk&#93; &#91;contrib&#93; ツ 21:31, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
 * PS: See Talk:Glossary of cue sports terms/Archive 3 for the "origin story". &mdash; SMcCandlish &#91;talk&#93; &#91;contrib&#93; ツ 21:43, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I like the effect of Harvard references but I dislike the complexity of the templates and named references. I have come to use a simple ref tag with the information of a Harvard reference inside the tag, e.g. Is there a way to use the Harvard citation templates without using named references, which I find hard to maintain? Buddhipriya 01:49, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Swan's changes
Swan, your changes may describe the way you use Harvard referencing, but not the way Wikipedia uses it. Just as an example: "Newspaper articles should be cited by the byline, as in (Traynor 2005)." Where have you ever you seen that done in Wikipedia? It was the same with most of the rest of your edit, so I reverted. SlimVirgin <sup style="color:purple;">(talk) 15:52, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Why would Wikipedia create a new approach to referencing and then have anyone insist it be called "Harvard referencing"? It is not OKAY in ANY form of referencing to make an author optional. The author is the most critical information for any citation. While of course I do not use "Harvard referencing" since it is used exclusively in UK and OZ, the changes are quite appropriate. And if not used this way on Wikipedia, then people need to do a bit more studying up on what constitutes proper citing and Wikipedia needs to not be setting standards that fly in the face of all standards of documentation of sources. NONE of the documents on using "Harvard referencing" make it optional to use an authors name.Cyg-nifier 18:29, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
 * We don't cite newspaper articles by the name alone, as in Traynor 2005. We would cite the newspaper and date, and then in the References section give a full citation. It's a moot point anyway, because hardly anyone uses Harvard referencing in Wikipedia now. SlimVirgin <sup style="color:purple;">(talk) 18:39, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
 * If one looks up newspaper articles in the main online sources for "Harvard references", one will discover that it is quite clear that if an author is available, the article MUST be cited in text using the author's name and must have an entry in the reference list. Only if there is no author is it acceptable to give simply the paper and date, without an entry in the reference. And if it is a moot point, then why the continuing harassment against cleaning this article up so it is accurate? — Preceding unsigned comment added by SwanSZ (talk • contribs)
 * How would you know what is accurate on Wikipedia given how little editing you have done? Or have you also used other accounts? SlimVirgin <sup style="color:purple;">(talk) 22:48, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I believe accurate is referring to correct usage in the wider academic community, not accurate referring to its use within wikipedia. Without looking into which is considered proper, I have to agree with SwanSZ that Harvard referencing should be explained here in a way consistent with its usage beyond wikipedia.  If we've been improperly using Harvard referencing, then it is time to change.  &there4; here&hellip;&spades; 02:23, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Re Here's comment above: Well said. — Lumbercutter 02:36, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
 * We haven't. Swan, under this and other accounts, thinks the way he understands it is the way it must be used all over the world; and the way we use it on Wikipedia is up to us. SlimVirgin <sup style="color:purple;">(talk) 03:39, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
 * /me looked into it... Swan, what I see in the article appears to be used widely. Find something else to improve ;).. thanks.  &there4; here&hellip;&spades; 04:04, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

First of all, Swan is a she and has only one account--other genders and other accounts come from the imagination of SlimVirgin as a part of his/her harassment. Swan also is a professional academic and researcher and hence NOT a casual of documentation styles. Inventing a form of documentation just for Wikipedia works against Wikipedia's credibility -- it simply makes it appear that no one has enough smarts to use proper citation forms. Of course, there are small variants across the different styleguides for author-date/parenthetical referencing (APA, MLA, CBE, Chicago, Harvard Referencing), which would suggest it would be better to select one of the styles that does have a definitive standard (such as Chicago, APA, or MLA), but to invent forms of documentation that are inconsistent with general use feeds the criticism of Wikipedia being less than accurate/reliable/credible (just as it works against the tenets of global use to insist on the naming of a style that is only British, with phrasing to suggest it rather than a larger order term is worldwide--something that is quite clear if one looks at the actual evidence rather than slanting it to support an illegitimate argument). Re: the corrections -- there is not a single standard style guide for Harvard referencing on the web that indicates that it is okay to skip the use of an author's name in ANY citation, newspaper article or otherwise, nor are there any for the larger use of author-date/parenthetical referencing, such as APA, MLA, or CBE. Author information is the most important information in a citation and certainly in no credible style guide is it optional for any type of source. The additions of information I made to refer to standard works, such as Shakespeare's plays or Dante or the Bible or the Qu'ran, are standard additions from MLA/Chicago for the use of author-date/parenthetical referencing in a humanities context. Cyg-nifier 17:09, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

