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Visual inline citation guide
Formatting references using inline citations

All information in Wikipedia articles should be verified by citations to reliable sources. Our preferred method of citation is using the " cite.php" form of inline citations, using the <ref></ref> elements. Using this method, each time a particular source is mined for information (don't copy word-for-word!), a footnote is placed in the text ("inline"), that takes one to the detail of the source when clicked, set forth in a references section after the text of the article.

In brief, anywhere you want a footnote to appear in a piece of text, you place an opening <ref> tag followed by the text of the citation which you want to appear at the bottom of the article, and close with a </ref> tag. Note the closing slash ("/"). For multiple use of a single reference, the opening ref tag is given a name, like so: <ref name="name"> followed by the citation text and a closing </ref> tag. Each time you want to use that footnote again, you simply use the first element with a slash, like so: <ref name="name" />.

In order for these references to appear, you must tell the software where to display them, using either the code <references/> or, most commonly, the template, {{ Reflist}} which can be modified to display the references in columns using {{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}. Per our style guidelines, the references should be displayed in a separate section denominated "References" located after the body of the article.

Inline citation code; what you type in 'edit mode' What it produces when you save

Two separate citations.<ref>Citation text.</ref><ref>Citation text2.</ref>


Multiple<ref name="multiple">Citation text3.</ref> citation<ref name="multiple" /> use.<ref name="multiple" />

== References ==

{{Reflist}}

Two separate citations. [1] [2]



Multiple [3] citation [3] use. [3]




References_________________

  1. ^ Citation text.
  2. ^ Citation text2.
  3. ^ a b c Citation text3.

Templates that can be used between <ref>...</ref> tags to format references

{{ Citation}} • {{ Cite web}} • {{ Cite book}} • {{ Cite news}} • {{ Cite journal}} • OthersExamples