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When using a reference repeatedly in an article, the field "page=" cannot be used to indicate the page number as it would indicate only the referred page for one instance. As per looking around, I learned the following workaround - use a {{rp}} template which gives the page reference next to the note autonumber. An example can be found here. Thus each speific instance of use of a citation can be given its own page number, though it does look clunky sometimes.
Another method would be to use shortened footnotes which contain the short reference and page number for each use of that reference and accompanied by a bibliography section at the end of the document in which full details of all referencescan be found.
IMHO we should add this aspect to MOS so that readers have information on how to add page numbers for their refs should they so desire to do so. AshLin ( talk) 04:09, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
I was working on a table-only section (in Working time) that had a deficient reference citation, when I discovered that there seems to be no style suggestion for how to place a citation for an entire table when: (A) the section it belongs to contains no prose to markup, and (B) the table itself doesn't seem to have a good place, like a caption or a primary column heading, that should receive the citation. I couldn't find any recommendations in either WP:TABLE or WP:FOOT, so I'm punting it ( [1], [2]) to regular editors of these two project pages. Any thoughts? ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:05, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
<ref>tags</ref>
have been used, and it is usually means that the notes are in the same section, I replace them with <ref |group=t>
so that I can keep the format as close to the original as possible. Also I recently made an addition to a table where most of the entries were from one source (so the note was after the colon of the introductory sentence, but inside the table one entry was modified by another source. So for that line I placed the tag to the LEFT of a numerical entry as the column of numbers were formatted to the right and placing the ref tag to the right of the number would have messed up the format.Here is a simplified version of the table:
[t 1]
Corps
Commander
Men
I Corps
Master General of the Ordnance,
Count Colloredo
24,400
II Corps
General
Prince Hohenzollern-Hechingen
34,360
III Corps
Field Marshal the
Crown Prince of Würtemberg
43,814
IV Corps (Bavarian Army)
Field Marshal
Prince Wrede
67,040
Austrian Reserve Corps
Lieutenant Field Marshal Stutterheim
44,800
Blockade Corps
33,314
Saxon Corps
16,774
Totals
[t 2]264,492
- Table note
-
^ Siborne, (Fourth Edition (1894)) p. 767
-
^ Although Siborne estimated the number at 264,492, David Chandler estimated the number 232,000 (
Chandler 1981, p. 27)
I recently went through a peer review where someone suggested that last name first is policy for footnotes. I'm sure most people know this convention, but maybe not so many know that it's only the convention for bibliographic citation style, and when citations are written out in a footnote or endnote, the first name usually comes first. Is there a specific MOS policy on this? Shii (tock) 01:54, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
Surely the MOS should prohibit the following style in the spirit of WP:IBID:
- —. The Castle of Crossed Destinies (trans. William Weaver). London: Secker & Warburg, 1977
This, on the basis that each citation should be complete, self-contained, and context-free, i.e. never expressed in terms of how it differs from some previous item, which may or may not be still so. ― cobaltcigs 21:42, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
I suppose the idealist’s solution would be for each citation to be stored with complete information, and feature a user-preference to hide specific datums which match those of the previous entry or are otherwise redundant to whatever is being implied by the surrounding context (at run-time, on the client side, using javascript, defaulting to show-all). That way if you shuffle them around the page, the output can self-adjust without implying incorrect relations. Of course a pre-requisite for that would be 100% use of citation templates, which will require a lot of tedious conversion. ― cobaltcigs 22:45, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
There has never been consensus on this issue. See these sections for previous discussions on this subject in Footnotes and citation archives
SlimVirgin why after all this time do you still want to mandate the use of one placement of reference tags after punctuation when there are other who do not want to mandate the use that style? -- PBS ( talk) 08:44, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
I wanted to continue this conversation but also put in a break here given recent discussion at the link below. I'd like to hear others' ideas on this topic, and would invite those folks with MOS expertise to review this link and contribute here to the discussion and my proposal.
Thanks to you all for commenting here on this. I will close out the discussion at the MOS Talk Page (the link above), and reference this instead. Thanks again to all. Saebvn ( talk) 01:46, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
Though a note number normally follows a closing parenthesis, it may on rare occasion be more appropriate to place the number inside the closing parenthesis—if, for example, the note applies to a specific term within the parenthesis.
— The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition, §14.21
Here's the change I propose to make to WP:REFPUNC:
Material may be referenced mid-sentence or at the end of a sentence or paragraph. When a reference tag coincides with punctuation, the tag is placed immediately after the punctuation—with two exceptions, as recommended by the Chicago Manual of Style and other style guides:[5] Reference tags are placed before, not after, dashes; and where a reference applies to a specific term within a parenthetical phrase, rather than the entirety of that phrase, the tag may be placed within the closing parenthesis if appropriate.
- Example: Paris is not the capital city of England—the capital of which is London[6]—but of France,[7] and is widely known as a beautiful city.[8]
- Example: Kim Jong-un (Korean: 김정은,[9] Hanja: 金正恩,[10]) is the third and youngest son of Kim Jong-il with his late consort Ko Young-hee.
——
5. The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th ed. 2010, Clause 14.21, p. 666: "Relative to other punctuation, the [note] number follows any punctuation mark except for the dash, which it precedes. [...] Though a note number normally follows a closing parenthesis, it may on rare occasion be more appropriate to place the number inside the closing parenthesis—if, for example, the note applies to a specific term within the parenthesis."
If no one objects, I'll update the page appropriately. // ⌘macwhiz ( talk) 23:03, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
Men and their unions, as they entered industrial work, negotiated two things: young women would be laid off once they married (the commonly acknowledged "marriage bar"1), and men would be paid a "family wage."
Given the apparent consensus, I've gone ahead and made the edit to WP:REFPUNC, and updated WP:PAIC to be consonant with the change. // ⌘macwhiz ( talk) 03:31, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to inform people of our new ProveIt reference management tool, developed by the ELC lab at Georgia Tech. It's designed to provide a convenient GUI for viewing, adding, and modifying footnote references. Superm401 - Talk 19:39, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Why do we call these footnotes? It seems colloquial and inaccurate.
1. A footnote, just means a note at the bottom of the page of text. Now, it's debatable what that means on the web, but probably endnote is more accurate. It's usually at the end of the whole article. If you print the article to read it, the "footnotes" will be at the end.
2. Since footnote really specifies location, you may (in a print document) have footnotes that are explanatory, and differnetiated from citations to the litaerature. Or for that matter, in a lot of journals, it might be common to show explanatory notes as actual footnotes and citations at the end.
Net, net: calling stuff "footnotes" just sounds sort of inaccurate and middle school. Why not call them citations (if they are) and explanatory notes (if the are) and not get into the whole endnote versus footnote thing? (and I still maintain, they are a LOT more endnotey than footnotey).
