SourceWatch talk:Manual of Style

Question ... how do I correctly type Karl Rove + Co. inside the hyperlink .. The following does not work: Karl Rove + Co.. Thanks .. AI

Let's try the ampersand instead of the plus sign: Karl Rove & Co....looks like it worked! -- Mutternich

Actually, Mutternich .. the problem is this .. There is the common reference to Karl Rove and gang, which is Karl Rove & Co. .. but, Karl Rove's former Texas PR (etc.) business was actually called Karl Rove + Co.

Thanks ... AI

I had the same problem with Colle+McVoy - which is the correct name. Given its a technical problem I'll add it to the bug report list and maybe a software tweak will overcome the problem -- until then looks like we'll have to work around using the less accurate & -- bob

--- Footnoting/referencing Reviewing the referencing style in various articles its a bit all over the shop -- would be nice to standardise

The link on the help page to the Chicago style(http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/cgos/idx_basic.html) outlines the humanities style for the web as being

2.8 The World Wide Web (WWW) Humanities Style "To cite files available on the WWW, give the author's name, last name first (if known); the full title of the work, in quotation marks; the title of the complete work (if applicable), in italics; any version or file numbers; and the date of the document or last revision (if available). Next, list the protocol (e.g., "http") and the full URL, followed by the date of access in parentheses.

Burka, Lauren P. "A Hypertext History of Multi-User Dimensions." MUD History. 1993. http://www.utopia.com/talent/lpb/muddex/essay (2 Aug. 1996).

Aside from the need to vary the style to locate the web link in brackets ahead of the title to make the link work, there are two other common styles in use in SourceWatch:

1. I have been using the style of writing the author name as it appears on the byline (as in "Lauren P. Burka") and where uncertain about the informations durability on the web writing accessed date without brackets ie Accessed March 11, 2004. (The Chicago style of just having access date in brackets without explanation as to what it refers to risks creating confusion with a general readership given it would be after the publication date -- the UK style is to write it as I have)

2. A number of other pages listing headlines in the external links page lead with the date in hypertext and other details almost in reverse order (date, title, publication, author)

We need to standardise the reference style otherwise we are creating a big backlog of corrections needing to be made

cheers - bob

---

I'd like to suggest two additions to the SourceWatch Manual of Style:

1. Add the Associated Press as an "approved" style guide. Almost all US news articles are written in this style and it is the gold standard for US journalists.

2. Agreed, Bob, we need a standard for references. The standard I have always used for news articles in my research is: Author, "Title," Publication, date. The author is listed first name first, last name last. The title would be hyperlinked and the date is abbreviated in AP style: Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov. and Dec. are abbreviated, but the other months are not.

Any feedback or should I just add it to the Manual of Style?

-Conor

Proposal: format of dates
The AP style guide says that these months should be always be abbreviated: Jan., Feb., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec. March, April, May, June and July are not abbreviated. This is fairly standard across U.S. newspapers. I'd like to adopt this as a SourceWatch style standard. Thoughts?--Conor Kenny 22:57, 5 June 2007 (EDT)

I prefer a consistency such as the clear and unambiguous 3 character representation without trailing period (which just adds clutter): Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Anything but the woefully ambiguous ??/??/yy[yy] format. --Maynard 14:21, 14 June 2007 (EDT)


 * I prefer aligning with the Wikipedia standards, which allow user-set preferences on browser display (for example, not assuming U.S. conventions are universal), but more importantly, will allow importation of text and references and templates from WP without editing to conform to the Sourcewatch version/implementation of the wiki software or template.
 * See: w:Wikipedia:Dates.   Since both entities, SW and WP use the same copyright for licensing, this is another technical smoothing of making use of other research and references. The tags and the templates related to them, namely w:Template:Cite_news, w:Template:Cite_web and w:Template:Cite_journal could be used without modification, which is NOT the case right now. -- Redtexture 16:58, 25 June 2007 (EDT)


 * Online quick ref to info in AP Stylebook from BU. Artificial Intelligence 04:19, 10 July 2007 (EDT)


 * Granting that that the AP stylebook is the proposed SW policy... It is possible to make the Source Watch wiki generate the AP-styled dates from the text-in-article formats that Wikipedia uses in article text. I hope to call attention to the view that the present SW formatting prevents the easy use of Wikepedia text, even though the GNU-FD license version 1.2 is used there too, and that it is also desirable to use the various formatting add-ons that Wikipedia uses, as well, to easily import footnotes. Potential positive outcomes: the many "trained" Wikipedia editors can easily step in here at SW; and well-formed and well-supported text from Wikipedia can be used here without great effort in re-formatting by using the WP code base and code add-ons for formatting dates and citations, as cited previously by me.-- Redtexture 20:30, 21 August 2007 (EDT)