Help:Footnotes

This page explains how to create the Footnotes section for Wikipedia articles. In this context, the word "Footnotes" refers to the Wikipedia-specific manner of documenting an article's sources and providing tangential information, and should not be confused with the general concept of footnotes. This how-to does not cover the formatting of citations within the Footnotes section, which is reviewed in Citing sources.

Footnotes are used most commonly to provide:

• references (bibliographic citations) to reliable sources,
• explanatory information, or
• source information for tables and other elements.

Footnotes or shortened footnotes may be used at the editor's discretion in accordance with the guideline on Variation in citation methods.

Only certain types of material on the English Wikipedia are required to have an inline citation. There is no requirement to provide a citation for every sentence, because multiple sentences may be supported by the same footnote. For advice on which material should be cited, see the guidelines on When you must use inline citations, the Good article criteria and When to cite. For advice on how to organize and format bibliographic citations, see the guideline on Citing sources and examples of Citation templates.

Footnotes are created using the Template:Cite.php software extension. This extension adds the HTML-like elements Template:Tag, Template:Tag and Template:Tag. The elements are also used in a number of templates; for example, it is becoming more common to use {{reflist}} rather than Template:Tag as it can style the reference list.

Overview

Template:VE documentation The Footnotes system shows two elements on the page:

• A Footnote marker is displayed in the article's content as a bracketed, superscripted number, letter, or word. Examples shown respectively are: Template:Dummy refTemplate:Dummy refTemplate:Dummy ref. This footnote label is linked to the full footnote. Clicking on the footnote marker jumps the page down to the footnote and highlights the citation. If you are using the desktop site and have Javascript enabled, then hovering your cursor over a footnote marker (or touching it on touch devices) will show a pop-up box containing the footnote.
• A Footnote displays the full citation for the source. Together the footnotes are displayed in an ordered list wherever the reference list markup {{reflist}} is placed. Each entry begins with the footnote label in plain text. The entire reference list is formatted in a slightly smaller font.

Each successive footnote label is automatically incremented. Thus the first footnote marker would be Template:Dummy ref, the second would be Template:Dummy ref and so on. Custom labels are also incremented: Template:Dummy refTemplate:Dummy refTemplate:Dummy ref, Template:Dummy ref Template:Dummy ref Template:Dummy ref.

For a single use footnote, the label is followed by a caret (^) that is a backlink to the matching footnote marker. For example:

If a named footnote is used in the text multiple times, then the footnote has multiple backlinks shown as letters:

Clicking on the backlink or pressing Template:Keypress returns to the footnote marker.

Footnotes in action

The superscript numeral "1" in square brackets at the end of this sentence is an example of a footnote marker.

Footnotes: the basics

See also: Help:Reftags

To create the footnote marker, determine the point in the page content where the marker is desired and enter the markup with the citation or note inside the Template:Tag tags. For example:

The {{reflist}} template will be explained in the next section.

The content inside the Template:Tag will show in the reference list. The ref tags can be added anywhere a citation or note is needed. There must be content inside the tags, else an error will show.

Where to place ref tags

Ref tags should follow any punctuation (usually a period), not precede it; see WP:REFPUNC. There should be no space between the punctuation and the tag:

Formatting ref tags

The content of the ref tags can be formatted using most wiki markup or HTML markup, although techniques such as the pipe trick and template substitution will not work in footnotes. For example:

The ref tag content may also contain an internal or external link:

Reference lists: the basics

Once any number of footnotes have been inserted into the content, the reference list must be generated. For the basic reference list, add {{reflist}} wherever the list is desired. Once the page is published and viewed, the footnotes will be automatically generated and numbered and the reference list will be generated. The main reference list is placed in a separate section, usually titled "References", "Notes" or the like.

Notes Template:Shortcut

• In some cases, a page has more than one reference list. Until 2014, multiple uses of {{reflist}} on the same page required use of a Template:Para parameter; that bug has been fixed and theTemplate:Para parameter may safely be removed.
• When editing, Template:Tag may be seen instead of {{reflist}}. This will automatically display the references in multiple columns, but Template:Tag does not offer the other advanced features of {{reflist}}.

Footnotes: using a source more than once

Template:Shortcut

See also: Wikipedia:Citing sources#Citing multiple pages of the same source

You can cite the same source more than once on a page by using named footnotes. The syntax to define a named footnote is:

Template:Tag

To invoke the named footnote:

Template:Tag

Note that the colon-followed-by-numeral names, like ":0", are currently generated by default in VisualEditor.

The actual name used can be almost anything, but it is recommended that it have a connection to the citation or note. A common practice is to use the author-year or publisher-year for the reference name. This helps editors remember the name, by associating it with the information that is visible to the reader.

Note that the footnote labels are incremented in the order they are used, and that they use the same label when reused, thus the labels can seem out of order: Template:Markup

When using both names and groups, the syntax is:

Template:Tag

Care should be taken when deleting references to avoid creating a cite error. See Avoiding common mistakes.

Reference lists: columns

Template:Shortcut Template:Hatnote When using Template:Tag or {{reflist}}, the list can be split into columns. The Template:Tag tag provides a default column width of 30 em. {{Reflist}} can be used to set a different column width:

Template:Tlx, where xx is the column width in em.