TCO ( talk) 08:25, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
you are getting confused because the word "page" is used in two places, but the meanings are different. These numbers are at the END. And they are not visible while reading a particular screen. And they are all grouped together (like endnotes), vice scattered in the document.
And the word footnote gets tossed around this place all the time in the sense of a source citation and shows confusion and makes us look bad. Seriously, read some style guides or research paper preparation guides. There is a world out there that has been writing documents for years and "footnote" is an imprecise and poorly used term here. Compare outside the wiki experience.
Wiki for sure has had some academics come by. It is a big and old project. that said, this place is pretty "light" on that kind of input you expect from a real editor of a journal or even a style maven. My professor would always clarify the difference in terms. so do guides on technical writing. Also if you look at Notice to Authors for Science or Nature or American Chemical Society or any of those kinds of journals (social science too), they will be clear and precise on how they describe citations.
It's not a total slam on your project. Just a place to upgrade.— Preceding unsigned comment added by TCO ( talk • contribs)
(SEE SECTION BELOW, this is the old discussion)
I would like to summarize the discussion here: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_desk/Archives/2007_April_20#Citing_the_same_source_multiple_times_in_the_same_paragraph and incorporate it into this article as follows:
2.3 Consecutive sentences with the same citation
For consecutive sentences with the same citation, one footnote can be placed after the end of the last sentence. Except for a direct quote, or a statement that is particularly startling or contrary to "common knowledge" (i.e., likely to be questioned); these should be cited immediately after the quote or statement.- Verapar ( talk) 05:11, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
However, you may have to watch for new sentences being placed inside the group of consecutive sentences to see that citations are updated accordingly. [additional sentence to add to the above] - Verapar ( talk) 22:31, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
2.3 Consecutive sentences with the same source
For consecutive sentences with the same source, you can place one footnote at the end of the last sentence. Except for a direct quote, or a statement that is particularly startling or contrary to " common knowledge" (i.e., likely to be challenged); these should be cited immediately after the quote or statement. The footnotes will have to be updated if sentences citing other sources are inserted inside the text using this method of citation. The likelihood of such a future edit occurring and how well the text will be monitored, may be considerations in deciding whether to use this method. - Verapar ( talk) 16:40, 31 December 2010 (UTC) - last updated - Verapar ( talk) 07:02, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
I've now created this discussion on WP:CITE:
- Verapar ( talk) 16:23, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
Using one citation for consecutive sentences with the same source (instead of citing individual sentences)
For consecutive sentences with the same source, it is a common practice to put one citation at the end of the last sentence. Note that direct quotations or statements that are particularly startling or contrary to " common knowledge" (i.e., likely to be challenged) amongst the group of sentences, are still required to have citations immediately after them. Also note that the citations will have to be updated accordingly if new sentences citing other sources are inserted inside text using this method of citation. The likelihood of such a future edit occurring and how well the text will be monitored, may be considerations in deciding whether to use this method.
The same considerations apply when putting the citation only after the first sentence, especially if it is the topic of thesis sentence of the paragraph. It is also common practice for a citation to be placed after the sentence preceding a block quote that introduces the quotation (no citations are needed inside the block quote).
Comments:
I'm re-posting the new version here just in case the thread in my last section (started Dec. 30) above got too long for people to consider reading it. I have tried to address all the issues discussed with this version.
- Verapar ( talk) 11:17, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
I've now created this discussion on WP:CITE:
- Verapar ( talk) 16:14, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
I don't see these guides as purely rules. Would value having a sentence saying you can go either way, and that discusses the value of each. Clearly, in an off-wiki paper, I would not do the sentence by sentence stuff. but there are some who do here, and I see the value (given how the editing process works with any able to edit). TCO ( talk) 21:37, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
So is this discussion going to continue in two different pages? Verapar started it here, then moved it to WT:CITE, but people continue adding comments here. How about moving the comments in the two subsections above to WT:CITE and putting them in a coloured box or something? -- Hegvald ( talk) 18:30, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
I'm using the group=note feature on Startling Stories to separate notes from footnotes, and a reviewer at the current FAC has suggested that I insert a second reference to one of the notes. How can I do this with this markup? I know how to do it with regular citations; it's <ref name=fred>blah blah blah</ref> for the first one, and <ref name=fred/> for the second. But how do I do it with the group tag? Mike Christie ( talk – library) 00:24, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
Is it necessary to have the reference list into 2 columns, even if there are 7 references total? In my opinion, it seems a bit strange to divide it into 2 columns when there are only a few footnotes given. Tinton5 ( talk) 02:06, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
I just noticed this today. Instead of my cites being a subscript numeral it's a letter. This is new, is it not? Can someone direct me to the discussion? I'm just curious.... Shawn in Montreal ( talk) 15:04, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
New feature discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Cite.php: Custom cite links. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 15:41, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
Does anyone know what happened to the numbering of references when using the list defined reference format? There are no numbers anymore, just bullets. KeptSouth ( talk) 15:56, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
WP:REFPUN seems clear enough: "When a reference tag coincides with punctuation, the tag is placed immediately after the punctuation. [Exception: ] where a reference applies to a specific term within a parenthetical phrase, rather than the entirety of that phrase, the tag may be placed within the closing parenthesis if appropriate." On Kevin Pereira and Jennifer Lopez, references that apply to the entirety of a parenthetical phrase have been moved outside of the parens, as guided, but that has raised objections. Can someone else clarify this, if it doesn't say what it means? Thanks. -- JHunterJ ( talk) 03:49, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
The manual states: "Only one set of <ref></ref> tags may be included within {{#tag:ref}}; attempting to nest multiple references will render the reference list oddly."
Do you mean that you can't next a {{#tag:ref}} inside a {{#tag:ref}}, or that you can't have more than one <ref></ref> block inside a {{#tag:ref}}? Because I've used the latter several times, it's visible on footnote f on List of Governors of Alabama, containing references 10, 11, and 12 (though in each case, this is the second mention of the reference, so maybe that has something to do with it?) -- Golbez ( talk) 17:01, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
I have been told that this guideline actually requires the use of named references when the same footnote text is used more than once. That seems to contradict WP:CITEVAR to me. Is is really intended here that named references must be used? — Carl ( CBM · talk) 21:11, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
A fact.<ref>Smith (1998), p. 123</ref>
Another fact.<ref name=Smith2>Smith (1998), p. 127</ref>
Third fact.<ref name="Jones 2003 p67">Jones (2003), p. 67</ref>
Fourth<ref name=Smith3>Smith (1998), p. 136</ref>
and fifth facts.<ref name="Smith3">Smith (1998), p. 136</ref>
A fact.<ref>Smith (1998), p. 123</ref>
Another fact.<ref>Smith (1998), p. 123</ref>
Third fact.<ref>Jones (2003)</ref>
Fourth<ref>Smith (1998), p. 123</ref>
and fifth facts.<ref>Jones (2003)</ref>
I've been implementing WP:LDR for some time now, and I thought I'd mention some of the benefits I have experienced:
Implementing WP:LDR is essentially the same as re-using a citation; in both circumstances the reference would be located elsewhere in the article. Hence it is not a major leap for most editors to follow.