For some time, I've watched this debate from the sidelines, but the revert of SwanSZ's latest edit seems mighty heavy handed, and I don't think the article is the better for it. Although I concede the lack of a smoking gun to support the contention that "Harvard referencing" is the British name for the author-date citation system, the claim "no it isn't" has no supporting reference, either. Circumstantial evidence, most of which has been covered in previous discussion, strongly suggests that it is a British term:
 * 1) Nearly all hits (at least among the first 400) on a Google search for "harvard referencing" are sites in the UK or Australia.  I don't see how such a result can be interpreted as other than "it's a "British term".
 * 2) "Harvard Referencing" is not mentioned in The Chicago Manual of Style, the first of the "authoritative style guides" in WP:MOS.  I don't suggest that CMS is infallible, but it is comprehensive, and the absence of "Harvard Referencing" suggests that the term is not commonly used in the United States.  I don't have the APA or MLA style guides; perhaps someone else can comment on whether the term appears in either.
 * 3) I question an article in the British Medical Journal as the authoritative source for a system of documentation.  Even if it were, Chernin's comments would seem to support SwanSZ's argument:
 * The origin of the phrase "Harvard system" remains unexplained. According to an editorial note in the British Medical Journal in 1945, the expression was "not introduced by Harvard University.  It is believed that an English visitor to the library of Harvard University was impressed by the system of bibliographical reference in use there, and dubbed it the 'Harvard system' on return to England." Note that this unconfirmed and unattributed anecdote refers to library practice (presumably in the Museum of Comparative Zoology) rather than to Mark's system, which was by then widely used in biomedical publications.


 * This, again, seems to say, "it's a British term".

The "official" basis for "Harvard referencing" in WP is far from clear. Is it the 11-page document from the Curtin University Library? If so, it would seem an odd choice over the 162 pages on documentation in the 15th edition of CMS, especially in light of CMS's prominent mention in WP:MOS.

It does seem a bit as if Wikipedia has created a new form of source citation and called it "Havard referencing". Although there is no reason this cannot be done, what would be the purpose? Developing a comprehensive style guide (or even a portion thereof, such as on citation of sources) is an enormous undertaking. I was a significant contributors to two such efforts, and was astonished at the effort required, even with substantial borrowing from other sources. Unless a specialized guide can provide significant improvement over others extant, the effort would seem better invested elsewhere.

Although I agree with the comments of several others that "author-date system" may not the most elegant description, it does have some advantages: it's mentioned in almost all of the common systems (e.g., APA, CMS, MLA) as well as the Curtin paper, and unlike "parenthetical", it's quite descriptive of what actually is done. It's also the term used in CMS, and at least for me, that's a solid recommendation.

