Editing Encyclopedia:Citing sources (section)

===<span id="Adding the citation"></span><span id="Inline reference"></span><span id="Footnotes and references"></span>How to place an inline citation using ref tags===
{{Shortcut|WP:CITEFOOT}}
{{hatnote|Further information: [[Help:Footnotes#Footnotes: the basics|Footnotes: the basics]]}}
To create a footnote, use the <code><nowiki><ref>...</ref></nowiki></code> syntax at the appropriate place in the article text, for example:
* <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline>Justice is a human invention.<ref>Rawls, John. ''A Theory of Justice''. Harvard University Press, 1971, p. 1.</ref> It ...</syntaxhighlight>
which will be displayed as something like:
* Justice is a human invention.{{dummy ref|1}} It ...
It will also be necessary to generate the list of footnotes (where the citation text is actually displayed); for this, see the previous section.

As in the above example, citation markers are normally placed {{em|after}} adjacent punctuation such as periods (full stops) and commas. For exceptions, see the {{Section link|WP:Manual of Style#Punctuation and footnotes}}. Note also that no space is added before the citation marker. Citations should not be placed within, or on the same line as, section headings.

The citation should be added close to the material it supports, offering [[#Text–source integrity|text–source integrity]]. If a word or phrase is particularly contentious, an inline citation may be added next to that word or phrase within the sentence, but it is usually sufficient to add the citation to the end of the clause, sentence, or paragraph, so long as it's clear which source supports which part of the text.

====Avoiding clutter====
{{Shortcut|WP:ILCLUTTER|WP:INLINECLUTTER|WP:INLINECITECLUTTER}}
Inline references can significantly bloat the wikitext in the edit window and can become confusing and difficult to manage. There are two main methods to avoid [[visual pollution|clutter]] in the edit window:
* Using [[Help:Footnotes#List-defined_references|list-defined references]] by collecting the full citation code within the [[Template:Reflist#List-defined references|reference list template]] {{tlg|reflist|nolink=yes}}, and then inserting them in the text with a shortened reference tag, for example <code><nowiki><ref name="Smith 2001, p99" /></nowiki></code>.
* Inserting [[#Short citations|short citations]] (see below) that then refer to a full list of source texts

As with other citation formats, articles should not undergo large-scale conversion between formats without consensus to do so.

Note, however, that references defined in the reference list template can no longer be edited with the [[Wikipedia:VisualEditor|VisualEditor]].

====Repeated citations====
{{shortcut|WP:REPEATCITE}}
{{hatnote|Further information: [[Help:Footnotes#Footnotes: using a source more than once|Footnotes: using a source more than once]]}}

For multiple use of the same inline citation or footnote, you can use the [[WP:NAMEDREFS|named references]] feature, choosing a name to identify the inline citation, and typing {{tag|ref|params=name="<var>name</var>"|content=text of the citation}}. Thereafter, the same named reference may be reused any number of times either before or after the defining use by typing the previous reference name, like this: {{tag|ref|params=name="<var>name</var>"|s}}. The use of the slash before the <code>&gt;</code> means that the tag is self-closing, and the {{tag|ref|c}} used to close other references must not be used in addition.

The text of the <code>name</code> can be almost anything{{nsmdns}}apart from being completely numeric. If spaces are used in the text of the <code>name</code>, the text must be placed within double quotes. Placing all named references within double quotes may be helpful to future editors who do not know that rule. To help with page maintenance, it is recommended that the text of the <code>name</code> have a connection to the inline citation or footnote, for example "author year page": {{tag|ref|params=name="<var>Smith 2005 p94</var>"|content=text of the citation}}.

Use straight quotation marks <code>"</code> to enclose the reference name. Do not use curly quotation marks <code>“”</code>. Curly marks are treated as another character, not as delimiters. The page will display an error if one style of quotation marks is used when first naming the reference, and the other style is used in a repeated reference, or if a mix of styles is used in the repeated references.

====<span id="MultiPages"></span>Citing multiple pages of the same source====
{{anchor|IBID|op.cit.}}{{shortcut|WP:IBID|WP:OPCIT}}
{{see|Help:References and page numbers}}

When an article cites many different pages from the same source, to avoid the redundancy of many big, nearly identical full citations, most Wikipedia editors use one of these options:
* [[WP:NAMEDREFS|Named references]] in conjunction with a combined list of page numbers using the [[Help:Citation Style 1#Pages|{{para|pages}}]] parameter of the {{cite xxx}} templates (can become confusing for large number of pages)
* Named references in conjunction with the {{tl2|rp}} or {{tl2|r}} templates to specify the page
* [[WP:CITESHORT|Short citations]]

The use of ''[[ibid.]]'', ''[[id.]]'', or similar abbreviations is discouraged, as they may become broken as new references are added (''[[op. cit.]]'' is less problematic in that it should refer explicitly to a citation contained in the article; however, not all readers are familiar with the meaning of the terms). If the use of ''ibid'' is extensive, tag the article using the {{tl|ibid}} template.