Help:Footnotes

This page explains how to create footnotes on Wikipedia pages. Footnotes are used most commonly to provide references in articles, although they have other uses as well. They are generated using the following tags in the editable text of a page:  within the text, and or   at the end where the footnote list is to appear.

The most common use of footnotes in Wikipedia articles is to provide inline citations to reliable sources, although footnotes can also be used for other purposes. The use of tags is not required by any policy or guideline, and other systems of inline citation, including parenthetical referencing, may be used at the editors' discretion. However, tags are by far the most popular system for inline citations.

This page concerns technical methods for creating footnotes. For advice on how to organize and format references, see Citing sources and Citation template examples.

Overview
The footnoting system involves two elements:
 * Footnote markers. These are links, usually in the form, , etc. Clicking on a footnote marker will take you to the correspondingly numbered footnote.
 * The footnotes themselves. These appear in a list (usually placed near the end of the article), and include links back to the corresponding footnote markers.

Footnote markers are generated using tags. The list of footnotes is generated using the

This will create a footnote marker (automatically numbered). The footnote text itself will appear in the footnote list, generated as described below. If there is no footnote list code, a red warning message will appear, reminding you to write the code that generates the list.

You can include formatting and links in a footnote in the usual way, although certain features, such as the pipe trick and template substitution, will not work in footnotes. For the formatting of references, citation templates, such as a generic citation, or more specific cite book, cite web, etc., are available, although many editors prefer not to use them. See Citing sources for details on how references can be structured.

To aid readability in the edit window, a single newline can be added after the closing  tag before continuing with the text of the paragraph. This has the same effect as putting a space after the closing tag.

Multiple references to the same footnote
It is possible to refer to the same footnote more than once, in other words to generate several footnote markers, all with the same number, which link to the same footnote. To achieve this, named footnotes (named references) are used.

A footnote is named using the  parameter of the   tag. Choose a name (such as "Perry"), and then at one of the footnote marker points (it makes sense to choose the first), enter the footnote like this:



Then you can create another identical marker linking to the same footnote from any other point in the text, by entering the following (note the final slash):



The footnote name is internal and will not be displayed anywhere when the page is viewed. Footnote names are case sensitive and may not be an integer numeral. The quotes are optional unless the name or group includes a space, or certain punctuation marks and other characters. It is recommended that names be kept simple and restricted to the standard English alphabet and numerals.

Be careful when deleting text containing named footnotes – if you delete the instance which contains the footnote text, without replacing it elsewhere, you will break other instances of the same named footnote on the page. Error messages will be generated if the named footnotes used have not been properly defined.

Creating the footnote list
At the point where you want the text of the footnotes to appear (usually at the end of the article in a section titled "Notes" or "References" – see the Footers in the layout guideline), write the following code:



A commonly used alternative, which also introduces some formatting, is the Reflist template:



This template has parameters available for splitting the list into columns, and for controlling their width. For example, creates a list split into two columns. For more options, see the reflist template documentation.

The footnote list must come after all the footnote markers.

If a footnote list is generated but there are no footnotes on the page, the list will simply appear empty (no warning or error message is displayed).

List-defined references
In order to make the article text easier to read in the edit window, particularly in sections with many citations, editors may decide to write all footnotes in the shorter "named" form. This can be done using the list-defined references function, where the content of the references is defined within the reference list, rather than in the article text. The syntax is as follows:

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

This can also be done using the Reflist template with a refs parameter:

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Amazingly few discotheques provide jukeboxes. How razorback-jumping frogs can level six piqued gymnasts.

What it looks like
When a page with footnotes is displayed in a browser, the  tags in the main text are converted to auto-numbered superscripts, like this:

Clicking on a numbered superscript takes you straight to the text of the corresponding footnote. (The "[citation needed]" item is not a footnote marker; it is produced by the fact template, used to indicate a point where a reference ought to be provided.)

The

Where refcontent may include  tags. The name and groupname are optional, but must come after refcontent. If the groupname is not specified, then the main and nested references will be rendered into the same reference list. Attempting to use #tag:ref more than once within list-defined references will result in a cite error. The syntax of #tag:ref is not obvious, as parameters must come after the content; refn may be used in place of the #tag:ref markup.

Example:

{{pre2| The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.{{#tag:ref|A footnote. |group="nb"}}

Explanatory notes
Most footnotes are citations, which identify sources. Another kind of footnote is an explanatory footnote which is a comment that would be too detailed or too awkward to include in the body of the article. The Wikipedia Manual of style does not mandate a layout for explanatory footnotes at the bottom of the article, and in fact provides for several approaches that are acceptable. An important factor whether or not shortened citations are used or not. Here are some common approaches to laying out the footnotes. Example A) This example puts all citations and explanatory notes into a single Notes sections, and does not use shortened citations:


 * {{pre2|

The Sun is pretty big. But the Moon is not so big. The Sun is also quite hot.