[APA] how-to citate Wikipedia article?

cb102

I want to add this article <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Child_life_specialist&oldid=494139300>; (perma-link) to Zotero and cite it in my text.

I added it with the zotero-symbol in firefox. Now there is an entry in my database as a enzyclopedia-article ("Enzyklopädieartikel").

Wikipedia show me how it should be cited correct in APA-style.
See: <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Cite&page=Child_life_specialist&id=494139300>;

But it doesn't look like this in my text.
It looks like this
"Wikipedia contributors. (2012, July 21). Child life specialist. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Child_life_specialist&oldid=494139300"

You see there is the author "wikipedia contributors". But as Wikipedia tell me it must look like this
"Child life specialist. (2012, May 24). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 08:41, September 4, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Child_life_specialist&oldid=494139300"

How can I fix it?
Of course I could add it manually but I don't want.
Maybe the type of the entry in the database is not correct. Maybe there is another type for wikipedia-article where not authors are added to the bibliography.

Any ideas?

adamsmith

I've just updated the APA style on the repository (it's marked as invalid, but you can ignore that - it's valid).

It will now give you:
Wikipedia contributors. (2012, July 21). Child life specialist. In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Child_life_specialist&oldid=494139300"

If you delete author and publisher from your Zotero entry, you get:

Child life specialist. (2012, July 21). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Child_life_specialist&oldid=494139300

I'll probably change the translator to leave those two out eventually - it doesn't seem like that information is ever required.

Then we're left with two differences:
1. The Retrieved date - I would argue that is not necessary with a permalink in APA style - APA is very clear that accessed dates are only required for webpages that are expected to changed (e.g. if you were to cite the regular https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_life_specialist )

2. The casing of "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" - I'll look into fixing that in the style, it's a bit tricky.

cb102

> I would argue that is not necessary with a permalink
> in APA style - APA is very clear that accessed dates
> are only required for webpages that are expected to changed

Of course it is clear for me and us. But most of my Profs are old and doesn't know permalinks and what it means. ;)

adamsmith

APA is very clear about this:

"It is not usually necessary to include a retrieval date for online sources; one should be provided only if the source is likely to change over time, such as with an unarchived wiki page."
http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/electronic-references/

Well, Zotero makes sure you're not citing an unarchived wiki page. Zotero is a software to assure accurate citations, according to a given style. Zotero produces accurate APA 6th edition citations - it doesn't produce citations according to "a mix of APA editions 4,5, and 6 according to the personal taste of professor X". (although obviously you can adjust the CSL accordingly).

adamsmith

(oh, and if you prof is a stickler for citations, you just should not cite Wikipedia - it's not considered a citable source in most contexts according to the APA guide).

cb102

> you just should not cite Wikipedia

I'lll do this fight with my Prof for myself!

But one thing mst be clear.

It is extremly old fashioned and un-scientific! It is unprofessional to say the wiki-is-bad-thing!

Each source need to verified and classifed on its quality - not matter if it is a webpage, a book, a journal, a stone tablet or a cave painting.
It is quite easy to classify a wiki-article to its quality.

"Oh it is the internet - it is bad!"
This is for old grey haired acaedemics.

adamsmith

my point is that APA discourages citing Wikipedia, so if you're going to have to follow APA style, it's not a good idea to do so:
http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2009/10/how-to-cite-wikipedia-in-apa-style.html

And while I have my qualms with APA, I agree with them on this and it's not about internet=bad - as that article says quite aptly it's not about wikipedia being bad at all - it's about the fact that a general purpose encyclopedia is not a good source for a scholarly paper. Most style-guides (and most academics) also discourage citing the Encyclopedia Britannica, even if you have one of the cool old leather bound editions.

cb102

"Scholarly papers should generally rely on peer-reviewed and other scholarly work vetted by experts in the field."

Lot of the articles are reviewed and from experts in the fields.

anyway: Can you give me the concrete location (citation) in the current 6th edition APA-style. Where can I find it?

adamsmith

the above is from the official APA-style blog - I don't have time to dig around the manual, but I'd be surprised if they don't say something similar about sources.

But this isn't the place to discuss this. My point was merely - if your prof is a stickler about citations, you shouldn't cite Wikipedia - you're pretty much guaranteed to get into trouble and by current standards in academia s/he'll be right. This is a good summary about the current status of the debate: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/01/26/wiki

edit: just remembered - here's famous grey-haired prof Jimbo Wales about using Wikipedia as an academic reference: http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/wikipedia-founder-discourages-academic-use-of-his-creation/2305

cb102

I checked APA 6ed. There is no text about Wikipedia or that any online resources are not allowed.
In the Appendix 7 is no example about a online resource like a Wiki.

Maybe APA just ignore this instead of not allowing it?

adamsmith

APA style will now title case book titles, including Wikipedia:
The style is up now. It will show up on the repository at www.zotero.org/styles within 30mins.
Any problems let us know.

The Wikipedia translator has been updated and no longer includes Publisher and Author
Your copy of Zotero will auto-update within 24hs or you can update immediately from the General tab of the Zotero preferences.
Any problems, please let us know.

santicasas20

I have problems with that in latex using Lyx. When I use the Zotero translator, since it no longer includes an Author and I am using a bibtex citation style with Author [#ref num], I get an error and I cannot even compile the latex or in the worst case I get the Wikipedia article as the first reference in the bibliography, with an empty author. If I add the author Wikipedia by hand it is cited as:

Wikipedia, E., Mar. 2013. Sigmoid function. Page Version ID: 540762489.
URL http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sigmoid_
function&oldid=540762489

which is not what I would like to have.

Thanks!

adamsmith

that doesn't sound like a Zotero issue to me.
I don't believe bibtex requires an author (and the @misc type that Zotero exports this to definitely doesn't) and the way your bibtex style formats citations is even more outside of Zotero's control.

santicasas20

Yes, you are right, in that case it is something else. Checking the bibtex file, I see that in that entry I have:

@misc{_sigmoid_2013,

and that underline score is causing problems. Somehow in the setting I set the cite key as: author_title_year
That was probably this LyZ extension I was using (which didn't work so well, actually)

Is there a way to revert that cite key, and change it to something else? I cannot find it in the settings, thanks!

adamsmith

Is there a way to revert that cite key, and change it to something else? I cannot find it in the settings, thanks!

currently not easily, no.
LyZ should have an option to customize bibtex keys.
You can also look at autoZotBib which has some advanced options that allow you to do that
http://www.rtwilson.com/academic/autozotbib

santicasas20

Ok thanks, that looks good. The only problem is that this AutoZot is no able to export the library with ISO character encoding and that is causing again problems. But I will try to deal with that. Or just use the manual export, as before.