Help:References

References are the cornerstone of any serious encyclopedia. Though much of our old content remains without references, Tolkien Gateway wishes to properly credit its facts. This way, fanon and overinterpretation can be properly identified as such, and omitted.

Referencing

How To

Tolkien Gateway uses, like most wiki-based encyclopedia's, the Cite/Cite extension. A short how-to:

With this method, sources are cited within the text. They appear wherever you type "{{references}}".

This is the text you type.<ref>And this is the source</ref>

The text in between the <ref>-tags appears in the References section. These tags can be named for reuse:

This is the text you type.<ref name=One>And this is source number one</ref>

Then, you use something with another source,<ref>Like this one</ref>, before returning 
to the first one.<ref name=One/>

Shortcuts

See also Category:Citation templates

The most common sources have templates that can be used to write out references automatically:

Main works

• {{H}} = The Hobbit

• The Lord of the Rings
  • {{FR}} = The Fellowship of the Ring
  • {{TT}} = The Two Towers
  • {{RK}} = The Return of the King
  • {{App}} = Appendices

• {{S}} = The Silmarillion

• {{CH}} = The Children of Húrin

• {{UT}} = Unfinished Tales

• The History of Middle-earth
  • {{LT1}} = The Book of Lost Tales Part One
  • {{LT2}} = The Book of Lost Tales Part Two
  • {{LB}} = The Lays of Beleriand
  • {{SM}} = The Shaping of Middle-earth
  • {{LR}} = The Lost Road and Other Writings
  • {{RS}} = The Return of the Shadow
  • {{TI}} = The Treason of Isengard
  • {{WR}} = The War of the Ring
  • {{SD}} = Sauron Defeated
  • {{MR}} = Morgoth's Ring
  • {{WJ}} = The War of the Jewels
  • {{PM}} = The Peoples of Middle-earth

• {{HH}} = The History of The Hobbit

• {{L}} = The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

• {{CG}} = The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide

Other works

• {{AB}} = The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book
• {{Arthur}} = The Fall of Arthur
• {{Beowulf}} = Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary
• {{HB}} = The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son
• {{LFC}} = Letters from Father Christmas
• {{MC}} = The Monsters and the Critics
• {{RGEO}} = The Road Goes Ever On

Generally the format to use them is:

<ref>{{T|chapter#}}</ref>

But there will sometimes be additional options for sources with more complex structures. For detailed instructions see the individual template pages.

{{HM}} is the old 'general-purpose' template, but it has been mostly superseded by the above templates, which offer more flexibility.

Standards

The following standards should be applied when writing references using "<ref>...</ref>":

• Use "p." instead of "page" and "pp." instead of "pages" (Example: "pp. 20-2")
• Leave a space between "p." (or "pp.") and the page number (Example: "p. 20")
• Avoid adding a period/full stop at the end of the tag line (Example: "<ref>{{HM|RC}}, p. 20</ref>")
• Place the tag line after the punctuation mark. However, an exception could be if you want to give a reference for a certain linguistic form of a word (or something similar).

Questionable statements

Questionable statements can be challenged with the {{fact}} template. Fanon, conjecture and overinterpretation that goes unreferenced can be deleted on sight.

See also

• Canon