The one drawback I've encountered is while adding a citation. In this case, I have to do a full article edit in order to put the citation in place. This could be alleviated by having a bot periodically auto-move all citations to the reference section (but only for articles that have implemented WP:LDR). This way, we can insert a new reference with a section edit and still maintain a WP:LDR configuration. Regards, RJH ( talk) 14:38, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
How about logical and precise reference punctuation for articles on science and computing subjects (ref after full stop if for entire sentence, ref before full stop if for last section of sentence), and the current reference punctuation system for non-science and computing subjects (ref always after full stop, even if it doesn't ref the entire sentence)? See also Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (footnotes)/Archive 7#Footnotes are placed outside punctuation. -- Jeandré, 2011-03-21 t12:44z
The current rule is ugly and imprecise. Just as the rule for punctuation inside/outside quote marks, putting the reference before the punctuation makes it clear that it is part of that clause. As a reader, when you hit a period/full stop, you expect it mean to just that - end of sentence, end of concept. But then you have to visually parse the reference notation and say to yourself "oh wait, that's not really the end, there's more." It's illogical and inefficient. Highlandsun ( talk) 18:02, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
I am all in favour of the compromise wording that was used before, but there was an RFC on this issued last October and the outcome at that time was overwhelmingly in favour of no compromise (with Tony1 one of the strongest advocates of no compromise) -- See preamble and RFC: Should ref tags be placed after punctuation?. If this is to be changed -- and consensus can change -- then there needs to be another RFC. I will support change via another RFC, but I will not initiate another RFC. -- PBS ( talk) 09:32, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
Mitch Ames ( talk) 13:54, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
I have copied this discussion - with minor modifications for context - from Talk:Easter_Island#Non-breaking_space_between_linked_text_and_ref, because it is a general formatting issue. The problem is not unique to that article. Mitch Ames ( talk) 10:55, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
I removed a non-breaking space in the lead paragraph of the Easter Island article between the linked text " slave raiding" and the ref tag after it, to comply with WP:REFPUNCT. Beyond My Ken restored it because "without the nbsp, the ref becomes part of the link in some browsers". It seems odd that this problem should occur here, and that there is no mention of such possible problems in WP:REFPUNCT. Some questions for Beyond My Ken:
Mitch Ames ( talk) 05:02, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
/* Links */
a {
text-decoration: none;
color: #0645ad;
background: none;
}
a:visited {
color: #0b0080;
}
a:active {
color: #faa700;
}
a:hover {
text-decoration: underline;
}
I have my preferences set to always underline links, which is the way I prefer them. Obviously if I turned that off, the problem would go away, as it does when I log out and my preferences are no longer in force, but that really is just ignoring the problem instead of fixing it. If an editor chooses to have links underlined, than the system should do so properly, right? Beyond My Ken ( talk) 18:20, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
So we agree that there is a definite, reproducible problem for some combinations of user preferences (underline link = always) and browser (IE8) if a ref tag immediately follows linked text. Do we agree that putting a non-breaking space in the article is not the correct solution? I'd like to remove the non-breaking space from Easter Island, and leave others to determine what is the correct article-independent solution. Mitch Ames ( talk) 01:33, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
Should this problem be listed under WP:FN#Known_bugs? Mitch Ames ( talk) 01:36, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
That won't work, as it will show a square dot on older browsers. Frankly, this is a very minor issue: it depends on two things— IE and a wikilink followed by a ref, which should be rare —and it doesn't break anything. This cosmetic issue can be resolved by adding this to your Special:MyPage/skin.css:
/* Add a zero-width space before the in-text citation */
sup.reference:before {
content: "\200B"; text-decoration: none;
}
---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 11:16, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
The description of the bug at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(footnotes)#Known_bugs and Help:Reference_display_customization says "Internet Explorer", but I think we should qualify that. The problem appears with IE8, it does not appear with IE6 (the default browser installed with XP), and I don't know about other versions. I propose changing the description of the bug and the fix to say Internet Explorer 8, rather than just Internet Explorer. Has anyone tested with IE 7, 9, 10? Mitch Ames ( talk) 03:44, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
References tags should immediately follow the text to which they refer, with no space before the tag. Multiple consecutive tags should have no space between them.
... The short cut doesn't exist yet, but I'll create it if we proceed.
Here's an alternative, per Avenue's suggestion in
#Voting below. (I don't like this one, but others may prefer it.)
Mitch Ames (
talk) 10:57, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
{{
collapse top|Proposed change 2, addition after REFPUNCT}}
Material may be referenced mid-sentence ... or at the end of a sentence or paragraph. When a reference tag coincides with punctuation, the tag is placed immediately after the punctuation.
There are two exceptions, ... as recommended by the Chicago Manual of Style ...
References tags should immediately follow the text to which they refer, with no space before the tag. Multiple tags should have no space between them.
...
|}
And a third one - see discussion below in
#Voting.
Mitch Ames (
talk) 11:19, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
{{
collapse top|Proposed change 3}}
Material may be referenced mid-sentence ... or at the end of a sentence or paragraph.
References tags should immediately follow the text to which they refer, with no space before the tag. Multiple tags should have no space between them.
When a reference tag coincides with punctuation, the tag is placed immediately after the punctuation.
There are two exceptions, ... as recommended by the Chicago Manual of Style ...
...
|}
Here's a fourth option. -- Avenue ( talk) 16:17, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
{{
collapse top|Proposed change 4}}
Done Mitch Ames ( talk) 12:00, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
During the #Non-breaking space between linked text and ref discussion above, I noticed that WP:REFPUNCT says (with my emphasis added)
When a reference tag coincides with punctuation, the tag is placed immediately after the punctuation.
however nowhere does the page say that the tag should immediately follow the text, with no intervening space (when there is no punctuation). I suggest that it should say this explicitly. The obvious place to put this would be in the first sentence of WP:REFPUNCT ("Material may be referenced mid-sentence ..."), but presumably this would require a change to the section title "Ref tags and punctuation" because the addition would apply when there was no punctuation. Mitch Ames ( talk) 01:49, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
{{
collapse top|Irrelevant conflation of this with previous discussion}}
|}
Gadget, I'm not finding anything at the linked page about the problem I have in mind. Here's what should happen:
The Moon is pretty big. The Sun is really, really big. [1] They're both pretty far away from the Earth.
Here's what sometimes does happen (if you don't use a non-breaking space):
The Moon is pretty big. The Sun is really, really big. [1] They're both pretty far away from the Earth.
