Wikipedia talk:Summary style

I'm having a discussion with other editors about, basically: does a blurb in a table row in a list-article, which summarizes a linked article, have to include one, some, or all of the inline references in the linked article? I have turned to wp:SUMMARY, seeking a flat statement giving guidance and some great examples. However, the leading example, on how the World War II article uses summary style, maybe doesn't work as it should, in that it doesn't convey that it is really okay to summarize (perhaps a la Executive summary), rather than "restate separate assertions from within". And it does not clearly show that sometimes/often no citations at all are needed, which is what I would prefer to see.

The first example gives, for the summary of Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), under Pre-war events, with "main"-type link to Spanish Civil War, the following text:

Germany and Italy lent support to the Nationalist insurrection led by general Francisco Franco in Spain ....

Call that the instructive example text. That reads great to me, and shows no citation, as far as it goes. But the actual text in current World War II article is quite different:

When civil war broke out in Spain, Hitler and Mussolini lent military support to the Nationalist rebels, led by General Francisco Franco. Italy supported the Nationalists to a greater extent than the Nazis did: altogether Mussolini sent to Spain more than 70,000 ground troops and 6,000 aviation personnel, as well as about 720 aircraft.^[1] The Soviet Union supported the existing government of the Spanish Republic. More than 30,000 foreign volunteers, known as the International Brigades, also fought against the Nationalists. Both Germany and the Soviet Union used this proxy war as an opportunity to test in combat their most advanced weapons and tactics. The Nationalists won the civil war in April 1939; Franco, now dictator, remained officially neutral during World War II but generally favoured the Axis.^[2] His greatest collaboration with Germany was the sending of volunteers to fight on the Eastern Front.^[3]

Here, each sentence is followed by an inline citation, it feels like. Or at least it is apparent that each sentence is supported by the next one coming of the passage's multiple (three) inline citations. Frankly, I do not like this "actual text": it seems choppy, as a general reader I am irritated by the inline citations (only some specialist would want to see them, and the material for them is in the subarticle instead); and it appears to be just a selection of several facts from several of the article's sources, rather than a proper synthesis of what's known on the topic. (And as if none of the article's sources is a history book general enough to cover these several statements!) It would surely be better to cite one or a few general treatments of the SCW in one cluster at the end of the actual summary, which I think would suggest that each of them more or less supports all of the statements.

And, it would be better still to include no citations, rather than selecting (and somewhat promoting) just a few, suggesting that the text is supported by the full weight of SCW's many many sources. And to suggest that Wikipedia as author has properly summarized/synthesized what's relevant, without being artificially restricted by exactly what's covered in a certain few.

In contrast, the "instructive example text" is easy to read so far, and I am on board believing that the Spanish Civil War article will be nicely summarized for its purpose in the WWII article.

I really believe the summary in the WWII article should be like the lead of the Spanish Civil War article, which, by WP:LEDE, "should be written in a clear, accessible style", standing "on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic". WP:LEDE states that "significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article", which I believe basically means that, if an assertion in the intro requires an inline citation there, then it shouldn't be there. Either the assertion should be dropped from the lead, or the assertion should be stated with inline citation somewhere in the body of the article and only summarized in the lead, without citation. Likewise, I honestly believe there should be no inline citations at all in the actual summary, because Wikipedia's article on the Spanish Civil War must surely include adequately support for the big takeaways relevant for the WWII article's summary (and in fact the SCW article includes 473 inline citations to something like 100 sources). And IMHO it would probably be inappropriate in the WWII article to be making any unusual, likely-to-be-doubted assertion about the SCW that would in fact require a citation.

Is the current WP:SUMMARY adequate in conveying that a summary can really be a summary, rather than a selection of a few assertions? I think not. By my reading, WP:SUMMARY does suggest that an article summary might simply be a transclusion of the lead of a sub-article ("it can be convenient to use the subarticle's lead as the content in the summary section"). And by my reading, WP:LEDE suggests that a lead should usually not include citations. And no examples that I see in WP:SUMMARY include citations. BUT, there is no explicit statement that a summary need not include citations, and there are no examples given making this point (i.e. no pointer to any Featured or other real article with good summaries not encumbered by citations).

