Help:Overview of referencing styles: Difference between revisions

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{{Wikipedia how to}}

{{notice|This help page is an overview and gives concise examples of several systems. Please refer to the linked main articles for details. For a more general introduction see [[Help:Introduction to referencing]] or [[Help:Referencing for beginners with citation templates]].}}

Wikipedia uses various ''referencing systems'' to include[[Wikipedia:Citing and present citations of reliablesources|cite sources]] that support assertions in the article content and to add explanatory and supplementary material. This page compares two systems that are currently used ([[#Footnotes|Footnotes]] and [[#Shortened footnotes|Shortened footnotes]]) and two older systems that are deprecated and no longer used for new articles ([[#Footnote3|Footnote3]] and [[#Parenthetical referencing|Parenthetical referencing]]).

==Systems currently used==

==In-text cites==

The in-text cite is the element placed in the text that indicates or links to the full citation that supports the preceding content.

===Footnotes===

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|<nowiki>This is an in-text cite.<ref>citation</ref>

==References==

<references />

</nowiki>

|This is an in-text cite.<ref>citation</ref>

{{fake heading|sub=3|References}}

<references />

}}

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{{markup

|<nowiki>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 Blueblue Parrotparrot 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|2}}

==References==

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{{refend}}</nowiki>

|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 Blueblue Parrotparrot 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}}

{{fake heading|sub=3|Notes}}

{{reflist|2|close}}

{{fake heading|sub=3|References}}

{{refbegin}}

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{{refend}}

}}

==Older deprecated systems==

===Footnote3===

{{main|Wikipedia:Footnote3}}

Footnote3 is a [[deprecation|deprecated but still used]] method of referencing. New articles should not be created with it. Although it appears similar to the Footnotes system, it uses the {{tl|ref}} and {{tl|note}} templates.

{{markup

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|}

===Parenthetical referencing===

{{main|Wikipedia:Parenthetical referencing}}

[[Parenthetical referencing]] is a [[citation]] system in which citations are added within sentences using [[brackets]] (parentheses). An example would be "Paris is the capital of France (Smith 2020, p.&nbsp;1)". Full citations are collected in footnotes or endnotes, or in alphabetical order by author's last name, under a "references", "bibliography", or "works cited" heading at the end of the text.

This style of citation was a type of referencing used on Wikipedia until September 2020, when a [[Special:PermanentLink/976895063#Deprecate parenthetical citations|community discussion]] reached a consensus to [[deprecation|deprecate]] this format of citation. While some existing articles may still use this form of citation, new articles should not be created with it.

==See also==

{{For|instructions on how to "bundle" citations|Help:Citation merging}}

* [[Help:References and page numbers]]

==Notes==

{{reflist |refs=

<ref name=citebacklinks>A large number of reuses of a cite will result in a long sequence of backlinks that are unwieldy and useless; see {{phab|25455}}.</ref>

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}}

===Parenthetical referencing===

{{main|Wikipedia:Parenthetical referencing}}

==See also==

{{Wikipedia referencing}}