The page you link has a script for fixing the leading, but what I want is something that prevents the "[1]" from being placed at the beginning of a line that the "[1]" doesn't support. I don't see anything there that would prevent a footnote from coming astray of the sentence it supports (maybe I missed it?). A non-breaking space solves this trivially, for all users, by preventing the "big." from being separated from the "[1]". It's exactly the same solution that we use to prevent (for example) "5" from coming astray of "grams" when writing about numbers.
Mitch, I would in handle the two issues separately, and in both instances I would tell people what is "normally" done, rather than what they "should do" or "must do". WhatamIdoing ( talk) 01:01, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
The Moon is pretty big. The Sun is really, really big [1]. They're both pretty far away from the Earth.
I don't suppose anyone would like to discuss the change that I've proposed (when I created this section) to WP:REFPUNCT, which has got nothing to do with non-breaking spaces ... Mitch Ames ( talk) 13:20, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
OK, I propose to add this to the page:
("Style" and "Ref tags and punctuation" already exist, but are shown here to illustrate where the new "Spacing" section will be.)
{{
collapse top|Proposed addition}}
Material may be referenced mid-sentence [...] or at the end of a sentence or paragraph. Reference tags should immediately follow the text to which they refer, with no space before the tag. When a reference tag coincides with punctuation, the tag is placed immediately after the punctuation. Multiple tags should have no space between them.
There are two exceptions to the rule about references tags following punctuation, as recommended by the Chicago Manual of Style ...
...
|}
Can I have some votes please, yes, no, alternatives etc. Mitch Ames ( talk) 10:25, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Let's keep the issue of in-text cite wrapping separate from the issue of whether or not there should be a space between the text and the in-text cite.
I don't see in-text cite wrapping as a huge issue, but I'm willing to look at it
General ways to fix this:
Ways to add the space or joiner character:
<ref>
tag— there are millions of <ref>
tags---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 16:51, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
text (breakable space) (zero-width joiner) ref tag
would actually break after the text. Are you proposing text (zero-width joiner) (breakable space) (zero-width joiner) ref tag
, thus creating a new form of non-breaking space?Sentence. [1]
" be joined, or will only "Sentence.[1]
" be joined?
WhatamIdoing (
talk) 06:34, 26 April 2011 (UTC)My proposed addition to the Style section, in #Proposed update to Manual of Style - no space before ref tags above, may be relevant. Mitch Ames ( talk) 10:26, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
<ref>
tag will not fix this issue.
<ref>
tag, but there are millions of <ref>
tags so this is not an effective solution. And you have to add it before each and every tag in a series to make them nowrap.
A standard space before the <ref>
tag has nothing to do with wrapping. By default there is nothing to join the in-text cite to the preceding text. ---—
Gadget850 (Ed)
talk 11:34, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Adjust your browser screen width and watch the in-text cites.
This example has no characters before the <ref>
tags:
1. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam. [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]
This example has standard spaces before each <ref>
tag:
2. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam. [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17]
This example has non-breaking spaces before each <ref>
tag:
3. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam. [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23]
This example has zero-width joiners before each <ref>
tag:
4. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam. [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29]
I don't see that there is a universal solution that we can implement. If a reader feels this is a problem, we do have a CSS fix for some browsers. I can open a bug report on this. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 22:27, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
I've marked the wrapped refs (5, 6, and 7) with a red arrow. You can verify for yourself that there is no space in this version of the article, which is here. Which of these strings of refs wraps depends on the exact width of your browser window; it's not just the one set.
Gadget, if we make all of the tags stick together, I'm a little concerned about what might happen with narrow screens/large font sizes when we have such long strings of citations back to back (like refs number 11 through 27 here).
(Apologies for dumping a large image on your screens.) WhatamIdoing ( talk) 22:18, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Is it possible to have refs inside other refs? Specifically, it would be nice to be able to add references inside notes (achieved with the group="note" attribute of ref). Naively trying to do this gives parse errors. Is there a workaround? – CWenger ( ^ • @) 20:16, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
Help:Footnotes is essentially a short version of this page. It is frequently out of date. Either merge it here or redirect it to Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 13:48, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
I've worked on Help:Footnotes a bit; ultimately I hope to have all the relevant information from the MOS page transferred to there, with the rest belonging at WP:Citing sources.-- Kotniski ( talk) 12:28, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
I count 4 articles: Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners, Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Footnotes, Wikipedia:Citing sources, and Help:Footnotes. I think MoS/Footnotes should remain how it is (or incorporate more); we need a page in the MoS describing how footnotes should be shown on Wikipedia. The others I am divided on. Perhaps Help:Footnotes and Referencing for beginners should be merged to serve as a short overview for beginners. I think the Citing sources should be collected into the MoS, as it does deal with Wikipedia style and what is expected of an article. Maybe we could tease out the "how to make footnotes" stuff from WP:CITE so that it focuses on what stuff in the sources should be cited, when and how often to make citations. So merge the "How to format and place citations" section into MoS/Footnotes. The result would be three articles: A brief article to explain to beginners about citing sources, an article to explain the different methods of formatting footnotes and the different syntax to use, and an article on when to cite, what to cite, and what information a citation should include. -- Odie5533 ( talk) 02:19, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
OK, let's leave the beginners' page out of it for the moment, since I think we all agree what role it should play, and it doesn't much affect the other pages (since we would expect the information there to be duplicated on the "advanced" pages anyway). As far as the other (two) pages are concerned, I think I more or less agree with you about their scope, though not necessarily about their titles. The one you want to call Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Footnotes I would prefer to call Help:Footnotes, since it's mainly going to contain technical information (this syntax produces this effect) rather than style guidance (on Wikipedia we like editors to do it like this). Given that 90%+ of footnotes are citations, it seems confusing to have two "style" pages titled as you propose.-- Kotniski ( talk) 10:20, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
We have had a bit of discussion and I think this is leading us to:
* Change
Wikipedia:Citing sources to focus on how to cite a source and remove the presentation material.
Support/Oppose
I also propose that:
Support/Oppose
Everyone is doing these cool proposals, so here's mine. -- Odie5533 ( talk) 16:06, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
Well, everyone seems to be happy with the solution of splitting this page between the other ones. There's no objection at WT:MOS to moving REFPUNC to there (in place of WP:PAIC which says virtually the same anyway). I'm going to start preparing for this.-- Kotniski ( talk) 12:05, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
Well, I've merged it (most of it was duplicated already, as it turns out). Suggest further work be done especially on WP:Citing sources, which is rather a mess.-- Kotniski ( talk) 09:58, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
Is there a guideline for this? Should there be a reference after every sentence? If the same reference is used for a whole section, should the citation note be placed at the end of the section or after every sentence in the section? Bejinhan talks 05:22, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 5 | ← | Archive 10 | Archive 11 | Archive 12 |
When using a reference repeatedly in an article, the field "page=" cannot be used to indicate the page number as it would indicate only the referred page for one instance. As per looking around, I learned the following workaround - use a {{rp}} template which gives the page reference next to the note autonumber. An example can be found here. Thus each speific instance of use of a citation can be given its own page number, though it does look clunky sometimes.
