Wikipedia:Advanced footnote formatting

The topic of advanced footnote formatting^[essay] involves techniques for coding remote footnotes of pronunciations or examples, plus indentation and line-splitting. Many articles could use remote footnotes, such as showing how to pronounce words:

The term "time dilation"^[pron.] refers to a slowing of elapsed duration.

Notes
   [pron.] - The word dilation is pronounced "DY-lay-shun" and is the preferred term.

The superscript "pron." can be coded by just a half-line of text: ^{[<font/>[[#Notes|pron.]]]}. The full, detailed content of that footnote text is not at the top of the article but, instead, is coded within the section named "Notes". See more below: Remote footnotes.

Also, indentation and line-splitting can be used, such as for long URL webpage names, when coding footnotes in an article. For example:

   In [[digital imaging]], a pixel<ref>
      Rudolf F. Graf, ''Modern Dictionary of Electronics'',
      1999, Newnes, Oxford, page 569, ISBN 0-7506-43315,
      Google Books (''see below:'' References).</ref>
   (or picture element) is the smallest part of an image.

In the above example, each part of the ref-tag footnote is indented (3 spaces) from the left margin. Due to a Wikipedia quirk, the first footnote on a page cannot be indented, because it is treated as a quotebox.

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

Remote footnotes

Many terms could use a remote footnote, such as for explaining pronunciations or showing some detailed examples:

The term "time dilation"^[pron.] refers to a slowing of elapsed duration.

Notes
   [pron.] - Dilation is pronounced "DY-lay-shun".

Note that in the pronunciation footnote, the word "time" is considered obvious, and the syllables for "DY-lay-shun" are shown with capital letters for emphasis, but there is also ample space to show the IPA-format as well.

The note's superscript "pron." can be coded by just a half-line: ^{[<font/>[[#Notes|pron.]]]}. The full, detailed content of that footnote text is not at the top of the article but, instead, is coded within the section named "Notes", thus shifting all that text into the Notes section, and deferring details away from the main text of an article. The Notes section could be coded as:

==Notes==
<div style="font-size:89%">
: <small>[pron.]</small> - ''Dilation'' is pronounced "DY-lay-shun".
<references/><!--Show numbered footnotes from <ref> tags. -->
</div>

Since the actual footnote text (of a remote footnote) is written at the bottom of the artcle, there is ample space to also compare formal versus local pronunciations of town names, without cluttering an article's top text.

Notice how several footnotes can all be linked to the section title "Notes" because that link goes to the entire Notes section. Each remote footnote can link "Notes" as in: [[#Notes|a]] or [[#Notes|b]] or [[#Notes|example]], displaying:  ^{[a] [b] [example]}. The full coding of the 3 superscripts would be as:

^{[<font/>[[#Notes|a]]] [<font/>[[#Notes|b]]] [<font/>[[#Notes|example]]]}

Perhaps 20 remote footnotes could be coded in a similar manner, all linked to the section title named "Notes". For logical placement, the remote footnotes should be defined above the "<references/>" tag which displays the other, numbered ref-tag footnotes.

Although there are other methods to link named-footnotes, the use of the remote footnotes is a very simple method to allow dozens of special footnotes, without depending on complex wiki-features which might change next week. In this case, the term "advanced footnotes" also means: sophisticated enough to still work when Wikipedia is changed (as typically happens every month). Also, the coding of remote footnotes should work on any other wiki website.

Indenting and line-splitting

A very long footnote can be indented and line-split, as in the following example that uses Template:Cite_book, showing a long URL for a webpage from Google Books:

  In [[digital imaging]], a '''pixel'''<ref>{{Cite book
     | author=Rudolf F. Graf | date=1999 | publisher=Newnes
     | title=Modern Dictionary of Electronics | location=Oxford
     | isbn=0-7506-43315 | page=page 569
     | url=http://books.google.com/books?id=o2I1JWPpdusC&<!--
     -->pg=PA569&dq=pixel+intitle:%22Modern+Dictionary<!--
     -->+of+Electronics%22+inauthor:graf&<!--
     -->lr=&as_brr=0&ei=5ygASM3qHoSgiwH45-GIDA&<!--
     -->sig=7tg-LuGdu6Njypaawi2bbkeq8pw}}</ref>
  (or picture element) is the smallest part of an image.

