Federation Legacy Wiki:Referencing

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FLW:REF

Referencing is an important part of writing a good article. Even though Federation Legacy Wiki is fan fiction-based, sourcing information is a very integral part of the wiki! This page will help you better understand referencing and why it is a very helpful tool.

Defenition of a reference

Two definitions of a reference are listed below:

• A mention or citation of a source of information in a book or article.
• Use of a source of information in order to ascertain something.

Referencing in action

Current method

We now have a template (Template:Ref) that makes referencing way easier! Now, instead of having to use the <ref> tags, just place {{ref}} on the page where you would put the ref tag, and use one of the many predefined parameters (it also supports free-format text).

See Template:Ref/doc for more detailed descriptions of how the template works.

Original method

Here is an example, taken from the page Jason Fredricks.

As a teenager, he dreamed of becoming the youngest captain in all of Starfleet.

While it may seem a bit difficult to understand how referencing works, it is actually quite easy.

Here is the coding used to create the reference above:

<ref name="Hide and Seek">{{FED|Hide and Seek}}</ref>

{{reflist}}

Now, to explain each part of the code in detail to help you better understand how it works.

• First, we have <ref name="Hide and Seek">. This part is optional. For example, you could simply type <ref>, and it would be acceptable, however, naming the reference groups all references with that name together, which is preferable.
• Next, we have {{FED|Hide and Seek}}. This is the name of the reference. In this case, it is the Federation Legacy chapter "Hide and Seek".
• Then, we have </ref>. This is to close our code. Notice how you must always end in </random text here> for the code to work.
• Finally, use {{reflist}}, for the reference list itself.