Another method would be to use shortened footnotes which contain the short reference and page number for each use of that reference and accompanied by a bibliography section at the end of the document in which full details of all referencescan be found.
IMHO we should add this aspect to MOS so that readers have information on how to add page numbers for their refs should they so desire to do so. AshLin ( talk) 04:09, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
I was working on a table-only section (in Working time) that had a deficient reference citation, when I discovered that there seems to be no style suggestion for how to place a citation for an entire table when: (A) the section it belongs to contains no prose to markup, and (B) the table itself doesn't seem to have a good place, like a caption or a primary column heading, that should receive the citation. I couldn't find any recommendations in either WP:TABLE or WP:FOOT, so I'm punting it ( [1], [2]) to regular editors of these two project pages. Any thoughts? ~ Jeff Q (talk) 01:05, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
<ref>tags</ref>
have been used, and it is usually means that the notes are in the same section, I replace them with <ref |group=t>
so that I can keep the format as close to the original as possible. Also I recently made an addition to a table where most of the entries were from one source (so the note was after the colon of the introductory sentence, but inside the table one entry was modified by another source. So for that line I placed the tag to the LEFT of a numerical entry as the column of numbers were formatted to the right and placing the ref tag to the right of the number would have messed up the format.Here is a simplified version of the table:
[t 1]
Corps
Commander
Men
I Corps
Master General of the Ordnance,
Count Colloredo
24,400
II Corps
General
Prince Hohenzollern-Hechingen
34,360
III Corps
Field Marshal the
Crown Prince of Würtemberg
43,814
IV Corps (Bavarian Army)
Field Marshal
Prince Wrede
67,040
Austrian Reserve Corps
Lieutenant Field Marshal Stutterheim
44,800
Blockade Corps
33,314
Saxon Corps
16,774
Totals
[t 2]264,492
- Table note
-
^ Siborne, (Fourth Edition (1894)) p. 767
-
^ Although Siborne estimated the number at 264,492, David Chandler estimated the number 232,000 (
Chandler 1981, p. 27)
I recently went through a peer review where someone suggested that last name first is policy for footnotes. I'm sure most people know this convention, but maybe not so many know that it's only the convention for bibliographic citation style, and when citations are written out in a footnote or endnote, the first name usually comes first. Is there a specific MOS policy on this? Shii (tock) 01:54, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
Surely the MOS should prohibit the following style in the spirit of WP:IBID:
- —. The Castle of Crossed Destinies (trans. William Weaver). London: Secker & Warburg, 1977
This, on the basis that each citation should be complete, self-contained, and context-free, i.e. never expressed in terms of how it differs from some previous item, which may or may not be still so. ― cobaltcigs 21:42, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
I suppose the idealist’s solution would be for each citation to be stored with complete information, and feature a user-preference to hide specific datums which match those of the previous entry or are otherwise redundant to whatever is being implied by the surrounding context (at run-time, on the client side, using javascript, defaulting to show-all). That way if you shuffle them around the page, the output can self-adjust without implying incorrect relations. Of course a pre-requisite for that would be 100% use of citation templates, which will require a lot of tedious conversion. ― cobaltcigs 22:45, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
There has never been consensus on this issue. See these sections for previous discussions on this subject in Footnotes and citation archives
SlimVirgin why after all this time do you still want to mandate the use of one placement of reference tags after punctuation when there are other who do not want to mandate the use that style? -- PBS ( talk) 08:44, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
I wanted to continue this conversation but also put in a break here given recent discussion at the link below. I'd like to hear others' ideas on this topic, and would invite those folks with MOS expertise to review this link and contribute here to the discussion and my proposal.
Thanks to you all for commenting here on this. I will close out the discussion at the MOS Talk Page (the link above), and reference this instead. Thanks again to all. Saebvn ( talk) 01:46, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
Though a note number normally follows a closing parenthesis, it may on rare occasion be more appropriate to place the number inside the closing parenthesis—if, for example, the note applies to a specific term within the parenthesis.
— The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition, §14.21
Here's the change I propose to make to WP:REFPUNC:
Material may be referenced mid-sentence or at the end of a sentence or paragraph. When a reference tag coincides with punctuation, the tag is placed immediately after the punctuation—with two exceptions, as recommended by the Chicago Manual of Style and other style guides:[5] Reference tags are placed before, not after, dashes; and where a reference applies to a specific term within a parenthetical phrase, rather than the entirety of that phrase, the tag may be placed within the closing parenthesis if appropriate.
- Example: Paris is not the capital city of England—the capital of which is London[6]—but of France,[7] and is widely known as a beautiful city.[8]
- Example: Kim Jong-un (Korean: 김정은,[9] Hanja: 金正恩,[10]) is the third and youngest son of Kim Jong-il with his late consort Ko Young-hee.
——
5. The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th ed. 2010, Clause 14.21, p. 666: "Relative to other punctuation, the [note] number follows any punctuation mark except for the dash, which it precedes. [...] Though a note number normally follows a closing parenthesis, it may on rare occasion be more appropriate to place the number inside the closing parenthesis—if, for example, the note applies to a specific term within the parenthesis."
If no one objects, I'll update the page appropriately. // ⌘macwhiz ( talk) 23:03, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
Men and their unions, as they entered industrial work, negotiated two things: young women would be laid off once they married (the commonly acknowledged "marriage bar"1), and men would be paid a "family wage."
Given the apparent consensus, I've gone ahead and made the edit to WP:REFPUNC, and updated WP:PAIC to be consonant with the change. // ⌘macwhiz ( talk) 03:31, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to inform people of our new ProveIt reference management tool, developed by the ELC lab at Georgia Tech. It's designed to provide a convenient GUI for viewing, adding, and modifying footnote references. Superm401 - Talk 19:39, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
Why do we call these footnotes? It seems colloquial and inaccurate.
1. A footnote, just means a note at the bottom of the page of text. Now, it's debatable what that means on the web, but probably endnote is more accurate. It's usually at the end of the whole article. If you print the article to read it, the "footnotes" will be at the end.
2. Since footnote really specifies location, you may (in a print document) have footnotes that are explanatory, and differnetiated from citations to the litaerature. Or for that matter, in a lot of journals, it might be common to show explanatory notes as actual footnotes and citations at the end.
Net, net: calling stuff "footnotes" just sounds sort of inaccurate and middle school. Why not call them citations (if they are) and explanatory notes (if the are) and not get into the whole endnote versus footnote thing? (and I still maintain, they are a LOT more endnotey than footnotey).
