Using citations and references
From Software Business Community
Single citation of a reference or footnote
At the point of citation in the main text, enter the reference or footnote like this:
- <ref>Excel For Dummies, First Edition, Hungry Minds, Inc., 1980.</ref>
Multiple citations of the same reference or footnote
To cite the same reference or footnote several times, identify it using the name parameter of the <ref> tag.
At one of the citation points (it makes sense to choose the first), enter the reference like this:
- <ref name="Perry">Perry's Handbook, Sixth Edition, McGraw-Hill Co., 1984.</ref>
Then, at all the other citation points just enter:
- <ref name="Perry"/>
Producing the reference or footnote list
At the point where you want the text of the footnotes or references to appear (usually at the end of the article in a "Notes" or "References" section), insert the tag:
- <references/>
If you forget to include <references /> at the end of the article, none of the footnotes will appear.
Example
According to scientists, the Sun is pretty big.<ref>E. Miller, The Sun, (New York: Academic Press, 2005), 23-5.</ref>
The Moon, however, is not so big.<ref>R. Smith, "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 46 (April 1978): 44-6.</ref>
==Notes==
<references/>
Multiple uses of the same footnote
To give a footnote a unique identifier, use <ref name="name">. You can then refer to the same footnote again by using a ref tag with the same name. The text inside the second tag doesn't matter, because the text already exists in the first reference. You can either copy the whole footnote, or you can use a terminated empty ref tag that looks like this: <ref name="name" />.
In the following example, the same source is cited three times.
This is an example of multiple references to the same footnote.<ref name="multiple">Remember that when you refer to the same footnote multiple times, the text from the first reference is used.</ref>
Such references are particularly useful when citing sources, if different statements come from the same source.<ref name="multiple">This text is superfluous, and won't show up anywhere. We may as well just use an empty tag.</ref>
A concise way to make multiple references is to use empty ref tags, which have a slash at the end. Although this may reduce redundant work, please be aware that if a future editor removes the first reference, this will result in the loss of all references using the empty ref tags.<ref name="multiple" />
==Notes==
<references/>
The text above gives the following result in the article (see also section below):
This is an example of multiple references to the same footnote.[1]
Such references are particularly useful when citing sources, when different statements come from the same source.[1]
A concise way to make multiple references is to use empty ref tags, which have a slash at the end. Although this may reduce redundant work, please be aware that if a future editor removes the first reference, this will result in the loss of all references using the empty ref tags.[1]