How to Source Your Posts for Tumblr— not academia.
Do all things on tumblr need sourcing? Nope. Not if you don’t want to, it is completely up to you. I don’t source plenty in reblogs or asks because I’ve read things so many times I just know it. But I highly suggest it if you are writing informational posts. If you don’t want to and someone challenges you on the claim don’t get offended, since you should be able to give a source or be willing to admit you don't have one or can't remember where you learned it.
Listing sources at the end of the post with no connection within the post can sometimes be worthless. For example, if you list AncientOrigins in your source list I now want to know exactly what in you post uses that BS website. If you didn’t use in-text citation I have to ignore your entire post. It’s your job as the writer to tell the reader which claim is coming from which source. And YES I realize tumblr isn’t school; I’m not saying you need to APA/MLA things but you can still in-text cite your sources.
🔴 Getting Started on Research
🔴 Vetting Sources, not all sources are created equal make sure to vet your sources for credibility
Objective: Give the reader the location of your claims in a way that makes it easy for them to find. Whenever possible supply the source for them.
Reason: The burden of proof is on you as the writer. Additionally, it points your audience to the source of something specific they may want to learn more about. It gives the audience the right to fact check the claim and to judge credibility of the source. It makes it possible to engage in the post in a meaningful way. Readers don’t just have to take your word for it.
How: Attach each major claim to its source. For example, if you write “Mesopotamian’s ate their offerings.” and you have used 10 sources the aim is to connect that claim to the specific source it comes from among the 10. This can also be done for a sequence of sentences or a paragraph. You can pick and choose which to back up with a source, I most certainly wouldn’t source that sentence, it's just an example— but I could absolutely provide a source to back that claim up if someone asked. How you physically type this out can be done in numerous ways which is what we will go over. Don’t just list all the things you read, in order to write the post, at the very end and leave it at that. This post is to help you avoid that— to take that one step further.
What information does a lay reader need? Easy: What makes it searchable for them to find! You can also add clarifying comments on how you feel about the source.
A link. If this is available it is the golden nugget to give. If there is a link to the source regardless of type— provide it.
Page number, if the size of source calls for it. A time stamp is the equivalent if you are using audio or visual material.
In addition to that, for books and academic articles necessary info:
Bonus information if you want to give some context to the reader, give them the chance to vet it better, if they are a good researcher themselves additional information goes a long way. Do you need all this? No, but it's worth keeping in mind what you could give if you wanted to. And keep in mind what info to give based on what message you are trying to get across in any particular post.
Year. This goes a very long way in Polytheist Revivalism / Reconstructionism, Paganism, …history in general. These fields started in earnest in the 19th century. Its been awhile to say the least.
Link to Google Book and/or Worldcat entry. Just an additional help for the reader if you really recommend a source. You could also link to a place to buy a very cheap used copy if you like it that much.
Link to the abstract. Technically if they have the title they can find it themselves via Google Scholar but it’s a nice gesture to your audience to give them the link.
Location where you got it if you cannot provide a link at all e.g im an academic database behind a pay wall, documentary on a streaming service, or something else I can't think of.
Clarify what type of work it is: book, essay within an anthology, academic journal article, university or museum website, popular website article (e.g natgeo), dissertation, thesis, news article, documentary, video, some primary source, or whatever else.
Notes on if the sources has certain aspects that are out of date or conflicts with other sources
Disclaimers if the sources is contentious among academics in the same field
The most important thing is connecting the source to the claim. This can be done in many different ways, you pick what you like best. Most of these require a source list at end but some don’t. Page can be written: page, pp , or pg , completely up to you.
Here are some example methods of how to do this within your post.