TCO ( talk) 08:25, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
you are getting confused because the word "page" is used in two places, but the meanings are different. These numbers are at the END. And they are not visible while reading a particular screen. And they are all grouped together (like endnotes), vice scattered in the document.
And the word footnote gets tossed around this place all the time in the sense of a source citation and shows confusion and makes us look bad. Seriously, read some style guides or research paper preparation guides. There is a world out there that has been writing documents for years and "footnote" is an imprecise and poorly used term here. Compare outside the wiki experience.
Wiki for sure has had some academics come by. It is a big and old project. that said, this place is pretty "light" on that kind of input you expect from a real editor of a journal or even a style maven. My professor would always clarify the difference in terms. so do guides on technical writing. Also if you look at Notice to Authors for Science or Nature or American Chemical Society or any of those kinds of journals (social science too), they will be clear and precise on how they describe citations.
It's not a total slam on your project. Just a place to upgrade.— Preceding unsigned comment added by TCO ( talk • contribs)
(SEE SECTION BELOW, this is the old discussion)
I would like to summarize the discussion here: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_desk/Archives/2007_April_20#Citing_the_same_source_multiple_times_in_the_same_paragraph and incorporate it into this article as follows:
2.3 Consecutive sentences with the same citation
For consecutive sentences with the same citation, one footnote can be placed after the end of the last sentence. Except for a direct quote, or a statement that is particularly startling or contrary to "common knowledge" (i.e., likely to be questioned); these should be cited immediately after the quote or statement.- Verapar ( talk) 05:11, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
However, you may have to watch for new sentences being placed inside the group of consecutive sentences to see that citations are updated accordingly. [additional sentence to add to the above] - Verapar ( talk) 22:31, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
2.3 Consecutive sentences with the same source
For consecutive sentences with the same source, you can place one footnote at the end of the last sentence. Except for a direct quote, or a statement that is particularly startling or contrary to " common knowledge" (i.e., likely to be challenged); these should be cited immediately after the quote or statement. The footnotes will have to be updated if sentences citing other sources are inserted inside the text using this method of citation. The likelihood of such a future edit occurring and how well the text will be monitored, may be considerations in deciding whether to use this method. - Verapar ( talk) 16:40, 31 December 2010 (UTC) - last updated - Verapar ( talk) 07:02, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
I've now created this discussion on WP:CITE:
- Verapar ( talk) 16:23, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
Using one citation for consecutive sentences with the same source (instead of citing individual sentences)
For consecutive sentences with the same source, it is a common practice to put one citation at the end of the last sentence. Note that direct quotations or statements that are particularly startling or contrary to " common knowledge" (i.e., likely to be challenged) amongst the group of sentences, are still required to have citations immediately after them. Also note that the citations will have to be updated accordingly if new sentences citing other sources are inserted inside text using this method of citation. The likelihood of such a future edit occurring and how well the text will be monitored, may be considerations in deciding whether to use this method.
The same considerations apply when putting the citation only after the first sentence, especially if it is the topic of thesis sentence of the paragraph. It is also common practice for a citation to be placed after the sentence preceding a block quote that introduces the quotation (no citations are needed inside the block quote).
Comments:
I'm re-posting the new version here just in case the thread in my last section (started Dec. 30) above got too long for people to consider reading it. I have tried to address all the issues discussed with this version.
- Verapar ( talk) 11:17, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
I've now created this discussion on WP:CITE:
- Verapar ( talk) 16:14, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
I don't see these guides as purely rules. Would value having a sentence saying you can go either way, and that discusses the value of each. Clearly, in an off-wiki paper, I would not do the sentence by sentence stuff. but there are some who do here, and I see the value (given how the editing process works with any able to edit). TCO ( talk) 21:37, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
So is this discussion going to continue in two different pages? Verapar started it here, then moved it to WT:CITE, but people continue adding comments here. How about moving the comments in the two subsections above to WT:CITE and putting them in a coloured box or something? -- Hegvald ( talk) 18:30, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
I'm using the group=note feature on Startling Stories to separate notes from footnotes, and a reviewer at the current FAC has suggested that I insert a second reference to one of the notes. How can I do this with this markup? I know how to do it with regular citations; it's <ref name=fred>blah blah blah</ref> for the first one, and <ref name=fred/> for the second. But how do I do it with the group tag? Mike Christie ( talk – library) 00:24, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
Is it necessary to have the reference list into 2 columns, even if there are 7 references total? In my opinion, it seems a bit strange to divide it into 2 columns when there are only a few footnotes given. Tinton5 ( talk) 02:06, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
I just noticed this today. Instead of my cites being a subscript numeral it's a letter. This is new, is it not? Can someone direct me to the discussion? I'm just curious.... Shawn in Montreal ( talk) 15:04, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
New feature discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Cite.php: Custom cite links. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 15:41, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
Does anyone know what happened to the numbering of references when using the list defined reference format? There are no numbers anymore, just bullets. KeptSouth ( talk) 15:56, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
WP:REFPUN seems clear enough: "When a reference tag coincides with punctuation, the tag is placed immediately after the punctuation. [Exception: ] where a reference applies to a specific term within a parenthetical phrase, rather than the entirety of that phrase, the tag may be placed within the closing parenthesis if appropriate." On Kevin Pereira and Jennifer Lopez, references that apply to the entirety of a parenthetical phrase have been moved outside of the parens, as guided, but that has raised objections. Can someone else clarify this, if it doesn't say what it means? Thanks. -- JHunterJ ( talk) 03:49, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
The manual states: "Only one set of <ref></ref> tags may be included within {{#tag:ref}}; attempting to nest multiple references will render the reference list oddly."
Do you mean that you can't next a {{#tag:ref}} inside a {{#tag:ref}}, or that you can't have more than one <ref></ref> block inside a {{#tag:ref}}? Because I've used the latter several times, it's visible on footnote f on List of Governors of Alabama, containing references 10, 11, and 12 (though in each case, this is the second mention of the reference, so maybe that has something to do with it?) -- Golbez ( talk) 17:01, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
I have been told that this guideline actually requires the use of named references when the same footnote text is used more than once. That seems to contradict WP:CITEVAR to me. Is is really intended here that named references must be used? — Carl ( CBM · talk) 21:11, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
A fact.<ref>Smith (1998), p. 123</ref>
Another fact.<ref name=Smith2>Smith (1998), p. 127</ref>
Third fact.<ref name="Jones 2003 p67">Jones (2003), p. 67</ref>
Fourth<ref name=Smith3>Smith (1998), p. 136</ref>
and fifth facts.<ref name="Smith3">Smith (1998), p. 136</ref>
A fact.<ref>Smith (1998), p. 123</ref>
Another fact.<ref>Smith (1998), p. 123</ref>
Third fact.<ref>Jones (2003)</ref>
Fourth<ref>Smith (1998), p. 123</ref>
and fifth facts.<ref>Jones (2003)</ref>
I've been implementing WP:LDR for some time now, and I thought I'd mention some of the benefits I have experienced:
Implementing WP:LDR is essentially the same as re-using a citation; in both circumstances the reference would be located elsewhere in the article. Hence it is not a major leap for most editors to follow.
