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| __NOTOC__
| | #redirect:[[References]] |
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| ==Overview==
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| A '''footnote''' is a note placed at the bottom of a page of a document that comments on, and may cite a reference for, a part of the main text. The connection between the relevant text and its footnote is often indicated with a number or symbol which is used both after the text fragment and before the footnote.
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| Footnotes are sometimes useful for relevant text that would distract from the main point if embedded in the main text, yet are helpful in explaining a point in greater detail. Footnotes are also often used to cite references which are relevant to a text. Citation of sources is important in supporting [[Wikidoc:Verifiability|Verifiability]], a key aspect of Wikidoc.
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| Wiki software, MediaWiki, has built-in support for footnotes. You can add footnotes to an article using <nowiki><ref></nowiki> tags, which will be explained on this page. This way of adding footnotes is called "Cite.php footnotes", where "Cite.php" is the name of the file in MediaWiki that makes this possible.
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| Footnotes are an excellent way to cite sources, but they are not the only way; some articles use inline links instead. Also, Cite.php footnotes are not the only way to make footnotes. Many articles use templates to create footnotes, particularly if they use Harvard references. For a general overview, see [[Wikidoc:Citing Wikidoc|Citing]].
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| ==How to use==
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| # Place a '''<ref>''' ... '''</ref>''' where you want a footnote reference number to appear in an article—type the text of the note between the ref tags.
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| # Place the '''<nowiki>{{reflist|2}}</nowiki>''' tag or '''<nowiki>{{reflist|2}}</nowiki>''' tag in a "Notes" or "References" section near the end of the article—the list of notes will be generated here. (The choice between {{tl|reflist}} and <nowiki>{{reflist|2}}</nowiki> is a matter of style; Wikipedia does not have a general rule.)
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| This page itself uses footnotes, such as the one at the end of this sentence.<ref name="example">This footnote is used as an example in the "How to use" section.</ref> If you view the Wikicode of this page by clicking "Edit this page", you can see a working example of footnotes. For the purpose of adding references, the more recent cannot be mixed on a page with the old [[Wikipedia:Footnote3|Footnotes3]] format—you must pick one or the other. It is possible, however, to use the template system to e.g. separate content notes and references when that is deemed a good idea (this is often the case when content notes must be themselves cited, see, for example, [[Alcibiades]]). '''However, as with all [[WP:CITE|citation styles]], consensus should be achieved on the talk page before implementing such a change.'''
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| ===Ref tag placement===
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| Ref tags citing supporting sources may be placed mid-sentence—usually immediately following the assertion being supported. Purely textual footnotes are usually placed at the end of a sentence or paragraph. Footnotes at the end of a sentence or phrase are normally placed immediately following punctuation, except for dashes—as recommended by the ''[[Chicago Manual of Style]]'' and other style guides.<ref>''The Chicago Manual of Style'', 14th ed. 1993, Clause 15.8, p. 494 - "The superior numerals used for note reference numbers in the text should follow any punctuation marks except the dash, which they precede. The numbers should also be placed outside closing parentheses." - See also [http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/CMS_FAQ/Punctuation/Punctuation18.html CMoS Online, Style Q&A, Punctuation].</ref><ref>Other style guides suggesting that superscript note reference numbers should generally be placed ''after'' punctuation include: [http://www.hartpublishingusa.com/style.html#3 Oxford/Hart's Rules]<!--inFootnotesSection-->, [http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/05/ the MLA Style Manual], [http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/04/ APA Style], [http://web.archive.org/web/20070817113719/http://dictionary.reference.com/writing/styleguide/footnotes.html Dictionary.com]<!--ArchivedLink-->, [http://www.ieee.org/portal/cms_docs_iportals/iportals/publications/authors/transjnl/stylemanual.pdf IEEE style] and [http://www.pennjcl.com/bluebookblog/2008/02/19/hello-world/ Legal Blue Book Style] (as well as the general exception for dashes, guides may variously make other exceptions for colons, semicolons and quotation marks).</ref> Some editors prefer the in-house style of journals such as ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'', which place references before punctuation. If an article has evolved using predominantly one style of ref tag placement, the whole article should conform to that style unless there is a consensus to change it.