Mesopotamians ate the offerings after presenting them to the Gods (Gods Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia by Black & Green pp 158 here)
Mesopotamians ate the offerings after presenting them to the Gods (Black, pp 158)
Mesopotamians ate the offerings after presenting them to the Gods [1 pp 158]
Mesopotamians ate the offerings after presenting them to the Gods [1]
Mesopotamians ate the offerings after presenting them to the Gods [Note 1]
🔸Academic Article Example
In the initial concept of 'polis religion’, Greek Religion was envisioned as the 'basic unit of life’ for an ancient Greek. (Julia Kindt, pp. 11)
In the initial concept of 'polis religion’, Greek Religion was envisioned as the 'basic unit of life’ for an ancient Greek. [2]
In the initial concept of 'polis religion’, Greek Religion was envisioned as the 'basic unit of life’ for an ancient Greek. [2 pp 11]
In the initial concept of 'polis religion’, Greek Religion was envisioned as the 'basic unit of life’ for an ancient Greek. [Note 2 page 11]
🔸Website Article Example (Well I also used multiple sources at once)
While I don’t agree with everything presented in each source Black [1 pp 132] , Jacobsen [3 pp 104], and this Oracc article, amomg others, all agree that the Mother Goddess in Ancient Mesopotamia was a wide spread figure under numerous names.
While I don’t agree with everything presented in each source Black, Jacobsen, and the Oracc article [4], among others all agree that the Mother Goddess in Ancient Mesopotamia was a wide spread figure under numerous names.
While I don’t agree with everything presented in each source Black (pp 132) , Jacobsen (pp 104) , and the Oracc article [Note 4], among others all agree that the Mother Goddess in Ancient Mesopotamia was wide spread figure under numerous names.
You make a claim you want to back up with evidence. Write the sentence or paragraph and at the end add a little connector to it— [2] , [Note 3] , (Jacobsen, pp #), or literally just a hyperlink. These will all reference a list at the end, aside from a hyperlink or full citation.
–Which type of connector you use is up to you.
–Using ( ), [ ], { } , is up to you.
–Using page, p/pp or pg is up to you.
This isn’t school, you aren’t graded, no ones scrutinizing if you have an out of place comma. But if you want people to get the most out of the posts you work hard on— you need to connect your claims and sources to maximize that.
🔵 Methods of Writing The List
How to use the above examples in a source list.
The list could be labeled: sources, bibliography, endnotes, or notes.
Since this is not school, and not everyone has gone to university, has finished high/secondary school, or even remembers it— we want this as simple as we can get it.
For me I want my posts as accessible as I can make them, I think most info folks agree. If you are not hyperlinking it within the text there are various ways to write it. Traditionally articles are in quotation marks and books italicized etc etc etc, but this is for tumblr. If you want to do that cool, if not don’t worry about it— it means nothing to a lay reader.
Just remember to get across these simple things:
Page number if applicable
Title & Author for books or academic articles
If a link is not possible and somehow neither is a full title and author do your best to get as much info as you can? I can’t see a situation where that is the case.
I included various ways you can provide the source in these examples.
You can use the short name of the book when sourcing example 2 or the long name example 3. Same for author name, use just the last name example 2 or their full name example 3. Your personal choice.
In the example wouldn’t require an entry in the source list—unless you wanted to repeat for the sake of all sources listed together— because it has the title and author. You should add the link in-text be it the full book pdf, internet archive, google book, or woldcat
It doesn’t need any marker, like [1], because of the name “Black” nor does it need a page in the source list because it’s already written in-text. Which leads to this type of source entry:
Gods Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia by Black & Green, Internet Archive
You could still use [1] if you wanted to keep things more consistent
[1] An Illustrated Dictionary: Gods, Demons, and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia by Jeremy Black & Antony Green PDF (pretend thats a real link)
[1] Gods Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia by Black & Green, pp 158. Google Books
[Note 1] Gods Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia by Black & Green, pp. 125. Worldcat.
🔸For the Academic Article Example:
A marker, like [2], is unnecessary because the author's name is used in-text, it also doesn't need a page number because that is already in-text.