The one drawback I've encountered is while adding a citation. In this case, I have to do a full article edit in order to put the citation in place. This could be alleviated by having a bot periodically auto-move all citations to the reference section (but only for articles that have implemented WP:LDR). This way, we can insert a new reference with a section edit and still maintain a WP:LDR configuration. Regards, RJH ( talk) 14:38, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
How about logical and precise reference punctuation for articles on science and computing subjects (ref after full stop if for entire sentence, ref before full stop if for last section of sentence), and the current reference punctuation system for non-science and computing subjects (ref always after full stop, even if it doesn't ref the entire sentence)? See also Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (footnotes)/Archive 7#Footnotes are placed outside punctuation. -- Jeandré, 2011-03-21 t12:44z
The current rule is ugly and imprecise. Just as the rule for punctuation inside/outside quote marks, putting the reference before the punctuation makes it clear that it is part of that clause. As a reader, when you hit a period/full stop, you expect it mean to just that - end of sentence, end of concept. But then you have to visually parse the reference notation and say to yourself "oh wait, that's not really the end, there's more." It's illogical and inefficient. Highlandsun ( talk) 18:02, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
I am all in favour of the compromise wording that was used before, but there was an RFC on this issued last October and the outcome at that time was overwhelmingly in favour of no compromise (with Tony1 one of the strongest advocates of no compromise) -- See preamble and RFC: Should ref tags be placed after punctuation?. If this is to be changed -- and consensus can change -- then there needs to be another RFC. I will support change via another RFC, but I will not initiate another RFC. -- PBS ( talk) 09:32, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
Mitch Ames ( talk) 13:54, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
I have copied this discussion - with minor modifications for context - from Talk:Easter_Island#Non-breaking_space_between_linked_text_and_ref, because it is a general formatting issue. The problem is not unique to that article. Mitch Ames ( talk) 10:55, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
I removed a non-breaking space in the lead paragraph of the Easter Island article between the linked text " slave raiding" and the ref tag after it, to comply with WP:REFPUNCT. Beyond My Ken restored it because "without the nbsp, the ref becomes part of the link in some browsers". It seems odd that this problem should occur here, and that there is no mention of such possible problems in WP:REFPUNCT. Some questions for Beyond My Ken:
Mitch Ames ( talk) 05:02, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
/* Links */
a {
text-decoration: none;
color: #0645ad;
background: none;
}
a:visited {
color: #0b0080;
}
a:active {
color: #faa700;
}
a:hover {
text-decoration: underline;
}
I have my preferences set to always underline links, which is the way I prefer them. Obviously if I turned that off, the problem would go away, as it does when I log out and my preferences are no longer in force, but that really is just ignoring the problem instead of fixing it. If an editor chooses to have links underlined, than the system should do so properly, right? Beyond My Ken ( talk) 18:20, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
So we agree that there is a definite, reproducible problem for some combinations of user preferences (underline link = always) and browser (IE8) if a ref tag immediately follows linked text. Do we agree that putting a non-breaking space in the article is not the correct solution? I'd like to remove the non-breaking space from Easter Island, and leave others to determine what is the correct article-independent solution. Mitch Ames ( talk) 01:33, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
Should this problem be listed under WP:FN#Known_bugs? Mitch Ames ( talk) 01:36, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
That won't work, as it will show a square dot on older browsers. Frankly, this is a very minor issue: it depends on two things— IE and a wikilink followed by a ref, which should be rare —and it doesn't break anything. This cosmetic issue can be resolved by adding this to your Special:MyPage/skin.css:
/* Add a zero-width space before the in-text citation */
sup.reference:before {
content: "\200B"; text-decoration: none;
}
---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 11:16, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
The description of the bug at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(footnotes)#Known_bugs and Help:Reference_display_customization says "Internet Explorer", but I think we should qualify that. The problem appears with IE8, it does not appear with IE6 (the default browser installed with XP), and I don't know about other versions. I propose changing the description of the bug and the fix to say Internet Explorer 8, rather than just Internet Explorer. Has anyone tested with IE 7, 9, 10? Mitch Ames ( talk) 03:44, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
References tags should immediately follow the text to which they refer, with no space before the tag. Multiple consecutive tags should have no space between them.
... The short cut doesn't exist yet, but I'll create it if we proceed.
Here's an alternative, per Avenue's suggestion in
#Voting below. (I don't like this one, but others may prefer it.)
Mitch Ames (
talk) 10:57, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
{{
collapse top|Proposed change 2, addition after REFPUNCT}}
Material may be referenced mid-sentence ... or at the end of a sentence or paragraph. When a reference tag coincides with punctuation, the tag is placed immediately after the punctuation.
There are two exceptions, ... as recommended by the Chicago Manual of Style ...
References tags should immediately follow the text to which they refer, with no space before the tag. Multiple tags should have no space between them.
...
|}
And a third one - see discussion below in
#Voting.
Mitch Ames (
talk) 11:19, 30 April 2011 (UTC)
{{
collapse top|Proposed change 3}}
Material may be referenced mid-sentence ... or at the end of a sentence or paragraph.
References tags should immediately follow the text to which they refer, with no space before the tag. Multiple tags should have no space between them.
When a reference tag coincides with punctuation, the tag is placed immediately after the punctuation.
There are two exceptions, ... as recommended by the Chicago Manual of Style ...
...
|}
Here's a fourth option. -- Avenue ( talk) 16:17, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
{{
collapse top|Proposed change 4}}
Done Mitch Ames ( talk) 12:00, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
During the #Non-breaking space between linked text and ref discussion above, I noticed that WP:REFPUNCT says (with my emphasis added)
When a reference tag coincides with punctuation, the tag is placed immediately after the punctuation.
however nowhere does the page say that the tag should immediately follow the text, with no intervening space (when there is no punctuation). I suggest that it should say this explicitly. The obvious place to put this would be in the first sentence of WP:REFPUNCT ("Material may be referenced mid-sentence ..."), but presumably this would require a change to the section title "Ref tags and punctuation" because the addition would apply when there was no punctuation. Mitch Ames ( talk) 01:49, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
{{
collapse top|Irrelevant conflation of this with previous discussion}}
|}
Gadget, I'm not finding anything at the linked page about the problem I have in mind. Here's what should happen:
The Moon is pretty big. The Sun is really, really big. [1] They're both pretty far away from the Earth.
Here's what sometimes does happen (if you don't use a non-breaking space):
The Moon is pretty big. The Sun is really, really big. [1] They're both pretty far away from the Earth.
