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 Reflist 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 tag, or the corresponding Reflist template, placed in the editable text at the point where the footnotes are to appear. The text of a footnote is placed between opening and closing  tags, either at the point where the footnote marker is to appear, or within the  element. If the page contains footnote markers but no footnote list, a red cite error message will appear.

Creating a footnote marker
At the point in the page text where the footnote marker is to appear, enter the text of the footnote and put the two pieces of coding before and after the footnote-text, like this:


 * LibreOffice For Starters, First Edition, Flexible Minds, Manchester, 2002, p. 18

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 markup, a red warning message will appear, reminding you to write the markup 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 name attribute 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:


 * Perry's Handbook, Sixth Edition, McGraw-Hill Co., 1984

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):



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 "References" or "Notes (see the Footers in the layout guideline for more information), put the following markup:



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


 * Reflist

This template has parameters available for splitting the list into columns, and for controlling their width. For example, 2 puts the list of footnotes into two columns. (For more options, see the reflist template documentation.)

The footnote list must be inserted on the page below (after) all the footnote markers.

If the page has markup to generate a footnote list, but there are no footnote markers on the page, the list will simply appear as a blank line. 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:

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

{{testcases side by side|t3=Markup|t4=Renders as|box=y|title= Amazingly few discotheques provide jukeboxes. How razorback-jumping frogs can level six piqued gymnasts.
 * The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

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 tag or Reflist template is expanded to show the text of the footnotes against their corresponding numbers, like this:

{{quotation|

Where {{var|refcontent}} may include {{tag|ref}} tags. The {{var|name}} and {{var|groupname}} are optional, but must come after {{var|refcontent}}. If the {{var|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.

Example:

{{testcases side by side|t3=Markup|t4=Renders as|box=y|title= 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 are used or not. Here are some common approaches to laying out the footnotes.

A

This example uses standard footnotes with all citations and explanatory notes in a single Notes sections:

{{testcases side by side|t3=Markup|t4=Renders as|box=y|title= The Sun is pretty big. But the Moon is not so big. The Sun is also quite hot.

Citing one book repeatedly with different page numbers
Suppose you would like to cite one book. But different facts appear on different pages. And you would like to use one citation 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 the fact-checker might have to check all of them before figuring out the right one. Or, you could re-use the book citation, but have each one list a different page; but that would be clumsy. You can use shortened citations, but that requires the full citation (without page numbers) to be placed in a section near the end of the article. Another way is to attach a p.8 right after the reference pointer. and replace the "8" with whatever page number.

For example:

When using list-defined references, r can be used for the same style of in-text page references.