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In this question on preferred referencing conventions, naturally, there is general support for including links to sources in the body of the answer. Ben Brocka also mentions the use of APA inline style e.g., "(Smith & Dean, 2000)" or "Smith and Dean (2000)", etc.

However, should we encourage people to record the full reference at the end of the answer.

For example, something like this (i.e., inline citation and complete end of text reference)

Smith and Dean (2000) did some interesting research on .... blah blah blahblah blah blahblah blah blahblah blah blahblah blah blahblah blah blahblah blah blahblah blah blahblah blah blahblah blah blahblah blah blahblah blah blahblah blah blahblah blah blahblah blah blahblah blah blah.

Smith, J. & Dean, B. (2000). The effect of X on Y. Journal of Blah Blah, 23, 22-48.

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    As long as inline references (not footnotes) are used I support this
    – Ben Brocka
    Jan 25, 2012 at 13:09
  • Where can I read more about this blah blah blahblah blah blahblah blah research? It certainly sounds like a fascinating field! har har harhar har har! :-)
    – Josh
    Jan 25, 2012 at 21:21

2 Answers 2

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I would say yes, it's recommended for three reasons:

  • Easier to find the papers.
  • Gives an idea of what the actual topic was discussed in the referenced paper.
  • Allows to keep shorter in text citations. (e.g. only first author)

By recommended I mean, not adding it doesn't constitute a 'bad' answer, but it's encouraged to edit answers and add the links as such if they aren't there yet.

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As exemplified here it would be best if we made the references at the bottom in subscript so they're clearly separate and less emphasized.

You can do this by wrapping the reference in <sub> tags:

<sub>Reference, 2001</sub>
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  • I'm a little undecided about this. Pros: it reduces the emphasis on references; Cons: the <sub> font size makes references difficult to read comfortably for some people on some screens. However, I agree with the sentiment that references should in some way be separated from the body of the question or answer.
    – Jeromy Anglim
    Jan 27, 2012 at 1:46
  • For some reason, wrapping all references in <sub> doesn't work when there are newlines in between. This makes this solution less attractive.
    – Steven Jeuris Mod
    Feb 6, 2012 at 11:37

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