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| === Naming a ref tag so it can be used more than once ===
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| To give a footnote a unique identifier, use '''<ref name="name">''' ... '''</ref>'''. You can then refer to the same footnote again by using a ref tag with the same name. The name cannot be a number, or the extension will return an error. The ref name need not be placed within quotes unless it consists of more than one word (the wiki parser converts single word quoteless attribute values into validly quoted XHTML). Note that any quotation marks placed around the ref name must be straight quotes ('''"''') rather than curly quotes ('''“''' or '''”''').
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| Named references are used when there are several cases of repetition of exactly the same reference, including the page number for books; they should not be used to cite different pages in the same book. Named references in wikitext serve a purpose similar to [[loc. cit.]] or [[ibid.]] in printed media. ''See also cautions in [[#Style recommendations|Style]] below''.
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| Only the first occurrence of text in a named ref will be used, although that occurrence may be located anywhere in the article. You can either copy the whole footnote, or you can use a terminated empty ref tag that looks like this: '''<nowiki><ref name="name" /></nowiki>'''. Such forward-slash-terminated named tags may precede the definition of the named reference.<ref>[[Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-11-13/Technology_report|Wikipedia Signpost]]. November 13, 2006.</ref> In subsequent uses of the named tag the use of '''<nowiki><ref name="name" /></nowiki>''' is encouraged rather than copying the whole footnote again, as whole footnotes tend to reduce the readability of the article's text in edit mode, which makes finding specific parts of the text when editing tedious.
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| In the following example, the same source is cited three times.
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| <blockquote style="color:#999; background:white; margin:0; padding:1em; border:1px solid #999;">
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| <div>
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| <tt>
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| This is an example of multiple references to the same footnote.<span style="color:black;">'''<ref name="multiple"/>'''</span>
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| Such references are particularly useful when citing sources, if different statements come from
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| the same source.<span style="color:black;">'''<ref name="multiple">'''Remember that when you refer to the same footnote multiple times, the text from the first reference is used.'''</ref>'''</span>
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| A concise way to make multiple references is to use empty ref tags, which have a slash at the
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| end.<span style="color:black;">'''<ref name="multiple">'''This text is superfluous, and won't show up anywhere. We may as well just use an empty tag.'''</ref>'''</span>
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| <span style="color:#666;">== Notes ==</span>
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| <span style="color:black;">'''<references />'''</span>
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| </tt>
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| </div>
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| </blockquote>
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| The text above gives the following result in the article (see also [[#Notes|Notes section]] below):
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| {{quote|This is an example of multiple references to the same footnote.<ref name="multiple" />
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| Such references are particularly useful when citing sources, when different statements come from the same source.<ref name="multiple">Remember that when you refer to the same footnote multiple times, the text from the first reference is used.</ref>
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| A concise way to make multiple references is to use empty ref tags, which have a slash at the end.<ref name="multiple">This text is superfluous, and won't show up anywhere. We may as well just use an empty tag.</ref>}}
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| One should be particularly careful when deleting a named reference with text content, because the footnote text will be deleted unless it is copied to another ref tag with the same name.
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| ===Citation templates===
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| Text placed between <code><nowiki><ref></nowiki></code> and <code><nowiki></ref></nowiki></code> may be short notes or full bibliographic references, and may be formatted either by hand or with the assistance of templates. Instructions on available templates to help format bibliographic references may be found at [[Wikipedia:Citation templates]]. Use of such templates is not required; see [[WP:CITE]].
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| === Previewing a single section edit===
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| ;Notes and references not normally visible
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| When you [[WP:SECT#Section editing|edit a single section]] on a long page, the Notes or References section will not be visible when you [[Help:Show preview|preview your edits]]. Thus you ordinarily cannot see how your footnotes (text you place between <code><nowiki><ref></nowiki></code> and <code><nowiki></ref></nowiki></code> tags) will later appear when you save your edits.
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| ;Workaround for notes and references
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| A simple workaround is to ''temporarily'' insert a <code><nowiki><references/></nowiki></code> or <code><nowiki>{{reflist|2}}</nowiki></code> tag at the bottom of the edit box of the section you are editing. Your footnotes will appear at the bottom of your section so you can preview them. When you are satisfied with your edits to the section, delete your temporary <code><nowiki><references/></nowiki></code> or <code><nowiki>{{reflist|2}}</nowiki></code> tag, and save your edits. Now your footnotes should appear in the "Notes" or "References" section along with other footnotes on the page.