In any event, the article was better with most of SwanSZ's latest changes. JeffConrad 21:32, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Italicizing "et al." because "foreign": This is perfectly OK, but sometimes considered hypercorrective
The article currently says, "Et al. (an abbreviation of et alii which means "and others.") should be italicised as it is Latin; foreign languages are usually italicised in writing [5]"

It's true that italicization of et al is often enough house style or project style in publishing, although sometimes (especially in the medical profession) it is often forgone as being unnecessary and somewhat hypercorrective. The term is so well known and so frequently repeated that it is considered as naturalized into English and no longer "foreign". A similar process happens with many foreign borrowings if they become naturalized enough to be considered no longer "foreign". For example, it's a bit silly to italicize the words cliché or dénouement in English, because they have been naturalized. However, I am not going to try to change the current Wikipedia SOP, because (a) italicization of et al is indeed often enough house style or project style in publishing, and (b) it's silly to proselytize against it. I just wanted to point out here on the talk page, for the record, that it is sometimes considered unnecessary and hypercorrective. — Lumbercutter 18:13, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Most style guides do not italicize et al. [leaving off "/" now and italics now for clarity]; italics are used generally when referring to a word as a word; e.g., "He said please in a plaintive tone of voice." (It is an old-fashioned convention to italicize Ibid. [Ibidem / in the previous place] and op. cit. [opere citato / in the same place cited earlier] also, and those terms, with the adoption of parenthetical referencing and use of last names of authors (in both author-date and author-title) are no longer considered useful; it can take just as many or almost as many letters to refer to Ibid. or op. cit. as to an author's last name or short title (if anon.).  It is less convenient for readers to have to hunt for previous notes' information and easier just to consult a "Works cited" or "Bibliography" page, which would generally be printed out or bookmarked (physically or online) for ease of ref. --NYScholar (talk) 07:31, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

It is not "hypercorrect" to italicize abbreviations of foreign words; it is actually incorrect (not okay) in most updated editions of style guides; but different disciplines handle such references differently. Right now, parenthetical referencing is a mish-mash of many editors using examples not based on the most recent editions of any particular style guide, but some of their (often incorrect) renditions of what they thought were examples of "Harvard style"; one needs to give examples of parenthetical referencing from each of the major style guides (most recent eds.): e.g., APA, MLA, CSE, APS, Chicago, and so on. (Turabian is idiosyncratic; I think it would be better to have Chicago as examples than Turabian; if one wants Turabian, one can consult the actual published book (7th ed.) and/or its website Quick guide.) --NYScholar (talk) 07:35, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

The convention of how to represent these abbreviations of foreign terms has been revised and updated in this and/or other Wikipedia articles; but the changes may have been reverted. The full Latin words are italicized, not the (English) abbreviations for them. In English dictionaries (dictionaries of the English language), the actual Latin terms (full terms) are italicized because they are foreign words; abbreviations of foreign words are generally not italicized (or are no longer italicized); same is the case with many other common scholarly abbreviations, such as e.g. (exempli gratia / for example), i.e. (id est / that is), N.B., or NB (Nota bene / Note well), and etc. (et cetera); there are Wikipedia articles on some of them; others are in Wiktionary. --NYScholar (talk) 07:31, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

--NYScholar (talk) 09:04, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Move to parenthetical referencing
Main reason is that parenthetical covers author-title systems as well as author-date, and is more descriptive (and thus well-known) than Harvard referencing. Objections were raised to Harvard ref. by several people, myself included, as it is not as well-known of a term. Main discussion over at Talk:Author-date referencing. II 04:19, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

(Update) Author-date referencing and Talk:Author-date referencing have been moved (some time ago it appears) and redirect to Parenthetical referencing and Talk:Parenthetical referencing. Several of Wikipedia's other articles and project pages still need to take account of these changes and make related adjustments. --NYScholar (talk) 12:21, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

repetitions
In decipherment of rongorongo, which is up for FAC, there are several section which deal with specific authors. Most of the subsections of the last of these, on Pozdniakov, is taken entirely from two papers written in different years by the same author. For inline citations, do I really need to say "(Pozdniakov & Pozdniakov 2007:xx)" each time (this occurs several times per paragraph), or, after the works are established, can I abbreviate to "(2007:xx)" or "(P&P 2007:xx)"? Most reviewers haven't said anything, but yesterday one objected to this as being a violation of the MoS. kwami (talk) 20:33, 22 September 2008 (UTC)