«- Memory Alpha: Cite your sources
When content from Memory Alpha is used in another site, it is required by our Creative Commons License that attribution be provided for the original source of the material. This page is intended to make it easy to find a way to cite Memory Alpha.
In all cases, the minimum required citation includes the name of the website (Memory Alpha) and a link to the domain, at http://www.memory-alpha.org/. (If Memory Alpha content is being used in a printed work, the URL must be provided next to the name.)
General guidelines
Please keep in mind the following guidelines when citing Memory Alpha:
- You should not cite any particular author or authors for a Memory Alpha article.
- Your citation should list both the article title and Memory Alpha: The Free Star Trek Reference, just as you would for an article in an edited book or other collection.
- The citation should include the full date and time of the article revision you are using. This is necessary because any article may be edited at any time, and an article may change drastically, even within the space of a single day. (Memory Alpha's time is kept in Coordinated Universal Time, or UTC.)
- Most citation styles require the full article URL. If greater brevity is desired, however, you may optionally include just the Wikipedia URL (e.g. http://www.memory-alpha.org/) since the article URL can be inferred from the article title.
- Many citation styles also request the date on which you retrieved the page; we suggest omitting this if your style guide allows, however, since the inclusion of the revision date (above) makes the retrieval date unnecessary.
- Each Memory Alpha article should normally be a separate citation.
Bibliography style
Because a wiki is not paper, you cannot use the standard book style of citation; use the electronic format instead. The exact style should depend on which style guide you are following.
The following example is from the MLA style guide:
- "USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D)." Memory Alpha: The Free Star Trek Reference. 9 June 2004, 15:53 UTC. 11 June 2004 <http://www.memory-alpha.org/en/index.php/USS_Enterprise_(NCC-1701-D)>.
Note the order in which the information is provided: first comes the article title (in quotes), then the project title (which should be underlined or italicized). Then comes the date and time at which the revision of the article that you are using was published, followed by the date on which you retrieved the article. Finally, include the URL of the specific article in angled brackets.
Alternatively, you could use the APA style guidelines:
- USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) (Jun 9, 2004, 15:53 UTC). In Memory Alpha: The Free Star Trek Reference. Retrieved from <http://www.memory-alpha.org/en/index.php/USS_Enterprise_(NCC-1701-D)>
The exact formatting may differ between citation styles; for instance, if you are using footnotes instead of the bibliography style, commas might be used instead of periods, etc.
Web article style
If you are reproducing an article from Memory Alpha on another website, you may choose to use a less formal citation:
- — from Memory Alpha: The Free Star Trek Reference
- This Memory Alpha article is licensed under the Creative Commons by-nc license, which means that you may copy this article as long as proper attribution is provided to the original source, Memory Alpha, and the article is not used for commercial purposes.
In this example, the link to Memory Alpha should point to the URL of the specific article that has been copied. Additionally, it is crucial that you mention the Creative Commons License and provide a link to that license, so that readers are aware of the terms under which the article is reproduced. This helps to protect both Memory Alpha's rights to the content, as well as your own rights to duplicate the article(s) in question.
If you have any questions about how to cite Memory Alpha, please feel free to bring them up on the talk page.