The number of columns will automatically be adjusted to the width of the display. It should be used only when necessary, as both the tag and the template have built-in auto-formatting capabilities providing a useful default display in most scenarios.

The set columns feature is now deprecated in favor of the option described above, which is better suited to flexible formatting for a variety of display screen sizes, ranging from mobile phones and tablets to wide-screen "cinema" displays. Forcing a fixed number of columns has been disabled in mobile view.

The number of columns to use is up to the editor, but some major practices include:

• Template:Tlx: Where there are many footnotes plus a page-width Bibliography subsection: see Template:Oldid
• Template:Tlx: Where Template:Sfnote are used; see Template:Oldid.

For example: Using Template:Tlx will create columns with a minimum width of 30 em, Template:Markup

List-defined references

Some or all of the footnotes can also be defined within the reference section/list, and invoked in the page content. This keeps those citations in one central location for easier maintenance and avoids cluttering the text. This is purely a source code changeTemplate:Sndthe actual display of the citation in the text to a reader is unaffected. For a more detailed evaluation of this method, see WP:LDRHOW. The syntax is:

{{reflist|refs=
<ref name="name1">Content</ref>
<ref name="name2">Content</ref>
<ref name="name...n">Content</ref>
}}

or, alternatively,

<references>
<ref name="name1">Content</ref>
<ref name="name2">Content</ref>
<ref name="name...n">Content</ref>
</references>

The footnote markers are included as usual for a named footnote. For example:

The references will be numbered, and appear in the output, in the order that they are first referred to in the content, regardless of their order within the list. All references in reference list must be referenced in the content, otherwise an error message will be shown.

Note that when you use the visual editor, you will not be able to add, remove, or change list-defined references.

Footnotes: embedding references

See also: WP:Nesting footnotes

Explanatory notes may need to be referenced. Because of limitations in the Template:Cite.php software, reference tags cannot be nested; that is, a set of Template:Tag tags cannot be placed inside another pair of Template:Tag tags. Attempting to do so will result in a cite error.

The templates {{r}} and {{refn}} can be used to nest references. The markup is:

Template:Tlx or

Template:Tlx or

Template:Tlx (shorter)

name and group being optional parameters. The content may include Template:Tag tags or another {{r}} template.

The other templates listed below in Predefined groups are variants of {{refn}} that include a styled group and have a matching styled reference list template.

Examples:

Using {{r}}

The use of the magic word #tag:ref is valid, but the sequence of parameters is invariant and nonintuitive. {{r}} as well as {{refn}} and its variants use this markup internally.

{{#tag:ref|refcontent|group=groupname|name=name}}

Footnotes: groups

Sometimes it is useful to group the footnotes into separate lists, for example to separate explanatory notes from references, or to list references for tables, image captions, infoboxes and navboxes. The sequence of footnote labels is independent in each group.

The syntax to define a footnote with a group is:

Template:Tag

The footnote marker group name must be enclosed in quotes if the group name includes a space, else a cite error will occur, otherwise quotes are optional.

The syntax for the reference list with a group is:

Template:Tlx

The reference list group name does not need to be enclosed in quotes.

Example: Template:Markup

Note that the footnote labels in the reference list show only the numbers and not the group name.

When using both names and groups, the syntax is:

Template:Tag

For the repeated note:

Template:Tag

Footnotes: predefined groups

See also: Wikipedia:Citing sources#Variation in citation methods and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Layout#Notes and references

<section begin=pregroup /> There are several predefined groups that can have a reference list styled so that the label (a superscripted character within square brackets, e.g., Template:Dummy ref) of an explanatory note or citation (aka footnote, reference) matches and links to the note marker label located in the main text and the label in front of the note's text in the appropriate group's list. There can be more than one of these groups' lists in the Notes, References and other similarly purposed sections.

These predefined note and citation groups have templates that make the wikitext markup simpler. These templates also allow a standard reference to be inserted, so that an explanatory note can have a reference, or citations can be nested.

Note: If the note's text has a reference name that is used more than once, the labels will still match, but the clickable alpha characters that toggle the note's display will be next to the note's label, with links to the multiple locations of its marker in the main text. See WP:REFNAME and the first point below in § Issues.

Template use by reference group type

<section begin=pregrouptable />

Group type	Footnote marker template or markup	Reference list template	Sample labels
none by default, but optionally any	Template:Tag	Template:Tlx	1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
	Template:Tlx (for nested references)
	Template:Tlx (for nested references)
lower-alpha	Template:Tlx Template:Tlx	Template:Tlx Template:Tlx	a b c d e f g h i j
upper-alpha	Template:Tlx	Template:Tlx	A B C D E F G H I J
lower-roman	Template:Tlx	Template:Tlx	i ii iii iv v vi vii viii ix x
upper-roman	Template:Tlx	Template:Tlx	I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X
lower-greek	Template:Tlx	Template:Tlx	α β γ δ ε ζ η θ ι κ
note	Template:Tlx	Template:Tlx	note 1 note 2 note 3

<section end=pregrouptable />

• Template:Tlx supports Template:Para and Template:Para, which work the same as the parameters in Template:Tag (see, for instance, the 3rd and 4th examples below). Do not enclose values in quotes.
• Template:Tlx supports the Template:Para, Template:Para, and Template:Para parameters, which work the same as the parameters in Template:Tlx. Do not enclose values in quotes.