About citations, this wp:SUMMARY states the following:

Each article on Wikipedia must be able to stand alone as a self-contained unit (exceptions noted herein). For example, every article must follow the verifiability policy, which requires that all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged be attributed to a reliable, published source in the form of an inline citation. This applies whether in a parent article or in a summary-style subarticle.

I personally read that to mean that it is okay for a summary to include no citations (as long as it does not include a quotation or a likely-to-be-challenged assertion). However, I think that the overwhelming suggestion for many readers, though, will be the following, instead: that, with scant exceptions, every Wikipedia article must be able to stand alone. Which means that all passages (although perhaps not the lead), including summary sections, must be supported by references to reliable sources. I further think that is a view widely held among editors, and it is perhaps why the editors at WWII have made it into a poorly written article, IMHO.

And it has been a problem for me previously and again now, that I can't find explicit statement that a list-article in which items are summaries of linked articles, does not need to have a hedgehog of citations. In practice, I think that in list-articles where one source has been inserted for each table row, say, that no one is checking whether everything in each table row is exactly supported by the one source appearing. Rather, I think that an editor has dutifully pasted in one corresponding source for each, to fend off dogmatic others who insist upon it. And it would be more honest to show no source, thereby implying all of the subarticles' sources.

THEREFORE, I suggest:

1) adding an explicit statement that a summary in an article does not necessarily require any of the inline citations of the linked sub-article,

2) stating that even if one or a few citations representative of the sources in the subarticle are included, that the summary need not be limited to only what is treated in those few (i.e., editors revising a summary do not need to be unduly concerned about repeatedly returning to a hypothetical single editor who holds copies of all the sources in the subarticle, to get approval of statements that are well-established in the subarticle),

3) that pointers to good examples of such summaries in mainspace Wikipedia articles be provided, and

4) that someone (not me) be deputized to go improve use of summary style in the WWII article!

--Doncram (talk,contribs) 21:14, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Is Template:Main required when a section is a summary? If the link to the main article can be incorporated into the text itself, as I did here, that seems more elegant to me, but apparently it's not allowed? Un assiolo (talk) 13:51, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

The redirect Summary style has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 October 1 § Summary style until a consensus is reached. 1234qwer1234qwer4 00:04, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

@Moxy: a well-known child article we'll show up in Google search. in fact a well-known child article would be more beneficial than being in a section of a large article. That's sort of true - the weasel word here is "well-known". I've spent a fair bit of time running searches to investigate this and the parent article is usually the one that shows up. Like Gen AI, you can tweak the search to give the correct result, but that is a skill I am not sure most users have. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:16, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

For example if I were to do a Google search for Donald Trump tariffs.... I get an actual article on that topic.... whereas the main article doesn't show up here in the search topic till much later on. Individual topics on notable subjects are much easier for our readers to find then sections within an overview article. It's not like we're limited for space let's do what's best for our readers to find things.Moxy🍁 23:20, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

In the parent article, the location of the detailed article for each subtopic is indicated at the top of the section by a hatnote link such as "Main article", generated by the template {{Main|name of child article}}. But how do we inform the reader of the child article of the main article?

Customarily, we have used the {{Main}} template for this, but some years ago, {{Main}}'s documentation was changed to read: Do not use this template on top of a page (such as above the lead), where hatnotes are for disambiguation and not for related topics (according to WP:RELATED). A lead section is always a summary of its own article, not any other; as such, the only appropriate target for a {{Main}} link in the lead section would be the article itself, which is not useful. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:22, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

Should § cite note-1 be removed? It is extremely outdated and I don't think it reflects current practice. Transclusion should be used even without prior consensus. FaviFake (talk) 17:26, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

I believe it's still relevant. I mentioned {{excerpt}} and its usage last week pertaining to grabbing a summary. The Portal namespace utilizes transclusion. (Don't mention the status of those...that's another topic) – The Grid (talk) 18:36, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

I was mostly talking about the part after "However,", which seems outdated. People are no longer so opposed to transclusion. FaviFake (talk) 20:14, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Fgnievinski wanna chime in, since you reverted the edit? FaviFake (talk) 20:15, 4 August 2026 (UTC)