Wikipedia:WikiProject Encyclopaedia Britannica

Attributing EB1911 articles

If an article contains text copied from the Eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, suitable attribution must be provided (see the Plagiarism guideline). The template {{EB1911}} is provided to aid the editor with adding attribution.

 ==References==
 * Bullet list of other references

 '''Attribution:'''
 *{{EB1911|title=name of EB article}}

Which appears as:

References

• Bullet list of other references

Attribution:

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "name of EB article". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

The documentation to be found by following the link to {{EB1911}} explains how to add more parameters such as volume and page numbers as well as the author of the article if one is given (many of the articles were written anonymously).

If the article exists in Wikisource use: wstitle=

{{EB1911|wstitle=Anarchism}}

appears as:

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Anarchism". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Otherwise use title= and url=:

{{EB1911|title=Anarchism|url=https://archive.org/stream/encyclopaediabri01chisrich#page/914/mode/2up}}

appears as:

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Anarchism". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Archive.org contains authentic scans. Studylight is a secondary source with advertising, but the text can be copied to your clipboard.

 Anapaest, a metrical foot consisting of three syllables, the first two short and the third
 long and accented; so called as the reverse of a dactyl, which has the first a long syllable,
 followed by two short ones. An anapaestic verse is one which only contains, or is mostly made
 up of, anapaestic feet.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=914}}

 == Notes ==
 {{reflist}}

 == References ==
  * {{EB1911 |wstitle=Anapaest |volume=1 |page=914}}

 Anapaest, a metrical foot consisting of three syllables, the first two short and the third
 long and accented; so called as the reverse of a dactyl, which has the first a long syllable,
 followed by two short ones. An anapaestic verse is one which only contains, or is mostly made
 up of, anapaestic feet.<ref>{{EB1911|inline=1 |wstitle=Anapaest |volume=1 |page=914}}</ref>

 == References ==
 {{reflist}}

Citing EB articles

If a Wikipedia article uses information contained in an Encyclopaedia Britannica article but does not literally copy the text, there is a template called {{Cite EB1911}} which takes the same variables as the attribution template above.

*{{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Clerke, Agnes Mary}}

appears as:

Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Clerke, Agnes Mary" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

See {{Cite EB1911}} for a full list of parameters.

Completing the parameter list

Whenever possible, include the following parameters in a {{EB1911}} or {{Cite EB1911}} template. Very little extra effort is needed to determine the values of some of them.

• volume= and page=. Usually you know the volume, at least, from Wikisource or a scanned book.
• first=, last=, and authorlink=, plus their "2" and "3" variants for multi-author articles. When, as often happens, an EB1911 author's middle name or names are known, include them under first.
• display= is usually used when a Wikisource article has a disambiguation tag that's not present in the printed version. For example, write:

{{EB1911|wstitle=Ramsay, Allan (painter)|display=Ramsay, Allan|volume=22|pages=878–879}}

since the "(painter)" tag is needed to locate the correct Wikisource article, but doesn't appear in the encyclopaedia itself. Currently, display is recognized with wstitle but not title, but it is never wrong to include it with title, because eventually the original will appear in Wikisource and the parameter will be seen.

Poster template

If there is an article from the Eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica on Wikisource, then the template {{Cite EB1911}} can be used in the "further reading" or the "external links" sections to inform the reader of this, but as an alternative, there is a "poster template" which will place a box on the right of the section into which it is placed.

If the article exists in wikisource use:

{{EB1911 poster|Anarchism}}

appears as:

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Anarchism".

N.B. do not put an asterisk in front of {{EB1911 poster}} as it removes the box from around the template.

The good, the bad and the ugly

There is some beautifully written material in the Encyclopaedia Britannica that has not been outmoded and still can serve modern readers. You should feel free to quote sections using the {{quote}} template, as long as you do so from an original, textually reliable source, giving proper credit and including a link to 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica.

