User:Redrose64/Referencing Demo

There are two main methods.

I first edited in April 2009; my first edit is recorded under an IP address. By late May I had found {{cite book}}, it's used in my sixth edit although not to provide a true reference; by my eighth edit, I was using {{cite book}} for proper references.

See also User:John Cardinal/Citation method comparison

Two-stage

The basic method is described at WP:CITESHORT although that implies that everything is done with plain text, no templates. I must have read one or more of the Help: and/or Wikipedia: pages dealing with citations, but can't remember which; but Wikipedia:Citation templates contains most of what I picked up here and there.

I discovered the means for making a two-stage reference actually link together after some weeks: I think that this edit was the first time, although it's linked, the method is primitive compared to the two methods I now favour. If we take the very first ref in Dave Pegg, the four methods for achieving this are:

1. <ref>[[#refHumphries1997|Humphries 1997]], p. 66</ref>
2. <ref>[[#{{harvid|Humphries|1997}}|Humphries 1997]], p. 66</ref>
3. <ref>{{harvnb|Humphries|1997|p=66}}</ref>
4. {{sfn|Humphries|1997|p=66}}

*{{cite book |first=P. |last=Humphries |title=Meet on the Ledge, Fairport Convention, the Classic Years |publisher= Virgin |edition=2nd |year=1997 |ref=refHumphries1997 }}
*{{cite book |first=P. |last=Humphries |title=Meet on the Ledge, Fairport Convention, the Classic Years |publisher= Virgin |edition=2nd |year=1997}}

• Humphries, P. (1997). Meet on the Ledge, Fairport Convention, the Classic Years (2nd ed.). Virgin.
• Humphries, P. (1997). Meet on the Ledge, Fairport Convention, the Classic Years (2nd ed.). Virgin.

Try clicking the ^[1] etc. also the "Humphries 1997, p. 66". The effect varies between browsers. the linking works in both IE7 and Mozilla Firefox 3.0/3.5; but in Firefox, it also shows up as a highlight.

I was still using method 1 when I created Abingdon Road Halt railway station at 12:12 on 22 September 2009, but by 19:31 the same day, had discovered methods 3 & 4 pretty much simultaneously, and used the latter when creating Hinksey Halt railway station. Method 2 is a comparatively recent development, the {{harvid}} template having been created 13 December 2009. I used method 3 in Dave Pegg; whilst {{sfn}} does something similar to <ref>{{harvnb}}</ref> (they take exactly the same parameters and prodice exactly the same effect), but can puzzle people looking for <ref>; however it is quicker to type, and much easier to handle when it comes to duplicate refs. Consider the same page cited twice. Using {{harvnb}} we would do this:

1. <ref name=Example1>{{harvnb|Humphries|1997|p=66}}</ref>
2. <ref name=Example1 />

you need to think of a name, and but {{sfn}} cuts out the duplication worry:

1. {{sfn|Humphries|1997|p=66}}
2. {{sfn|Humphries|1997|p=66}}

These days I judge the individual articles on the basis of how many facts come from different pages in the same book: if there are only three or fewer, single-stage referencing is OK; but four or more, I do it two-stage. If I use two-stage, whether I use method 2 or 3 depends mainly on whether it all comes from books (method 3) or if there is a fair proportion of anonymous web pages (method 2).

Reading Southern railway station was the western terminus of the South Eastern Railway's route from Redhill. In the station's final arrangement, there were four platforms;

• British Railways Pre-Grouping Atlas and Gazetteer (Map) (5th ed.). 1" = 8 miles. Cartography by W. Philip Conolly. Ian Allan. 1976. ISBN 0 7110 0320 3.
• Berkshire Sheet 37.03: Reading 1898 (Map). 1:4340. Old Ordnance Survey Maps: The Godfrey Edition. Alan Godfrey Maps. 1994. ISBN 0-85054-703-2.