Psychology Wiki:Footnotes

Wikipedia footnotes serve two purposes. First, they are used to add material that explains a point in greater detail, particularly if the explanation would be distracting if written out in the main article. Second, they are used to present citations to reliable sources that support assertions in the main article. As explained at Wikipedia:Citing sources, footnoting is one of several alternative ways to present citations.

Wikipedia has several mechanisms for creating footnotes that contain reciprocal hyperlinks, so that clicking on a number or symbol found in the main text brings readers to the corresponding footnote, and vice versa. Thus, as described below, two different types of footnote markup may be used to distinguish explanatory footnotes from citation footnotes. See, for example, the Jane Austen article.

The prevailing system for adding footnotes to an article is Cite.php, which involves the &lt;ref&gt; tag. This system has several advantages, including automatic sequential numbering of the footnotes and provisions for multiple references to the same footnote. To add such a footnote to an article, the editor includes the text of the footnote between two HTML-style tags, e.g. . Different classes of footnotes can be defined within an article using the "group" parameter inside the "ref" tag, as described below.

Editors may also use the older system of template-based footnotes, such as ref label and note label. These have the disadvantage that they are not numbered automatically; the editor has to choose a specific label. It is generally expected that footnotes will be labeled in the order in which they occur in the text. Therefore, if an editor adds such a template-based footnote in the middle of an article, the editor should also renumber/increment all the subsequent footnotes of the same type, by hand.

How to use

 * A simplified explanation is given at Help:Footnotes


 * 1) Place a &lt;ref> ... &lt;/ref> where you want a footnote reference number to appear in an article—type the text of the note between the ref tags.
 * 2) Place the '''  and   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 Citation templates. Use of such templates is neither encouraged nor discouraged; see WP:CITE.

Previewing a single section edit
When you edit a single section on a long page, the Notes or References section will not be visible when you preview your edits unless you use the editor gadget wikEd. Thus you ordinarily cannot see how your footnotes (text you place between  and   tags) will later appear when you save your edits.
 * Notes and references not normally visible

A simple workaround is to temporarily insert a  or   tag at the bottom of the edit box of the section you are editing (wikEd does this automatically). 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  or   tag, and save your edits. Now your footnotes should appear in the "Notes" or "References" section along with other footnotes on the page.
 * Workaround for notes and references

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.

Another complication is that you will not be able to preview the effect of citing a footnote from another section merely by citing its name (for example: ). 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.
 * Re-use of reference(s) from another section

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.

Separating reference lists and explanatory notes
It is often desirable for an article to list sources separately from explanatory notes. When this is done the sources may appear in an alphabetized list unlinked to the article (e.g., Starship Troopers) or in a list that is linked to specific text in the article by footnotes (e.g., Jane Austen). A separate section containing references is usually given the title "References", while the explanatory notes section retains the "Notes" title.

One way to generate a linked list of sources involves the  option of the &lt;ref&gt; tag, which is analogous to the   option described above. In this approach, narrative references are given their own "group" namespace. The group identifier is specified inside explanatory note &lt;ref&gt; tags and its final &lt;references /&gt; tag. The closing tag &lt;/ref&gt; does not change.

For example:  Example text, more example text. A point made with a supporting reference. A second appearance of a note. A note containing a supporting reference.

&#61;= Notes == instead.
 * Avoid use of "subst", or at least verify that it works correctly. A Mediawiki bug prevents the expansion of certain (if not all) "subst"'s within refs.
 * Template parameters do not pass to tags (for example,  within template source code; see also mw:Extension:Cite/Cite.php and User:Pengo/pageusingref). Ref tags can be used in variables when a template is used, though (for example, taxobox's status_ref parameter).
 * This bug can be bypassed using the #tag magic word: use  in the template instead of.

Resizing references
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.

Caution on converting citation styles
An older system using ref and note templates is still common. Converting this older system to the new system can make the references in an article easier to maintain.

Converting citation styles should not be done without first gaining consensus for the change on the article's talk page.

A December 2005 ArbCom case ruled that the following scripts could no longer be used by a certain Wikipedian:
 * Footnote3/numlink2note.pl, explained at Wikipedia talk:Footnote3/numlink2note.pl
 * Footnote3/order-footnote.pl, explained at Wikipedia talk:Footnote3/order-footnote.pl

Similarly, individual users may be forbidden to "manually convert citation styles on any articles."

So, tread lightly, and seek consensus first, before converting citation styles. For example, when using (semi-)bot tools as listed below:
 * User:Cyde/Ref converter converts articles that use the ref and note system into the more recent mw:Extension:Cite/Cite.php system;
 * Citation Tool diagnoses and fixes sequencing and duplication errors in Cite.php references. In the future, Citation Tool may (optionally) enable user-guided conversion of some or all of the  -numbered citations to named notes using the footnote3 template technology (which includes Harvard references).

CAUTION: do not edit-war with automated tools that convert in opposing directions.