The need for the hour is referenced edits. I have got to the point now
that I cannot get myself to add unreferenced edits easily - I have to
force myself.
And its all really quite easy.
Suppose you want to find a fact to add in any article of your choice.
Say I want to add a fact on "influence of Indian cinema in Soviet
Russia" to the [[Bollywood]] article.
Go to Google Books search (not generic search). Type in the phrase. In
Advanced Search preferences, select "limited preview and full view"
option. (Cant find it? Its along the bottom of the search page).
Press "Search".
The fifth reference on the first page is "Dreaming in Canadian: South
Asian youth, Bollywood, and belonging - Page 21" and it gives a
factoid about Raj Kapoor's popularity in Soviet Russia.
Isolate the fact from the text - rewrite it as a single fact without
close paraphrasing in your own words.
"In the first two decades after Independence, Russian-dubbed Indian
films, especially the movies of Raj Kapoor, were popular in the
Soviet Union. However, this interest vaned alongwith the breakup of
the Soviet Union".
Now copy the url of the Google Books page:
http://books.google.co.in/books?id=A3VvKZuI_0UC&pg=PA21&dq=influenc…
and load it in RefTag
http://reftag.appspot.com/
and press Load. Viola the reference is created.
Since in most places, author convention of surname first is preferred,
I press the "or" button just behind each authors name, which directly
converts it to the surname first mode.
Then I press "make citation" again and I get the version that I wanted.
Note of all the citation options, always choose "cite web" over others.
(I also remove the - after the page number in RefTag wherever the
information is found on only one page as has happened in this case.)
By doing this I get the readymade reference which is :
<ref name="Hirji2010">{{cite book|author=Faiza Hirji|title=Dreaming in
Canadian: South Asian youth, Bollywood, and
belonging|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=A3VvKZuI_0UC&pg=PA21|acc…
January 2012|date=30 November 2010|publisher=UBC
Press|isbn=978-0-7748-1798-1|page=21}}</ref>
Now combine the fact and the reference
In the fifties, Russian-dubbed Indian films, especially the movies of
Raj Kapoor, were popular in the Soviet Union. However, this interest
vaned alongwith the breakup of the Soviet Union.<ref
name="Hirji2010">{{cite book|author=Faiza Hirji|title=Dreaming in
Canadian: South Asian youth, Bollywood, and
belonging|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=A3VvKZuI_0UC&pg=PA21|acc…
January 2012|date=30 November 2010|publisher=UBC
Press|isbn=978-0-7748-1798-1|page=21}}</ref>
and copy-paste it in the article in the desired place.
Its as simple as that. The Google Books - RefTag combination is really
awesome. You can find almost a citation for almost any fact in Google
Book search & RefTag makes it extremely simple to create the
reference.
All the best for your work, happy editing.
Warm regards,
Ashwin Baindur
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