{"id":124,"date":"2023-04-06T08:40:54","date_gmt":"2023-04-06T08:40:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/support.kialo.dev\/hc\/making-best-use-of-sources\/"},"modified":"2023-04-29T07:56:26","modified_gmt":"2023-04-29T07:56:26","password":"","slug":"making-best-use-of-sources","status":"publish","type":"docs","link":"https:\/\/support.kialo.com\/en\/hc\/making-best-use-of-sources\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Best Use of Sources"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When citing evidence for a claim or argument, it is important to be able to back up the credibility of that evidence &ndash; to provide context, information about the source, and a sense that the fact or facts cited can reasonably be considered accurate. In addition, readers will often want to follow up and learn more about cited evidence &ndash; to use it in other contexts, question it, or provide additional supporting evidence. To facilitate all of this, it&rsquo;s important to make appropriate use of links to external sources.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sources should, as a matter of best practice, be linked if you are:<\/span><\/p><ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Quoting someone or something.<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Citing a particular fact &ndash; like a statistic, law, or study result.<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Paraphrasing someone else&rsquo;s idea or argument.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It can also be useful to link sources if you are:<\/span><\/p><ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Assuming a certain level of knowledge &ndash; for example, by referring to the name of a particular concept (e.g. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Moore%27s_law\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Moore&rsquo;s law<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">) &ndash; that may not be shared by your entire audience.<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Using unusual or specialized terminology.<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Referring to something likely to be of interest to your readers beyond the discussion at hand.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Stylistically, there are several ways that you can integrate links into your claims. Whatever approach you choose, you should try to be reasonably consistent within each discussion &ndash; rapid changes between styles can be jarring to readers.<\/span><\/p><ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can integrate links in the way that online journalism generally does &ndash; as hyperlinked sections of text. This is generally most appropriate when the source linked is fairly short, or the entirety of the source is what you are referring to.<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can integrate links in parentheses at the end of a claim (or within the claim, though we largely find that this can be jarring within such short snippets of text), hyperlinking the name of the source (e.g. &lsquo;<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">NASA&rsquo;<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, or &lsquo;<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Smith et al.&rsquo;<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">). This is generally most appropriate when you are referring to a specific part of a source, as it allows you to provide a pinpoint reference like a page number without interrupting the flow of a claim.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While linking sources at all can make a huge difference to your discussions, linking the <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">right<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> sources can be just as important. For example, linking to a site that lacks credibility &ndash; or has a reputation for inaccurate reporting &ndash; can undermine your entire argument. If you&rsquo;re not familiar with the reputation of a site you&rsquo;re considering linking to to back up one of your claims, it&rsquo;s worth googling the site itself, and particularly checking a non-partisan fact-checker to see what they think of the site. (No-one wants to be the person who accidentally cites <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Onion<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> as a source!) Generally, this is most important when trying to establish evidence for claimed facts &ndash; and less important when simply trying to establish that some people hold a belief about the world.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sources are also more useful the more accessible they are! For example, sources that are behind a paywall, or require an academic login, might well be academically better, but if your readers can&rsquo;t access them, that&rsquo;s not much use! Consider using an alternative source, or also linking to a summary, if one is available. Similarly, sources in the language you and other participants are using in the relevant discussion are going to be much more useful to everyone involved! If they&rsquo;re not available, consider linking through a translation site.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When citing evidence for a claim or argument, it is important to be able to back up the credibility of that evidence &ndash; to provide context, information about the source, and a sense that the fact or facts cited can reasonably be considered accurate. In addition, readers will often want to follow up and learn [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_doc_category":0,"wds_primary_doc_tag":0,"footnotes":""},"doc_category":[32],"doc_tag":[],"class_list":["post-124","docs","type-docs","status-publish","hentry","doc_category-for-general-users"],"acf":{"zendesk_id":"115000755351","zendesk_url":"https:\/\/support.kialo.com\/hc\/en-us\/articles\/115000755351-Making-Best-Use-of-Sources"},"year_month":"2026-04","word_count":576,"total_views":"356","reactions":{"happy":"0","normal":"0","sad":"0"},"author_info":{"name":"mk","author_nicename":"mk","author_url":"https:\/\/support.kialo.com\/en\/author\/mk\/"},"doc_category_info":[{"term_name":"For General Users","term_url":"https:\/\/support.kialo.com\/en\/hc\/sections\/for-general-users\/"}],"doc_tag_info":[],"knowledge_base_info":[],"knowledge_base_slug":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/support.kialo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/docs\/124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/support.kialo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/docs"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/support.kialo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/docs"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/support.kialo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/support.kialo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/support.kialo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/docs\/124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/support.kialo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"doc_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/support.kialo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/doc_category?post=124"},{"taxonomy":"doc_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/support.kialo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/doc_tag?post=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}