Note the above line-splitting of the 5-line URL (for the webpage in Google Books) uses the HTML comment tokens "<!--" and "-->". Each part of the footnote coding is placed on a separate line, thereby allowing each part to be indented from the lefthand side. There must be no spaces added to the URL (which is a single string of characters where spaces are coded "%20"). Do not add spaces before "<!--" or after "-->" within the URL. However, when splitting an italicized phrase or long wikilink ("[[xx xx xx]]"), consider putting a space after "-->" on the 2nd line.

Similar indentation has been used for many decades, as in computer programming, to visually separate sections of text. The indented lines typically reflect a lower-level of details (or lower-level of "abstraction" ) than the level of the outer lines. Indenting the footnote coding can help clarify sections of text that contain several footnotes, as is typical in large articles.

For over 3 years, Wikipedia has used similar line-splitting of infobox coding, putting infobox template parameters on separate lines. Decades of usage has shown that leading vertical-bars ("|") are less error-prone than trailing vertical-bars placed at the end of a line. Because leading bars can be aligned down a column, they are more easily proofread than ending bars, which tend to zig-zag along a ragged right margin.

Line splitting first footnote of page

Because of the Wikipedia formatting quirk, the first footnote on a page is still typically treated as a quotebox (as of April 2009). However, the indentation can be simulated, by line-splitting with HTML comments, between all lines within <ref>....</ref>:

   In [[digital imaging]], a pixel<ref><!--
    -->Rudolf F. Graf, ''Modern Dictionary of Electronics'',<!--
    -->1999, Newnes, Oxford, page 569, ISBN 0-7506-43315,<!--
    -->Google Books (''see below:'' References).</ref>
   (or picture element) is the smallest part of an image.

The above line-splitting of the entire footnote text, into 3 lines, allows it to be coded as the first footnote of a page. Note that the first footnote might be in an infobox, that appears at the top of a page.

Page numbers

Although the issue of page numbers might not seem very advanced, many Wikipedia footnotes to books or journals have omitted the page numbers. Without specific page numbers, the verification of text can be extremely tedious for large books or magazines, like finding a needle in a haystack. In footnote templates, there is often confusion between the parameters "page=15" and "pages=750":

• page=15   or   page=79-81   - the specific page(s) in the book/journal/etc.
• page=page 15   - show "page 15" in the footnote.
• pages=750   - the total pages (often displayed as "pp. 750").

The exact usage of parameters can vary from template to template. Some URLs reveal a page-number parameter (such as "pg"). For example, in weblinks to Google Books, the parameter "pg=PA569" indicates "page 569" will be linked from that book.

Deferring details

Another major technique for clarifying text, containing many footnotes, is to defer the footnote details to later parts of the article, such as using named ref-tags and putting "see: External links" for URLs. For example, listing 3 footnotes:

   In digital imaging, a pixel<ref name=MD/><ref name=AD/><ref name=DE/>
   (or picture element) is the smallest part of an image. The word
   "pixel" has been in use since before 1964.<ref name="MD">
      Rudolf F. Graf, ''Modern Dictionary of Electronics'',
      1999, page 569 (''see below:'' External links).
   </ref><ref name="AD">
      John Q. Public, ''Another Tech Dictionary'',
      2009, page 476-477 (''see below:'' External links).
   </ref><ref name="DE">
      Disco Dave Citizen, ''Disco Electronics Dictionary'',
      1978, page 340 (''see below:'' External links).</ref>

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 in each entry when listed in the bottom sections. So, full footnotes can become a 3-line indentation, rather than the typical 6 or 9-line blobs that clutter many articles.

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 "<ref name=MD/>" which defers details to be 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.

See also

• Wikipedia:Citation templates - about Template:Cite_web, etc.
• Wikipedia:Footnotes - Wikipedia policy page about footnotes.
• WP:GUIDE - Wikipedia policy WP:Guide_to_layout for article format.
• indent
• abstraction - the concept of removing, or hiding, details.
• Harvard referencing

Notes

[essay] - Again, this page is an essay and not an official Wikipedia policy.

[pron.] - The word dilation is pronounced "DY-lay-shun" and is the preferred term.