Help:Shortened footnotes
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Shortened footnotes are one method of citing sources for a Wikipedia article. They are a hybrid of standard footnotes and Harvard-style parenthetical referencing. Shortened footnotes, often with page numbers, appear in the reference section (wherever the reference list markup {{reflist}} is placed) and usually link (by {{Sfn}}) to the full citation for a source. These full citations usually appear in another list separate from the footnotes. See rationale below.
This help page is a how-to guide. It details processes or procedures of some aspect(s) of Wikipedia's norms and practices. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels of consensus and vetting. |
Please read Help:Footnotes first, as this guide builds upon the methods described there.
Shortened footnotes are used for several reasons:
- Multiple references
- (a) They allow the editor to cite many different parts of the same source without having to repeat the entire citation.
- Easier source-editing
- (b) When full citations are gathered in a separate section the article text is uncluttered and easier to work with.
- Single place for citations
- (c) It is easier to edit all the full citations at once.
- Other
- (d) The full citations can be sorted or alphabetized.
The most common method of using shortened footnotes is with the {{sfn}} template for the short notes, and {{cite xxx}}
templates for the full citation. The Citation Style 1 and Citation Style 2 templates automatically create an anchor for an {{sfn}} link, using the author last name and the year. An "anchor" is a landing place for a link to jump to. In the following example, an inline citation such as [1] links to the shortened footnote under "Notes", which in turn links to the full citation in the References list:
Markup | Renders as |
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The brontosaurus is thin at one end.{{sfn|Elk|1972|p=5}} Then it becomes much thicker in the middle.{{sfn|Elk|1972|p=6}} The Norwegian Blue Parrot will not move if its feet are nailed to the perch.{{sfn|Praline|1969|p=12}} Its metabolic processes are a matter of interest only to historians.{{sfn|Praline|1969|p=16}} ==Notes== {{reflist}} ==References== {{refbegin}} * {{cite book |last=Elk |first=Anne |title=[[Anne Elk's Theory on Brontosauruses]] |date=November 16, 1972}} * {{cite book |last=Praline |first=Eric |title=[[Dead Parrot sketch]] |date=December 7, 1969}} {{refend}} |
The brontosaurus is thin at one end.[1] Then it becomes much thicker in the middle.[2] The Norwegian Blue Parrot will not move if its feet are nailed to the perch.[3] Its metabolic processes are a matter of interest only to historians.[4] Notes
References
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Using {{sfn}}
There are several ways to create the shortened footnote. Most often, the {{sfn}} template is used to link to a full citation with simple markup:
The link is normally created from the authors' last names and the year of publication. For sources with multiple authors, pass their last names (to a maximum of four) as multiple parameters to the template:
Markup | Renders as |
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{{sfn|Jones|Smith|Hawthorne|1980|p=1}} {{reflist}} * {{cite book |last1=Jones |last2=Smith |last3=Hawthorne |title=Some Book |date=1980}} |
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{{sfn|Jones|Smith|Hawthorne|McDowell|1980|p=1}} {{reflist}} * {{cite book |last1=Jones |last2=Smith |last3=Hawthorne |last4=McDowell |last5=Dangerfield |title=Some Other Book |date=1980}} |
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The {{sfnp}} template works the same as the above example, except it places the date in parentheses:
Markup | Renders as |
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{{sfnp|Elk|1972|p=5}} {{reflist}} |
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Using {{harvnb}}
The {{sfn}} template was developed to automate the older process of placing {{harvnb}} within <ref>
tags. This method is still available and used in many existing articles:
The above method will also work with other "harv" templates like: {{harv}}, {{harvtxt}}, {{harvcoltxt}}, {{harvcol}}, {{harvs}}, and {{harvcolnb}}, for example:
Manual creation
You can manually create a link to the long citation by creating a custom reference anchor or concatenating #CITEREF
, the author's last name, and the publication year.[lower-roman 1] This is rarely used:
You can also place an unlinked shortened footnote within <ref>
tags:
Bundling citations
The {{sfnm}} template supports the inclusion of multiple sources in a single footnote. The {{harvnb}} template or other similar templates can be manually bundled in a single footnote, separated either with semicolons or the {{multiref}} template:
Markup | Renders as |
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{{sfnm |1a1=Elk |1y=1972 |1p=5 |2a1=Praline |2y=1969 |2p=12}} {{reflist}} |
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<ref>{{harvnb|Elk|1972|p=5}}; {{harvnb|Praline|1969|p=12}}.</ref> {{reflist}} |
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<ref>{{multiref | {{harvnb|Elk|1972|p=5}} | {{harvnb|Praline|1969|p=12}} }}</ref> {{reflist}} |
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The list of footnotes is created by using the {{reflist}} template or the <references />
tag. Some articles that use only shortened footnotes manually define narrower columns at {{reflist|20em}}
. References created via {{sfn}}, {{sfnp}}, {{sfnm}}, the standard <ref />
tags, and list-defined references will all be included in the same list.
The full citations are usually created with Citation Style 1 (CS1) and Citation Style 2 (CS2) templates. These templates automatically create a linkable anchor from the authors' last names and the year of publication. For example:
{{cite book |last=Elk |first=Anne |date=November 16, 1972 |title=[[Anne Elk's Theory on Brontosauruses]]}}
allows a "short" citation template, like {{sfn|Elk|1972}}
in the article.
