Wikipedia:Advanced footnote formatting: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 09:09, 28 January 2009

Revision as of 22:10, 14 April 2009

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<pre> In [[digital imaging]], a pixel&lt;ref>

Rudolf F. Graf, ''Modern Dictionary of Electronics'',

1999, Newnes, Oxford, page 569, isbn=ISBN 0-7506-43315,

Google Books (''see below:'' References).&lt;/ref>

(or picture element) is the smallest part of an image.</pre>

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In the above example, each part of the ref-tag footnote is indented (3 spaces) from the left margin.

There are numerous styles for displaying [[footnotes]] (or endnotes) in a Wikipedia article. There are also many predefined [[Wikipedia:Citation templates|footnote templates]], but with limitations, so (as of JanuaryApril 2009), footnotes also can be hand-formatted to best fit each article.

==Indenting and line-splitting==

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In the above example, the 3 footnotes are reduced to just short ref-name tags at first, then later expanded to show more details. However, they defer the extreme details for publisher, ISBN, and webpage-URL links to be contained as entries under "External links". Using that advanced method, no publisher names, ISBN numbers or long URL names appear in the upper article text for those 3 footnotes.

Each full footnote is coded within 3 lines of text, even though indented and pinpointing the page numbers. The tedious details are all deferred into the section "External links" (or "References") at the bottom of the article. That separation is possible by repeating the author name and title atin each entry when listed in the bottom sections. So, full footnotes become a 3-line indentation, rather than the typical 6-9 or 9-line blobs that clutter some articlemany textarticles.

==Advancement shock==

Even though the basic ideas of advanced footnote format are simple, there are many people who will fight against indenting the footnote coding (yet readily accept infoboxes with indented parameters coded down the page). There are also other people who might insist that the first footnote reference be a typical 9-line blob with full URL details, cluttering the text. They will reject a top footnote such as a "&lt;ref name=MD/>" which defers details to laterbe defined in a subsequent use of the same-named footnote.

It might be possible to get those people to read this essay, but if not, don't try to fight people with severe mindsets. Just move on to one of the other millions of Wikipedia articles that need footnote clarification.