Bharatpedia:Citing Bharatpedia

This help page is a how-to guide. It details processes or procedures of some aspect of Bharatpedia's norms and practices. It is not one of Bharatpedia's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels of consensus.

Caution is advised when using Bharatpedia as a source. In many academic institutions, references to Bharatpedia are unacceptable for research papers. This does not mean that Bharatpedia material should be used without citation: plagiarism of Bharatpedia material is also academically unacceptable.

Bharatpedia has a tool to generate citations for particular articles. For the cite tool, see Special:CiteThisPage, or follow the "Cite this page" link in the toolbox on the right of the page (left side in the Vector legacy skin) in the article you wish to cite.

We advise special caution when using Bharatpedia as a source for research projects. Normal academic usage of Bharatpedia is for getting the general facts of a problem and to gather keywords, references and bibliographical pointers, but not as a source in itself. Remember that Bharatpedia is a wiki. Anyone in the world can edit an article, deleting accurate information or adding false information, which the reader may not recognize. Thus, you probably should not be citing Bharatpedia in academic work.

This is good advice for all tertiary sources such as encyclopedias, which are designed to introduce readers to a topic, not to be the final point of reference. Bharatpedia, like other encyclopedias, provides overviews of a topic and indicates sources of more extensive information. See researching with Bharatpedia for more information.

If you do decide to cite Bharatpedia, remember that its articles are constantly changing: cite the exact time, date, and the article version you are using. Page history and toolbox features "cite this article" and "permanent link" are very useful for finding that information. If you decide to quote or paraphrase Bharatpedia text, then you must cite Bharatpedia appropriately; otherwise you plagiarise, which is against academic norms and may subject you to censure. Such failure also violates Bharatpedia's CC BY-SA copyright license, which is a violation of copyright law.

Problems with citing Bharatpedia

As with any source, especially one of unknown authorship, you should be wary and independently verify the accuracy of Bharatpedia information if possible. For many purposes, but particularly in academia, Bharatpedia may not be an acceptable source; indeed, some professors and teachers may reject Bharatpedia-sourced material completely. This is especially true when it is used without corroboration. Most educators and professionals do not consider it appropriate to use tertiary sources such as encyclopedias as a sole source for any information—citing an encyclopedia as an important reference in footnotes or bibliographies may result in censure or a failing grade.

However, much of the content on Bharatpedia is itself referenced, so an alternative is to cite the reliable source rather than the article itself. Indeed, Bharatpedia can often be a useful starting point for finding sources, and citing those sources directly is usually preferable.

A wiki is a non-traditional medium, and as such does not conform well to the usual book-citation formats. Wiki is not paper, so you will need to use an electronic-citation format instead. The exact format will depend upon the citation guide that you are following, but here are a few general principles to consider:

• A special citation tool is available to assist you. On every article (either in the left or right sidebar, or under the "Tools" tab at the top) there is a "Cite this page" link. Clicking it will bring you to a listing of relevant information, as well as automatically generated citations in several styles. Note that it is still your responsibility to ensure the citation meets all requirements.
• You should not cite any particular author or authors for a Bharatpedia article, in general. Bharatpedia is collaboratively written. However, if you do need to find the list of authors of a particular article, you can check the page history. Authors are listed only by IP address, temporary account username, or chosen username; you normally cannot verify and often cannot even guess at their identities.
• Your citation should normally list both the article title and Bharatpedia, The Free Encyclopedia, much as you would for an article in a paper publication. Every article should be a separate citation.
• Most citation styles will likely require the full article URL. You can click "Permanent link" in the toolbox of the page. This lets the URL include a unique identifier such that you can tie your reference back to the exact version of the article you are referencing. It may or may not be desirable to adopt this approach, depending upon the context of your reference. This lets you show what you saw and ignore any changes made after you accessed the page. If greater brevity is desired, you can use the regular URL, or optionally just the site URL (e.g. https://en.bharatpedia.org/ for an English article), because an article URL can be inferred from an article title.
• The citation style may request the full date and time of the article revision you are using. If you use the permanent link feature, this may not be necessary. However, the date and time of the last revision can be found at the bottom of every page (above the copyright notice).

Alternatives to citing Bharatpedia

Information in Bharatpedia is often accompanied by a reference. You can use Bharatpedia to find the source of the information and cite that. Indeed, Bharatpedia can often be a useful starting point for finding sources, and citing those sources directly is usually preferable to citing Bharatpedia itself. This is especially important in academic work, where citing the underlying source demonstrates that you have engaged with the primary literature rather than relying on a tertiary summary.

If you are citing Bharatpedia because you found a useful source through it, cite the source, not Bharatpedia. If you are citing Bharatpedia because the article itself is the subject of your discussion, cite it appropriately with a permanent link to the version you used.

Citing Bharatpedia within Bharatpedia

Bharatpedia articles should not cite other Bharatpedia articles as sources. Bharatpedia is not a reliable source for its own content, and circular citation between articles is not acceptable.

Where an article needs to refer to another Bharatpedia page, use a wikilink rather than a citation. Wikilinks connect pages within the encyclopedia; citations support content with external sources. Confusing the two is a common error in new articles.

The exception is a self-reference in a project-space page, where a link to another Bharatpedia page is part of the documentation rather than a citation of a source.

How to cite Bharatpedia in different styles

The citations below are generated by Special:CiteThisPage and are shown here as examples. Replace the article title, URL, and date with those of the page you are citing.

APA style

Article title. (2026, October 15). In Bharatpedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved October 15, 2026, from https://en.bharatpedia.org/w/index.php?title=Article_title&oldid=000000000

MLA style

"Article title." Bharatpedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Bharatpedia, 15 Oct. 2026. Web. 15 Oct. 2026. <https://en.bharatpedia.org/w/index.php?title=Article_title&oldid=000000000>.

Chicago style

Bharatpedia contributors. "Article title." Bharatpedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Bharatpedia, The Free Encyclopedia, October 15, 2026. https://en.bharatpedia.org/w/index.php?title=Article_title&oldid=000000000 (accessed October 15, 2026).

BibTeX

@misc{ wiki:xxx, author = "{Bharatpedia contributors}", title = "Article title --- {B}haratpedia{,} {T}he {F}ree {E}ncyclopedia", year = "2026", url = "https://en.bharatpedia.org/w/index.php?title=Article_title&oldid=000000000", note = "[Online; accessed 15-October-2026]" }

The `&oldid=` parameter in each URL is the permanent link identifier, which ties the citation to the exact revision you used. This is important, because the article may change substantially after you cite it. The identifier can be found in the page history or by clicking "Permanent link" in the toolbox.

See also

• Bharatpedia:Researching with Bharatpedia
• Bharatpedia:Academic use of Bharatpedia
• Bharatpedia:Copyrights
• Bharatpedia:Plagiarism
• Bharatpedia:Citing sources
• Bharatpedia:Citation templates
• Bharatpedia:Identifying reliable sources
• Help:Page history
• Help:Permanent link
• Bharatpedia:COinS — how bibliographic metadata is stored on Bharatpedia
• Special:CiteThisPage