As the text in the Encyclopaedia Britannica is no longer under copyright you may copy its text directly into a Wikipedia article. If you do so you must attribute the text as specified in the Plagiarism guideline.

The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica can continue to be a resource for readers well into the 21st century, as long as editors use it with care and discretion. It is now quite old, and there are many problems with this material in a modern encyclopaedia. Even in 1917, the U.S. art critic, Willard Huntington Wright, criticized it as an unreliable source in his scathing Misinforming a Nation, a 200+ page critical examination of the problems with the encyclopedia. Wright saw the "myth" of the EB1911 being the best and greatest encyclopaedia as a testament to a successful marketing campaign which usually didn't hold up under critical examination.

Check list

The following is a checklist of things to do to make this material most useful for Wikipedia.

1. Use for information only: Consider using the article for information only. That is, restructure and rewrite the whole article, supplementing the encyclopedia information with other sources. That isn't always worth the effort, so the following are some points to keep in mind when using encyclopedia material.
2. Unreliable scanned source: Since some online versions are scanned using OCR software, there are often typographical errors or gaps in the text, especially where there are diacritical marks or Greek text, and also particularly at the end, where some material may be at the top of the succeeding article. You must copy-edit material carefully for gross errors, give it Wikipedia markup, and, as always, check the Wikipedia index for associated material and link as needed.
3. Unreliable old information: Many facts given have been supplanted, diseases overcome, kings overthrown, empires dissolved, new materials and new uses for old materials discovered, and so forth. You should run a web search or check some other reference sources and not rely entirely on the Encyclopædia material.
4. Obsolete formatting and wordiness: The articles are very complete and the paragraphs are very long. Almost all articles can benefit from being broken up into shorter paragraphs for online reading and most articles can be shortened without loss for modern readers. You may also want to insert subsection headers every time the subject changes. Dates should be converted from forms like 17th of June 1844 to 17 June 1844. The bibliographical notes are particularly cluttered and should be pared down to: Author date, title [p. num].
5. Old fashioned attitudes: Many attitudes expressed are outdated, particularly with regard to race. Phrases like "the first white man" can be replaced by "the first European". Other attitudes may be prudish or too much in line with the interests of Victorian England. Many articles show academic biases (especially of historiography) that can be hard to eradicate; the material that has been modernized still often reflects the underlying methods and approaches of the original article.
6. Names have changed: Many names have been changed as colonialism has been replaced by nationalism. Fernando Po is now Bioko. "Somali country" is now Somalia (and part of Yemen), and so forth. Many people familiar to the 1911 reader have slipped into obscurity. It is no longer sufficient to say "Lord Derby said"; he has to be identified more precisely (often if the subject is notable, a Wikipedia biography article will exist and a link can be provided like so: Lord Derby).
7. British spelling: The presentation is British, and also designed for compactness. In accordance with Wikipedia:Manual of Style, if the topic is American it may be best to change spellings like "labour" to "labor"; if a British subject, the British English spelling is preferable. You may also want to add full stops after "Mrs" and the like. Both British and American spelling styles per se are perfectly acceptable in the Wikipedia, and so this is up to your own tastes.
8. British biases: Articles about British subjects will exaggerate accomplishments and underplay or even ignore things that might tarnish a person's reputation.
9. References are old: Many articles end with a string of references. Although these can be maintained, in list form, be aware that the intervening century may have produced more recent scholarship that should be given at least equal billing.
10. Victorian prose should be checked: The prose style is Victorian and sometimes may seem somewhat stuffy to modern eyes. On the other hand, it has a much stronger point of view than the usual modern encyclopedia. You may want to change wording here and there. If the Encyclopædia makes a particularly striking judgement which is to be retained then use in-text attribution. For example

    Stanley Lane-Poole writing in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica stated that "Burton had not the charm of style or imagination which gives immortality to a book of travel".<ref>{{EB1911|inline=1|first=Stanley |last=Lane-Poole |wstitle=Burton, Sir Richard Francis|volume=4|page=865}}</ref>