The anchor can be created manually with {{sfnref}} or {{harvid}} in situations where the automatic anchors would create issues including:
- Multiple authors with the same last name
- No known last name for the author
- Unusual characters in the author field
- Multiple works in the same year by the same author
- Year of publication unknown
For example, an article might cite psychoanalysts Anna Freud and Sigmund Freud. If there are two full citations with the same last name and the same year of publication, as below, then the full citations would need to set custom anchors in the |ref=
parameter. The short inline citation can then be created using the same structure. Note the identical parameters for {{sfnref}} and {{sfn}}:
Markup | Renders as |
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<syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext"> In 1928, [[Sigmund Freud]] wrote that "religious influence" was one of the primary goals of education.{{sfn|S. Freud|1928|pp=47-48}} In her first published book, [[Anna Freud]] proposed that the education of a child is never independent of the adults they depend upon.{{sfn|A. Freud|1928}} ===Notes=== {{reflist}} ===References=== {{refbegin}} * {{cite book |last=Freud |first=Anna |date=1928 |title=Introduction to the Technique of Child Analysis |ref={{sfnref|A. Freud|1928}}}} * {{cite book |last=Freud |first=Sigmund |date=1928 |title=The Future of an Illusion |ref={{sfnref|S. Freud|1928}}}} {{refend}} </syntaxhighlight> |
In 1928, Sigmund Freud wrote that "religious influence" was one of the primary goals of education.[1] In her first published book, Anna Freud proposed that the education of a child is never independent of the adults they depend upon.[2] Notes
References
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Citations templates outside of CS1 and CS2, like vcite templates, {{Cite court}}, and {{cite comic}}, may require the |ref=
parameter. In rare cases, {{wikicite}} can be used to manually create the anchors for full citations written without templates. In the following example from the Bengal famine of 1943, an unpublished but publicly available manuscript by the Indian Government’s Regional Food Commissioner, is used as a primary source. As there are few acceptable places on Wikipedia to use unpublished memoirs as a source, no citation template directly matches the document:
{{wikicite | ref = "{{sfnref|Braund |1944}}" | reference = Braund, H. B. L. (1944). ''Famine in Bengal'', typescript. British Library Doc D792.}}
Full citations in the references list may be formatted manually or with citation templates. The reference list is formatted by placing the citations in an unordered list using the *
markup. Entries may be sorted by the author's last name. The text size may be formatted with {{refbegin}} and {{refend}}. The references list is normally displayed in one column with no indenting.
Markup | Renders as |
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{{refbegin}} *{{cite book |last=Elk |first=Anne |title=Anne Elk's Theory on Brontosauruses |date=November 16, 1972}} *{{cite book |last=Praline |first=Eric |title=[[Dead Parrot sketch]] |date=December 7, 1969}} {{refend}} |
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Date
The inline citation should include only the year. The full citation may include the year only or the full date in the |date=
parameter. Most citation templates will extract the year from a full date to form the anchor.
If an author has multiple works in the same year, regardless of whether it is a full date or only a year, then duplicate anchors will be generated. To resolve this, you can suffix the year with a lowercase letter. For example:
{{cite book |last=Elk |first=Anne |title=Anne Elk's Theory on Brontosauruses |date=November 16, 1972a}}
{{cite book |last=Elk |first=Anne |title=Anne Elk's Further Theory on Brontosauruses |date=December 20, 1972b}}
If the date is written in YYYY-MM-DD
format, you can suffix a lowercase letter in the |year=
parameter:
{{cite book |last=Elk |first=Anne |title=Anne Elk's Theory on Brontosauruses |date=1972-11-16 |year=1972a}}
{{cite book |last=Elk |first=Anne |title=Anne Elk's Further Theory on Brontosauruses |date=1972-12-20 |year=1972b}}
No author
Some sources do not have a single author with a last name, such as a magazine article or a report from a government institution. There is no consensus (in Wikipedia or among citation styles) about how to format author–date citations for works that do not have a specific author. Several choices are:
- For a newspaper or periodical, you may use the name of the paper and the date.
- For a publication by an institution, use either:
- The initials of the institution
- The name of the institution
- Alternatively, some style guides recommend using the title of the article.
- Other style guides recommend using "Anonymous" or "Anon."
An article should adopt one of these styles consistently. Using |ref={{harvid}}
in the citation template can handle these cases.
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In the 1980s, [[Madonna]] was named "Artist of the Decade" by ''Billboard'' magazine.{{sfn|Dayton Daily News|1990|p=23}} ==Notes== {{reflist}} ==References== * {{cite news |title=Michael, Madonna Top 'Billboard' Poll |newspaper=[[Dayton Daily News]] |date=May 25, 1990 |ref={{sfnref|Dayton Daily News|1990}} }} |
In the 1980s, Madonna was named "Artist of the Decade" by Billboard magazine.[1] Notes
References
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The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is located in New York.{{sfn|MoMA|2023}} ==Notes== {{reflist}} ==References== * {{cite web |date=2023 |website=MoMA.org |ref={{sfnref|MoMA|2023}} |title=Locations, Hours, and Admission |url= https://www.moma.org/visit/ }} |
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is located in New York.[1] Notes
References
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