Citing Your Sources on Yahoo! Contributor Network

Citing sources is an important step in the process of creating authoritative and trusted content with Yahoo! Contributor Network. Correct citations show that you're providing your readers with more than just your own opinion. However, improper citations or citing sources that are not trusted can hurt your content and lead to declines from Yahoo! Contributor Network editors.

When to Cite

In general, you must cite sources for any statements of fact that are not common knowledge. This can include citing your own expertise if you are an expert on the topic at hand. For instance, a physician could say, "As a doctor, I know that more patients are diagnosed with fibromyalgia every year in Michigan," but a layperson would need to cite a study or survey to support the same statement of fact. If your content is based entirely on your experiences, this should be made clear in the body of the content itself.

What to Cite

Citations are a way of showing readers that your article contains accurate information and/or opinions that are supported by respected and notable people or organizations. Therefore, your sources should be authoritative in their own right. Leading organizations or researchers in a field of study are an excellent choice. Major news organizations, like Yahoo! News, CNN, or the Associated Press, should be cited if possible in News content.

Blogs and other personal websites should be cited only if you directly quote, discuss or otherwise reference information contained therein; avoid citing bloggers as the source of important facts.

Search engines may not be used as sources. If you used a search engine to research your article, reference the pages you found, not the search engine that found them.

Where to Cite

According to our Submission Guidelines, facts and quotes should be attributed using hyperlinks where these statements appear in your article's text. For example:

"According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Battle of New Orleans was won by Andrew Jackson's troops."

At the end of your article, add a source section including any authoritative sources that informed your content more generally, as opposed to providing a specific fact or quote. Remember, you should cite the specific pages you used to inform your content, not simply names or URLs of websites. For example, if you used a CNN article, you would link to the article page, not to CNN.com. If your content is entirely informed by your own experience, a sources section is not necessary, but you must clearly state your experience in the body of your text and add a shirttail describing your experience if instructed to do so via assignment/beat details.

How to Cite

Use the hyperlinking tool to link to your source. Please link only the first reference to each source. Repeatedly linking to the same source isn't necessary and may hurt your article.

Assignments and Other Yahoo! Sites

Specific assignments, beats, and sites will have their own citation instructions. Anything in Assignment Details or Beat Details supersedes the general information found here. Always follow your editor's instructions first. Use YCN tutorials and our Submission Guidelines to answer questions if you do not have specific editorial instructions to rely on.