Help:Reftags

This page, Help:Reftags, explains the use of the reftag element, "<ref>...</ref>" for defining reference wp:footnotes, as displayed by using a "{{Reflist}}" template to list the footnotes. A reftag can also be defined by using function "{{#tag:ref|...}}" to generate the text "<ref>...</ref>" and allow use of wp:subst'ing of templates to embed equivalent markup inside a footnote.

Defining a reftag

The general format is "<ref>text</ref>" for a simple reftag footnote. However reftags can have a name="xx" to define a footnote to be reused on a page by named ref, <ref name="xx"/>, as when citing the same webpage at several spots in the article text. There can be more than 3,000 reftag footnotes defined on a page, but usually there are less than a hundred.

Rather than define hundreds of footnotes in a single list, various reftags could split to some named groupings, by using "<ref group="gg">...</ref>" to collect those footnotes into group name "gg" as displayed by "<references group="gg"/>". For example, a common tactic is to define footnote group "fn" which shows each link as ^{"[fn 9]}" for the 9th footnote in the group="fn". A group name can be multiple words in ".." or in apostrophes (group='set xx yy'), but a single-word name can omit the quotemarks or apostrophes (as: group=fn). Hence, many group names are typically one-word labels, to omit excessive apostrophes or quotation marks.

See also

• wp:Advanced footnote formatting – special layouts
• wp:Citing sources – how to format footnotes or bibliography
• wp:Reliable sources (wp:RS) – about reputable references
• wp:Find sources – how to hunt for quality source documents
• Template:Cite web – most-common cite wp:template
• Template:Cite book – to link a book/chapter or volume as source reference