Help:Footnotes

Footnotes are used most commonly to provide:

The use of Footnotes is only one of several options for providing source information in the article. Other systems of inline citation, including Shortened footnotes and Parenthetical referencing, may be used at the editor's discretion in accordance with the guideline on Variation in citation methods.

Footnotes are created using the software extension. This extension adds the HTML-like elements <ref>...</ref>, <references /> and <references>...</references>. The elements are also used in a number of templates; for example, it is becoming more common to use {{}} rather than <references /> as it can style the reference list.

The Footnotes system shows two elements on the page:

This is a footnote marker.

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 <ref>...</ref> tags. For example:

This is page content.

The content inside the <ref>...</ref> 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.

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:

...text.     Right

...text.     Wrong (tag before punctuation)

...text.     Wrong (space before tag)

This is page content.

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

This is page content.

Once any number of footnotes have been inserted into the content, the reference list must be generated. For the basic reference list, add {{}} wherever the list is desired. Once the page is saved 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.

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