Citing fun facts

Background

We’ve discovered that we haven’t all been treating fun facts the same with regards to citing the source. I had been taking the approach of not providing a source for most of them. However Jane would like us to add them to external fun facts. This will confirm we didn't make it up and also to give thanks to the people who put the information together.

Any views you have on any of the above appreciated.

I’d like your view/advice on how we should treat them.

1.  What level of detail to include
2. How to best present the source. eg a new line underneath with its own design? (like quote attribution). Do we use the word ‘Source’?
3. Whether we need to actually link to the site the information came from (if there is one)

Examples

One in eleven - Number of working New Zealanders employed in the tourism industry

Tourism NZ

 30 to 50 trillion - The number of bacteria in a human approximately equals the number of cells in that body—about 30 to 50 trillion. 

Source: ScienceNews, Vol. 189, No. 3, February 6, 2016, p. 6

Discussion

Tania Hockings (Unlicensed)

1. If there’s a site to link to, only include the name of the site then link to the source directly (if it’s a publication, is there an online version?)
2. In terms of the design it should have a different treatment, the Designer’s can figure out what works best. I’d suggest using either ‘Source: Tourism NZ’ or an m-dash  ‘—Tourism NZ’. Again, just depends how it looks in the designs.
3. As above, yes link to the source, this should help us keep the level of detail down.

Nick Butler (Unlicensed)

I reckon we want to make sure the citation doesn’t distract from the fact itself so I think we should:

• keep the level of detail down (and like the idea of using links to help do that)
• try keep the design consistent with the quote attribution

 Jane Young (Unlicensed)

My vote would be, depending on source:

• Year (because these may not be regularly updated) and organisation; or
• Publication name

This isn’t really as per any rules but I think it does both give thanks to the people who compiled the information and also reflect that we didn’t make it up (and what year it was true). A link would be nice but this does become another thing to maintain.

Elizabeth Beattie

I agree with keeping words to a minimum, and I think it’s important to state the year (but text will need to be checked reasonably frequently, so we aren’t quoting stuff that’s years old).

If quoting a publication, more detail is needed if there isn’t a link. We use APA style.

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