Wikipedia talk:Citing sources

"Indirect speech"

The section In-text attribution begins

In-text attribution should be used with direct speech (a source's words between quotation marks); indirect speech (a source's words without quotation marks); and close paraphrasing.

Using a source's words without quotation marks is not indirect speech, but plagiarism! Indirect speech is a specific form of paraphrasing. This needs to be fixed, pronto! --Thnidu (talk) 16:37, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Not all indirect quotations are plagiarism (or copyvios, for that matter). There just aren't that many ways to say "The five-year survival rate for Scary Disease is 24%". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:24, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

It's just another way of reporting someone's words. As long as it's relevant to the article, not excessive (so covered by fair use and not plagiarism) and properly sourced then it can be used much as a quotation. Whether a quotation is better is often a matter of style or editorial choice; text can flow more naturally if indirect speech is used. It's very common in news reporting for example.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 23:35, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

So, in-text attribution's pretty much being recommended for all occasions now? Quotes or no, I say: <blockquote>that's the opposite of plagiarism.</blockquote> —Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 14:37, 13 December 2012 (UTC)}

Looks like I was misunderstood. Maybe I wasn't clear enough. The article says (and this is an exact quote)

... indirect speech (a source's words without quotation marks) ...

Using a source's very words is not indirect speech. The first paragraph of the article Indirect speech defines the term (underlining added):

Indirect speech, also called reported speech or indirect discourse, is a means of expressing the content of statements, questions or other utterances, without quoting them explicitly as is done in direct speech. For example, He said "I'm coming" is direct speech, whereas He said he was coming is indirect speech.

The source's words are modified to accord with the context of quotation: I'm coming → [He said] he was coming. Of course you should attribute them, whether you use direct quotation or indirect quotation or further paraphrase (e.g., He said he would be right out). But authorship applies not just to the meaning but to the wording as well, and if you use a source's exact words without acknowledging the source of the wording, you are implicitly claiming that the wording is your own, and that's a type of plagiarism. To avoid that, you acknowledge authorship of the wording by using quotation marks,* along with the reference.

Now, WhatamIdoing is right in pointing out that

There just aren't that many ways to say "The five-year survival rate for Scary Disease is 24%".

If you give proper credit for the source, the exact wording of a short text, especially in a routine or formulaic construction like this example, need not be cited in quotation marks. (This is my own opinion. I'm not a Wikipedia authority, just an academic with a career behind me.) But for longer exact quotations, or even short ones with unusual or striking wording ("A rose-red city half as old as Time"), you'd better use quotation marks along with the attribution, or it's... you know.

I've changed the misleading description to read

indirect speech (a source's words, modified [see the article], without quotation marks);

* Or a block quotation like where I quote WhatamIdoing just above. --Thnidu (talk) 06:19, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

The current format of Intext attribution was pushed by SlimVirgin into several guidelines a few years ago (see here for a list of some previous discussions). Because there have been problems with experienced editors stepping beyond the bounds of what is acceptable under plagiarism, I still think that the guidances over intext attribution should be more restrictive. However that is not the only reason for a tightening up of the wording: If someone writes Sir Robert Armstrong said he told the truth it is a summary of Sir Robert Armstrong said he was "economical with the truth", but if there is no rule in place how does one tell if the former is a summary of his words or his actual words? -- PBS (talk) 18:33, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Language=English

I've a bad feeling I know what the response to this question will be, but here goes. If an article widely specifies parameter language=English in its cite templates, even though no other language is involved anywhere in the article, and all the refs are in English anyway, would removing that superfluous parameter to bring the usage into line with the recommendations for using the template (Template:Cite_news#Title "language: The language the source is written in, if not English") constitute a style change requiring prior consent, or is it just a minor bit of housekeeping subject to WP:BRD like any other edit? Colonies Chris (talk) 09:51, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

IMO, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, you may assume that it was unintentional and that changing it is therefore a minor bit of housekeeping, unless and until someone complains. If someone complains, then naturally you would let them revert to include that parameter, maintaining at strict WP:0RR approach yourself. If you want to reduce the odds of anyone yelling at you, though, it really doesn't take very long to put a note on the talk page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:26, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

I concur that this is housekeeping. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:24, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

"If an article widely specifies parameter language=English in its cite templates" if an article consistently indicates that sources are in English, then changing that for an article would be a style change and require discussion. Fifelfoo (talk) 20:28, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Nonsense! It is a clearly established rule that there is no need to specify language in en-wp when the language in question is English. Simply and obviously superfluous and silly. -- Alarics (talk) 20:49, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Number of guns per capita by country - False numbers!