In these examples, the footnote labels match between the footnote marker and the reference list:

Template:Markup Note: With named references you only need to add the details once. For each use after the first you just need to re-use the reference name. Doing this will not cause the inline superscript to display a custom name.

Template:Markup Note: Due to limitations in the MediaWiki software, do not use list defined footnotes that contain references.

Issues

• Multiple backlink labels (see WP:REFNAME) are always styled as lower-alpha. This can be confusing when Template:Tlx is used. See the note in the introduction of this section, above.
• The entries in the reference list will show the default decimal styling if:
  • The value for Template:Para in Template:Tlx or Template:Tag does not exactly match one of the predefined values; use Template:Tlx or variant as Template:Para will not be needed.
  • The value for Template:Para in Template:Tlx or Template:Tag is enclosed by quotes; use Template:Tlx or variant as Template:Para will not be needed.
  • Template:Tlx is indented with the Template:Code markup.
  • Template:Tag is used instead of Template:Tlx
• The entries in the reference list will have no styling if:
  • A reference is included in Template:Tlx or one of the variants and the style is set to bodyclass=hlist; to resolve this, replace the style with listclass=hlist.<section end=pregroup />
• If the note text contains an "=" sign, precede the note text with Template:Para, like this: {{efn|name=fn1|1=Very long footnote with an equation, 2+2=4}}

Reference lists: automatically generated

A page with Template:Tag tags but no reference list markup used to display an error, except on talk and user pages. In recent versions of Wikipedia, the error no longer appears; instead an automatically generated reference list (AGRL) is displayed at the bottom of the page.

Compared to the reference lists on properly formatted pages, an AGRL can be confusing to both readers and editors. But it is easily corrected by adding reference list markup such as the following. Add it at the position where the reference list would normally appear.

==References==
{{reflist}}

On talk pages, the {{reflist-talk}} template can be used to add a reference list to a specific discussion.

Footnotes: page numbers

Suppose you would like to cite one book, but different facts appear on different pages. You would like to cite the book again and again, but point each fact to the proper page. Suppose one fact is on page 8, a different fact on page 12, a third fact on page 18, a fourth fact on page 241. You could put a line in the "pages" parameter saying "see pages 8, 12, 18, 241" but a fact-checker might have to check all of them before figuring out the right one. Or, you could duplicate the entire citation for the book in each instance, but that would be redundant.

One common approach is to use shortened citations. The long citation to support the shortened citations can either be placed as a bullet point in a separate References section after the Footnotes section; or it can be placed in the first footnote to cite the source (with the initial relevant page number[s]). The remaining footnotes will use shortened citations (these usually contain the author's last name, the date of publication, and the relevant page number[s]).

A less common approach is to attach a Template:Tlx right after the footnote marker and replace the "8" with the appropriate page number. For example:

Template:Tlx compactly combines the functions of <ref> and Template:T: {{r|Schudson}} is equivalent to <ref name="Schudson"/> and {{r|Schudson|p=241}} is equivalent to <ref name="Schudson"/>{{rp|241}}.

Previewing edits

When you edit a single section of a page, the footnotes list will be visible when you preview your edits under the heading "Preview of references", although you will still not be able to see named references whose definition is outside the section you are editing.

Tools that can be used are the user:js/ajaxPreview or User:Anomie/ajaxpreview.js scripts or the wikEd gadget.

RefToolbar

Using the citation toolbar to name the first reference.

Using the citation toolbar to insert additional references to the first source.

You can use the citation toolbar to name references. When you first create a reference, you can enter a value in the "Ref name" box. When you want to reuse this reference, click the "Named references" button on the citation toolbar and choose which reference you would like to insert.

Issues and limitations

• Template:Cite.php
• subst: does not work within Template:Tag tags. Template:Phab
• The pipe trick does not work within Template:Tag tags. Template:Phab

Flagging inadequate referencing

See also: Template: Unreferenced/doc#Usage and Template:Citation style

• The template Template:Tlx should be added to articles where there are some, but insufficient, inline citations to support the material currently in the article. For biographies of living persons, use Template:Tlx instead.
• The template Template:Tlx should be added to articles with no references at all. For biographies of living persons, use Template:Tlx instead.
• The template Template:Tlx is for individual sections that have no citations in articles that have at least one citation somewhere else. For biographies of living persons, use Template:Tlx instead.
• The template Template:Tlx is specifically for articles needing additional medical references.

See also

• Template:Harvard citation#Using CITEREF directly and {{sfnref}}
• Wikipedia:Citing sources/Further considerations—a how-to article with some additional considerations for citing sources
• Wikipedia:Help desk—to ask questions about using footnotes in articles if you were not able to find the information you need on this help page.
• Template:Editor tools—{{Editor tools}}