Wikipedia: The Missing Manual

Creating Footnotes

If you’ve been paying attention in this chapter so far, you know that if you want to add information to a Wikipedia article, you need to have a reliable source, and you need to cite that source in the Wikipedia article. In the previous section, you also learned that footnotes are the most reliable way to provide your readers with documentation.

Wikipedia has two ways to create footnotes: freeform and citation templates. Citation templates take longer to learn upfront, but they have advantages, as discussed on Footnotes with a Citation Template.

Creating a Simple Footnote

1. Open the sandbox for editing.

   If you’re not there already, on any Wikipedia page, type WP:SAND into the search box, and then, at the top of page, click the “edit this page” tab. (And if you’re in preview mode, that’s fine too.)

1. In the sandbox, delete all the text, and then type the following text (see Figure 2-6):

   == Body of the article ==

   In 1997, Chrysler was more profitable, with earning of $2.8 billion, than Daimler, which earned $1.8 billion.<ref>Surowiecki, James. [http://www.slate.com/id/2654 “The Daimler-Chrysler Collision: Another Merger in Search of That Elusive Synergy"], ''Slate'' magazine, May 15, 1998, retrieved September 12, 2007</ref>

   == References ==

   <references/>

   As shown in Figure 2-6, Wikipedia’s footnote system has two distinct parts:

   • Footnote information appears in the body of the article. It must have a ref tag (<ref>) in front and the companion closing tag (</ref>) ...