Polis Religion – A Critical Appreciation by Julia Kidnt. PDF
[2] Polis Religion – A Critical Appreciation by Julia Kidnt pp 11. Open Source Journal
[2] Polis Religion – A Critical Appreciation by Julia Kidnt. Academia
[Note 2] Polis Religion – A Critical Appreciation by Julia Kidnt. Google Scholar (if you have no link to the full available text, this one does though)
I got ambitious and showed you multiple sources. But lets focus on the website.
Sometimes I only hyperlink web articles, but sometimes I also put them in the source list, especially if I need to discuss something about it— which is another excellent reason to connect a claim and source in your work.
Hyperlink. Because it is a hyperlink you do not need to add it to the source list unless you want all sources in one neat list
Example Number 2, various forms:
[4] http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/amgg/listofdeities/mothergoddess/index.html
[4] Mother Goddess (Ninmah, Nintud/r, Belet-ili) on Oracc. Note: I personally find this article to be well sourced but out of date.
[4] Mother Goddess (Ninmah, Nintud/r, Belet-ili) by Nicole Brisch. Find here. Note: To me this article is iffy and contradicts some things; but agrees with others. It’s consensus on the multitude of names for the mother goddess matches up with all other sources.
Example Number 3, various forms:
[Note 4] http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/amgg/listofdeities/mothergoddess/index.html
[Note 4] Mother Goddess (Ninmah, Nintud/r, Belet-ili) on Oracc. I’m always cautious with Oracc because it always seem slightly out of date depending on the topic— but it can be an important starting point.
[Note 4] Mother Goddess (Ninmah, Nintud/r, Belet-ili) by Nicole Brisch. Find here. Oracc isn’t always up to date but this out of date article’s claim matches up with all subsequent claims.
🔵 Lets put it all together, shall we?
Here is one way I would personally use the connection-list approach, example from an old post of mine. Sometimes I gave page numbers, sometimes I didn't, I would nowadays aim to give page numbers more.
First the "half bird of prey," claim is not attested. Even if one considers the Burney Relief to be Ereškigal (thats heavily debatable) having bird talons for feet doesn't make her "half a bird of prey." If this were true the bird bit would appear in her mythology somewhere. It doesn't appear in either Inana's or Ištar's Descent myth [1] [2] it doesn't appear in either Myth with Nergal [3][4 p 83] it doesn't appear in Enkidu, Gilgamesh, and The Netherworld where she is given Kur to rule [5]. Other mentions of her are temples and offering lists [6 p 55] [7 p 109]. There is no indication that she was partly a bird. As for wings, Inana (Image from: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago) Ninurta (Image from: Wikipedia confirmed by [8]), and Šamaš [Image from 8] also have them.
(then there were 3 images here)
There is nothing to suggest that Ištar or Inana and Ereškigal are twins. Sister's yes, twins no (Dictionary entries for Ereškigal & Inana [6][7][8])[9][10]. In fact who Inana's father is depends on time and location [8][10], who Ereškigal's father is unclear as far as I am aware.
▪️▪️Example Source Section List▪️▪️
[1] Inana's Descent into the Netherworld ETCSL 1.4.1
[2] Descent of the Goddess Ishtar Into the Lower World Jastrow 1915 Translation.
[3] Earlier Armana Tablet Myth of Ereškigal & Nergal. Here
[4] "Later Sultantepe Tablet Myth of Ereškigal & Nergal" within "The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures" edited by James A. Pritchard book available on the Internet Archive (free account)
[5] Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the nether world. Version A from Nibru ETCSL 1.8.1.4
[6] A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology by Leick Internet Archive.
[7] A Handbook of Gods and Goddesses of the Ancient Near East by Frayne & Stuckey Google Books (can't find PDF)
[8] Gods Demons & Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia by Black & Green. Internet Archive.
So this is what I think is simple. Link, page, title, author and a connection within the post to the specific claim.
Anyways, thanks for reading!
Originally written February 2021 highly edited & updated 2025.
-dyslexic not audio proof read-
