PPP: External links

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Wikia Help:Contributing Adding articles on poets Adding poems Adding external links

External links (ELs) are an important part of any Penny's Poetry Pages article(s). The great advantage of the Web over conventional textbook learning is the sheer amount and variety of material available, and only ELs can take advantage of that.

ELs are even more important in the case of modern poets and critics, whose work is protected by copyright. In most such cases, it is simply legally impossible to include any of the work in question in the article, while ignoring it completely, or simply giving a paraphrase, will result in an inferior article. The solution is to include an EL, which puts the original poem or article in question a mere click away for the interested reader.

For ELs, then, the general rule is the more, the merrier.

External links in article body

There are two places we allow external links within an article's text. One is in the "Writing" section, if one is discussing an individual poem or a book: It is quite in order to add an EL to the poem or the book, so the reader can see it for himself. (Wikipedia allows such links only in endnotes, but burying them in endnotes means that many readers are unlikely to see them). However the default in such cases is an Internal link, to a PPP article on the poem or book - if there is one, then add an internal link to that, and add necessary  ELs there.

The other place for endnotes is in the list of books in the Publications section. Especially for the cases of authors with a lot of books on the web, it only makes sense to blue-link that list, rather than repeat it down in the External links section. (One can also add internal links to PPP articles on individual books. Howeve, in this section the ELs are the default: The recommended procedure for adding an internal link is to mention the book in the text (of the Life or Writing section) and to link that.

External links in the EL section

Poems

It is advisable, for any article on a poet, to give a sample of the poet's work. Writers can, and are encouraged to, copy their favourite poems onto PPP, either in the body of articles; or as stand-alone poems (which can be linked within the text, or in the "'Poems by [Poet X]'" section). Many times, though, public domain poets will have too many poems online to copy them all, while copyright-protected poets will have nothing that can be copied. In such cases, ELs provide a simple and elegant solution.

• Poem links should be the top, or first, subsection of the External Links section. 
• Links should be pyramided: links with less poems coming before those with more, and those to individual poems on top and monster sites (we have some sites linked that have over 1,000 poems by a single poet!) down at the very bottom; that gives the reader with just a few minutes the chance to explore an entire link, and the reader with more time the option to go on.

• It is helpful to mention the number of poems accessed by following the link, if that information is handy.
• Places to find ELs for this section include:
  • Academy of American Poets, Poetry Foundation
  • Commercial sites like PoemHunter, AllPoetry, or Read Books Online.
  • Personal or tribute websites on the poet. (Even if a site's home page is linked below, it is still in order to provide a separate link here to its poems page here).
  • Blogs. We don't discriminate against blogs here. Often (especially with newer or lesser-known poets), blogs are the only place to find certain poems, PPP actually began as a blog for just that purpose, The Penny Blog, which is still going strong.
  • Online anthologies (like those at Bartleby.com)
  • Poet's website or Society page. Normally Poet X's website would be linked in About, and the Poet X Society's site in Etc. However, if either site has a separate page featuring the author's poetry, then you can also add a link to that up here. The value of that is inversely proportional to all the other poetry sites you've found; if you have 10 sites linked already, then there's not much point, but if you haven't found any, or just one or two, by all means add these links too.

Books

This is the section to list longer, book-length selections of the poet's work, from sites like Project Gutenberg, Internet Archive, and the Online Books Page.

• Use this space also for Worldcat, the International SF database, and other external lists of works including other sites' bibliographies.
• If you want to include a page of books by the poet on a publisher's website, include it here as well. Same for book information on Poet X's site or the Poet X Society's site. However, the same considerations apply as above.
• It is probably not a good idea to add links to individual books here, unless your list of links is very short; if the poet has more than 2 or 3 linked, then it is preferable to hyperlink the Publications listing.

Audio / video

In this section, put all audio or video material, including readings of the poet's poems, TV or radio documentaries, and interviews, in that order.

• Order spoken poetry first, then media about the poet (including interviews).
• order spoken poetry like written poetry, from shortest to longest.
• Good places to look for a/v material include PennSound, The Poetry Archive, and YouTube

About

Use this section for biographical information such as other online encyclopedias; links to the poet's website and/or blog; interviews and reviewsand for scholarly articles on the poet's work.

• Articles should be grouped in the following order: first, introductory information , followed by poet's website and blog (if she or he has those), next interviews followed by reviews, and finally scholarly articles.
• Introductory information includes, first, encyclopedia articles on the poet, and, next, obituaries.
• "Prestige" links, to sites like the Encyclopædia Britannica and NobelPrize.org, should be placed first.
• Except for obituaries (which normally give a retrospective on a poet's whole career), it is not normally a good idea to include articles on specific events; it would be better to cite those as endnotes. One exception would be if the event was a highlight (like the poet winnning the Nobel Prize), and you want to link to a number of articles. In that case, it would be best to include those articles in a separate subsection immediately following this one.
• links to cemetery sites (like Poets' Graves or Find a Grave) should be placed after any obituaries.

Interviews and reviews
Interviews, reviews, and scholarly articles normally come at the end of the About section. If the resulting section looks to long, they can be set off as a separate section with the above title.

• interviews should be arranged in chronoligical order, with year given when available, then reviews in the same order, and finally scholarly articles in the same order.

Etc.

Use this section for links that don't fit anywhere else. The most common are links to legacy things, like archives, monuments, awards, and fan club sites, including Societies.