The page you link has a script for fixing the leading, but what I want is something that prevents the "[1]" from being placed at the beginning of a line that the "[1]" doesn't support. I don't see anything there that would prevent a footnote from coming astray of the sentence it supports (maybe I missed it?). A non-breaking space solves this trivially, for all users, by preventing the "big." from being separated from the "[1]". It's exactly the same solution that we use to prevent (for example) "5" from coming astray of "grams" when writing about numbers.
Mitch, I would in handle the two issues separately, and in both instances I would tell people what is "normally" done, rather than what they "should do" or "must do". WhatamIdoing ( talk) 01:01, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
The Moon is pretty big. The Sun is really, really big [1]. They're both pretty far away from the Earth.
I don't suppose anyone would like to discuss the change that I've proposed (when I created this section) to WP:REFPUNCT, which has got nothing to do with non-breaking spaces ... Mitch Ames ( talk) 13:20, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
OK, I propose to add this to the page:
("Style" and "Ref tags and punctuation" already exist, but are shown here to illustrate where the new "Spacing" section will be.)
{{
collapse top|Proposed addition}}
Material may be referenced mid-sentence [...] or at the end of a sentence or paragraph. Reference tags should immediately follow the text to which they refer, with no space before the tag. When a reference tag coincides with punctuation, the tag is placed immediately after the punctuation. Multiple tags should have no space between them.
There are two exceptions to the rule about references tags following punctuation, as recommended by the Chicago Manual of Style ...
...
|}
Can I have some votes please, yes, no, alternatives etc. Mitch Ames ( talk) 10:25, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Let's keep the issue of in-text cite wrapping separate from the issue of whether or not there should be a space between the text and the in-text cite.
I don't see in-text cite wrapping as a huge issue, but I'm willing to look at it
General ways to fix this:
Ways to add the space or joiner character:
<ref>
tag— there are millions of <ref>
tags---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 16:51, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
text (breakable space) (zero-width joiner) ref tag
would actually break after the text. Are you proposing text (zero-width joiner) (breakable space) (zero-width joiner) ref tag
, thus creating a new form of non-breaking space?Sentence. [1]
" be joined, or will only "Sentence.[1]
" be joined?
WhatamIdoing (
talk) 06:34, 26 April 2011 (UTC)My proposed addition to the Style section, in #Proposed update to Manual of Style - no space before ref tags above, may be relevant. Mitch Ames ( talk) 10:26, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
<ref>
tag will not fix this issue.
<ref>
tag, but there are millions of <ref>
tags so this is not an effective solution. And you have to add it before each and every tag in a series to make them nowrap.
A standard space before the <ref>
tag has nothing to do with wrapping. By default there is nothing to join the in-text cite to the preceding text. ---—
Gadget850 (Ed)
talk 11:34, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Adjust your browser screen width and watch the in-text cites.
This example has no characters before the <ref>
tags:
1. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam. [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]
This example has standard spaces before each <ref>
tag:
2. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam. [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17]
This example has non-breaking spaces before each <ref>
tag:
3. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam. [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23]
This example has zero-width joiners before each <ref>
tag:
4. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam. [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29]
I don't see that there is a universal solution that we can implement. If a reader feels this is a problem, we do have a CSS fix for some browsers. I can open a bug report on this. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 22:27, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
I've marked the wrapped refs (5, 6, and 7) with a red arrow. You can verify for yourself that there is no space in this version of the article, which is here. Which of these strings of refs wraps depends on the exact width of your browser window; it's not just the one set.
Gadget, if we make all of the tags stick together, I'm a little concerned about what might happen with narrow screens/large font sizes when we have such long strings of citations back to back (like refs number 11 through 27 here).
(Apologies for dumping a large image on your screens.) WhatamIdoing ( talk) 22:18, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Is it possible to have refs inside other refs? Specifically, it would be nice to be able to add references inside notes (achieved with the group="note" attribute of ref). Naively trying to do this gives parse errors. Is there a workaround? – CWenger ( ^ • @) 20:16, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
Help:Footnotes is essentially a short version of this page. It is frequently out of date. Either merge it here or redirect it to Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 13:48, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
I've worked on Help:Footnotes a bit; ultimately I hope to have all the relevant information from the MOS page transferred to there, with the rest belonging at WP:Citing sources.-- Kotniski ( talk) 12:28, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
I count 4 articles: Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners, Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Footnotes, Wikipedia:Citing sources, and Help:Footnotes. I think MoS/Footnotes should remain how it is (or incorporate more); we need a page in the MoS describing how footnotes should be shown on Wikipedia. The others I am divided on. Perhaps Help:Footnotes and Referencing for beginners should be merged to serve as a short overview for beginners. I think the Citing sources should be collected into the MoS, as it does deal with Wikipedia style and what is expected of an article. Maybe we could tease out the "how to make footnotes" stuff from WP:CITE so that it focuses on what stuff in the sources should be cited, when and how often to make citations. So merge the "How to format and place citations" section into MoS/Footnotes. The result would be three articles: A brief article to explain to beginners about citing sources, an article to explain the different methods of formatting footnotes and the different syntax to use, and an article on when to cite, what to cite, and what information a citation should include. -- Odie5533 ( talk) 02:19, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
OK, let's leave the beginners' page out of it for the moment, since I think we all agree what role it should play, and it doesn't much affect the other pages (since we would expect the information there to be duplicated on the "advanced" pages anyway). As far as the other (two) pages are concerned, I think I more or less agree with you about their scope, though not necessarily about their titles. The one you want to call Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Footnotes I would prefer to call Help:Footnotes, since it's mainly going to contain technical information (this syntax produces this effect) rather than style guidance (on Wikipedia we like editors to do it like this). Given that 90%+ of footnotes are citations, it seems confusing to have two "style" pages titled as you propose.-- Kotniski ( talk) 10:20, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
We have had a bit of discussion and I think this is leading us to:
* Change
Wikipedia:Citing sources to focus on how to cite a source and remove the presentation material.
Support/Oppose
I also propose that:
Support/Oppose
Everyone is doing these cool proposals, so here's mine. -- Odie5533 ( talk) 16:06, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
Well, everyone seems to be happy with the solution of splitting this page between the other ones. There's no objection at WT:MOS to moving REFPUNC to there (in place of WP:PAIC which says virtually the same anyway). I'm going to start preparing for this.-- Kotniski ( talk) 12:05, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
Well, I've merged it (most of it was duplicated already, as it turns out). Suggest further work be done especially on WP:Citing sources, which is rather a mess.-- Kotniski ( talk) 09:58, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
Is there a guideline for this? Should there be a reference after every sentence? If the same reference is used for a whole section, should the citation note be placed at the end of the section or after every sentence in the section? Bejinhan talks 05:22, 13 October 2011 (UTC)