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| While you preview the footnotes in a section this way, the first footnote in the section will temporarily have a number of one (1), because the preview will not show footnotes from elsewhere on the page. The footnotes will renumber properly across the entire article after you save your edited section.
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| ;Re-use of reference(s) from another section
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| Another complication is that you will not be able to preview the effect of [[#Naming a ref tag so it can be used more than once|citing a footnote from another section]] merely by citing its name (for example: <code><nowiki><ref name="</nowiki>''multiple''<nowiki>"/></nowiki></code>). If the section you want to edit reuses footnotes from elsewhere on the page, a simple solution is to edit the whole page at once in order to preview the footnotes accurately.
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| If you want to avoid this, the only workaround would be to copy and ''temporarily'' insert the full code of the relevant reference(s) at the top of the edit box of the section you are editing. If you have used the "workaround for notes and references" (above) the footnotes will appear at the bottom of your section so you can preview them. When you are satisfied with your edits to the section, delete the temporary full reference code and save your edits. Now your footnotes should appear in the "Notes" or "References" section along with other footnotes on the page.
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| ==Style recommendations==
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| * Internal links should still be used as normal, like this: [[Main Page]].
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| * Citations should always follow punctuation,<ref name=location>This is the convention used in the Chicago Manual of Style, and is generally agreed upon by the Wiki community</ref> like this.<ref name=location/>
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| * Consider using a separate bibliography section if the same book reference is used in multiple footnotes. In this case, just the page number and book name can be given in each note, following [[Wikidoc:Citing Wikidoc|Citing]].
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| * There are templates you can insert between the <nowiki><ref></nowiki> and <nowiki></ref></nowiki> tags to format bibliographic references for you. If you find it easier to type the reference in bibliographic style yourself, you are not obligated to use these templates, but they help to maintain a consistent bibliographic style across articles.
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| For readability it is however only exceptionally advised to reduce lettering size of footnotes, and not below 90%. Note also that the MoS Formatting issues has "Formatting issues such as font size [...] should not be dealt with in articles except in special cases", and that there is no consensus that footnotes would be an overall "special case" in this sense. <!-- (this doesn't apply when the caret is used as a symbol:) Further, reducing size can break the arrow rendering in browsers like IE. -->So, the basic option is to use Footnotes without size reduction, unless when you're able to gain consensus that "special case" can be invoked for the article where you apply cite.php references.
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| ==Resizing references==
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| Some editors prefer references to be in a smaller font size than the text in the body of the article. Although smaller text has some disadvantages, it is common when there is a long list of references (as a rule of thumb, at least ten) to replace the basic <nowiki>{{reflist|2}}</nowiki> tag with <tt>[[Template:Reflist|<nowiki>{{Reflist}}</nowiki>]]</tt>, which reduces the text size to 90%. (''Note:'' Do '''not''' use <tt>[[Template:Reflist|<nowiki>{{Reflist}}</nowiki>]]</tt> with a "subst:".) The underlying CSS class is "references-small", so an alternative is to use this directly: <tt><nowiki><div class="references-small">{{reflist|2}}</div></nowiki></tt>. If this class is used to make other sections at the bottom of the page ("Notes", "See also", "External links", etc.) small for consistency (this is rarely done), the div tags must be opened and closed within each section.
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| A similar CSS class exists to create small footnotes in two columns, but this displays as a single column in some common browsers (like Internet Explorer). If desired, use <nowiki><div class="references-2column">{{reflist|2}}</div></nowiki>
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| The same effect (with any number of columns) can be accomplished by using {{tlx|Reflist|<var>number of columns</var>}}.
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| ==Compatibility with other MediaWiki sites==
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| As of late December 2005, the [[m:Cite/Cite.php|Cite.php]] extension to [[MediaWiki]] has been installed on all Wikimedia wikis. Other wikis that use the [[MediaWiki]] software may not have this extension installed, and therefore may be unable to display Cite.php footnotes.
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| ==Technical details==
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| See [[Meta:Cite/Cite.php]] for a technical explanation of the Cite.php extension on Meta-Wiki.
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| All information on this page is attributed to WikiDoc and its contributors.
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| [[Category:Help]] | | [[Category:Help]] |
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| ==References==
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