Hello there, Information displayed on the following address is not true. Numbers for some countries have been altered, raised. These sort of mistakes are not supposed to be published and posted for people to see. We are not talking about number of flowers her, it's guns! It's disturbing for the people involved and dangerous if taken seriously from the ones that do not tend good. Please, help solve this. Regards, A

Shortcut: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.202.132.64 (talk) 12:44, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

How do I cite an entire television series?

I'm not a fan of the show Dance Moms, but my wife is, so I've had to sit through virtually every episode. At the article, there have been attempts to remove content, claiming BLP issues and that we must avoid primary sources but the content is definitely supported by the episodes, with many common themes running through the series. It's virtually impossible to cite each episode; I could do so using {{cite episode}} but the article would become over-referenced very quickly. In TV articles it's not normally the practice to cite everything if it's supported by the episodes, but I feel I'm going to have to, for the benefit of a couple of editors, but I really can't think of a good way to. Any suggestions? --AussieLegend (✉) 08:15, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

This sounds like horrific original research, primarily in the form of the exegesis of the articles subject: the re-explaining of what "Dance Moms" itself is from the text "Dance Moms". This is bad practice. If it wasn't mentioned in a secondary source, then why is the concept WP:WEIGHTy enough to include in an article? Finally, citations should indicate the source in the work where the object can be found—if you can't cite it to an episode and a timestamp or time range, you shouldn't be making a claim. Fifelfoo (talk) 20:27, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

The content can be cited to specific times in episodes, in several actually. It means cherry picking references because, as I said, the same themes run throughout the series. It's one of those horrible reality series where purely original content could be compressed into one or two episodes, the rest is just the dance moms bitching about Abby or one of the other moms, the dance moms fighting with Abby, Abby bitching about the Candy Apples, the Candy Apples bitching about Abby, .... and on it goes. --AussieLegend (✉) 02:57, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

How to cite webpage subdivisions?

A problem I and others have grappled with in various ways, but without any great satisfaction: How should we cite subdivisions within a webpage or blog?

Within printed works (or digital works that follow printed forms, including some web pages) we have chapters, but my sensibilities rebel at calling (say) a 60 word comment on a blog a "chapter". "Verse" would seem appropriate (in the sense of the biblical "book, chapter, and verse"), but we don't have a |verse= parameter, and anyway that usage would be confusing. "Section" would be good, but there's no |section=. |at= seems useful here, but at what level?

I think it would help to have a clearer conception of the various possible subdivisions of a webpage, and citation parameters best suited for each. E.g.:

1. A web site (e.g.: "Wikipedia"); typically with a fully-qualified domain name (one dot, no slashes).
2. A website that is an independent subsection of the preceeding (e.g., has a slash or extra dot in the url), not otherwise related to the parent or any sibling sites. (E.g.: "Pruned", hosted at pruned.blogspot.com, or "The Discovery of Global Warming" at www.aip.org/history/climate/index.htm). How can we distinguish these from sites and pages?
3. A web page of a site (unique urls), possibly even denominated as chapters [E.g., here (Weart) and here (IPCC AR4).]
4. Textually identified or segregated sections, possibly as distinct pages (e.g., IPCC) or as anchored references within a page (e.g., Weart). This may include blog entries, which may lack specific anchors.

Instances at all of these levels (though not all simultaneously) can be cited using the existing tools, but the results tend to be haphazard, and the means used irregular and confusing. As a start, how might we clarify these subdivisions? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:10, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

Positioning of Text–source integrity, Bundling citations

I think that these sections

• Text–source integrity
• Bundling citations
• In-text attribution

which are not central to this guideline are better off blow "Inline citations" and "General References". -- PBS (talk) 02:57, 30 December 2012 (UTC)