Adding References

This knol describes how to add, change and remove references on your knol. The reference tool allows you to create a reference section at the bottom of your knol automatically.

Getting started

First, you need to enter edit mode by clicking on the Edit this knol button on top of the right column. The editing toolbar will appear and you should be able to locate the reference tool on this toolbar (look for the [1] icon).

After placing your cursor in the location where you would like the reference to be linked from, click "Reference" and the following option window should appear:

In order to create a new reference, click "Create a new reference" and you will see the following:

You can now type in the reference you would like to add (or copy and paste it from somewhere else). As an example, I will add Google's search engine as a reference at this location. [1] I first typed in "From Google's main website" and then clicked [Add a Link] to add a web address I want the reference to link to (this is optional).

Note that the link text is automatically copied from the URL field. I can edit this and choose my own link text:

After clicking [Save], this is what I would see:

I click [Add Selected] and I am done! If you have references checked in the list, links to those references will be inserted like this: [1] whereever your cursor was when you began the process. If you do not want to insert links, simply select Close instead of Add Selected.

If you need to link to the same reference over and over again in your text, you can do this simply by selecting an existing reference (or several), as I have done now. [1][2][3]

Reference Ordering

Removing references

In order to remove a reference, click the reference tool icon [1] in the editing toolbar, and select [Delete] next to the reference you would like to remove. When that reference is removed, all of the links to it in your document will be removed and the numbers will be shifted according to order in which they appear in your document. 

If you do not want to remove the reference, but just the link to it from your text, simply use your mouse and keyboard to remove the number and the brackets. 

Changing/modifying references

In order to change a reference, click the reference tool icon [1] in the editing toolbar, and select [Edit] next to the reference you would like to modify.

Tips:

• Not all references necessarily will have links, as much valuable content is not yet available online (sadly). Because of this, adding links to the references you create is optional. In this knol's example, reference [1] has a link, but references [2,3] do not.
• You may prefer to create a manual reference-list (for example, a list of endnotes or footnotes) within the knol, rather than using the Knol Reference Tool. Or you may wish to create navigational links, to jump from one place to another within a knol. One of our users has created a mini-tutorial on how to do this here

FAQs

All of the reference links within my document take the reader to the top of the document, not to the bottom where the references are listed

How can I add a reference without linking to it?

Requested features

• Navigate from the link, e.g. [7] to the specific 7th reference

• Import references from other formats (MS Word, xml formats, etc.)

• Improve reference structure and metadata to support several of the popular citation formats