 | This page is currently inactive and is retained for historical reference. Either the page is no longer relevant or consensus on its purpose has become unclear. To revive discussion, seek broader input via a forum such as the village pump. It was last substantively updated August 2017. |
 | This is an essay on the Wikipedia:Citing sources page. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | The linking practice described herein has been deprecated for over a decade. For current best citation practices, see Wikipedia:Citing sources and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Layout § Notes and references. |
An embedded citation or embedded link uses an unnamed link to a URL for an inline citation. The link creates a full-size bracketed number within the rendered text of the sentence, e.g., [1], that takes the reader directly to the external website of the reliable source, rather than to the references section at the end of the article. The term embedded here refers to an external link, while inline refers to any shorthand part in the text which is a referent to the full citation at the end of the article.
An embedded citation offers a one-click-away presentation of the source to the reader. (It does not use reference tags to create a link to a footnote, where the reader is then presented with a link to the source.) Unfortunately, this creates two problems. (1) It is then possible to have only the inline part of the embedded citation without the full citation part of the embedded citation in the appendix of the article. (See below for how the full citation is important for article maintenance.) (2) Also the association between the inline part of the embedded citation and the corresponding full citation part of the embedded citation, in the list at the end of the article, is not readily apparent from the rendered text. All the reader sees is a number in square brackets.
Embedded citations that fail to include the full citation part are better than no citation and are easy to implement, but the use of embedded links for inline citations is deprecated. For details about the other inline citation methods see Wikipedia:Citing sources.
© MMXXIII Rich X Search. We shall prevail. All rights reserved. Rich X Search