This template creates an identifier that is used as a link anchor for short citations. Many articles are cited with shortened footnotes, which usually link to full citations at the bottom of the page. {{SfnRef}} accepts the same parameters as most short citation templates[1] and create matching anchors when used in the |ref= parameter of the full citation. Most {{cite xxx}} templates will automatically generate the anchor, or landing point, for links. The anchor can be created manually in situations where the automatic anchors would cause issues including:

  • Multiple authors with the same last name
  • No known last name for the author
  • Unusual characters in the author field
  • Multiple works in the same year by the same author
  • Year of publication unknown

Additionally some less commonly used citation templates, and all full citations written by hand can only be linked to with a manually created anchor.[2]

Examples

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When citing an article published in the December 2004 edition of Rolling Stone where the author is unknown, you might create a short footnote as follows:

{{Sfn|Rolling Stone|2004}}

You may code the value for the |ref= parameter manually, or you can use {{SfnRef}} and specify the same parameters as used with {{Sfn}}:

{{SfnRef|Rolling Stone|2004}}

The full footnote:

{{Cite news |work=[[Rolling Stone]] |title=The RS 500 Greatest Songs of All Time |ref={{SfnRef|Rolling Stone|2004}} |date=December 2004}}

You can copy and paste the {{Sfn}} template code and change the name of the template from "Sfn" to "SfnRef". If your short footnote includes page numbers such as {{Sfn|Rolling Stone|2004|p=48}}, you can copy and paste it to create {{SfnRef|Rolling Stone|2004|p=48}}; the |p=48 parameter is not necessary but will do no harm.

Usage

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{{SfnRef|Name|Year}}
{{SfnRef|Name 1|Name 2|Name 3|Name 4|Year}}

The template accepts up to four names and a year of publication. If there are more than four authors, list only the first four. The last parameter is the year of publication, optionally with a letter suffixed if there are multiple citations by the same set of authors in the same year. All named parameters, such as |p= are ignored.

Reference Sfnref anchor markup Full citation Short citation
Author and date are present {{SfnRef|Smith|2024}}[3] Smith (2024). Title. Publisher. Smith 2024
Many authors and date are present {{SfnRef |Doe |Pérez |Kowalski |Al-Fulani |2024}}[4] Doe, John; Pérez, Juan; Kowalski, Jan; Al-Fulani, Fulan; Horvat, Ivan; Hudjefa (2024). Title. Publisher. Doe et al. 2024
Author is publisher {{SfnRef|Museum of Modern Art|2024}} Title. Museum of Modern Art. 2024. Museum of Modern Art 2024
{{SfnRef|MoMA|2024}} MoMA (2024). Title. Museum of Modern Art. 2024. MoMA 2024
Author is anonymous {{SfnRef|Anonymous|2024}}[5] Anonymous (2024). Title. Publisher. Anonymous 2024
Author is missing {{SfnRef|''Title''|2024}} Title. Publisher. 2024. Title 2024
{{SfnRef|"Title"|2024}} "Title". Work. Publisher. 2024. "Title" 2024
Authors with the same name
  • {{SfnRef|F. Beauregard|2024}}
  • {{SfnRef|P. Beauregard |2024}}
  • Beauregard, Fred (2024). Title. Publisher.
  • Beauregard, Paul (2024). Title. Publisher.
Date is missing {{SfnRef|Smith|n.d.}}[6] Smith (n.d.). Title. Publisher. Smith n.d.
{{SfnRef|Smith}}[7] Smith. Title. Publisher. Smith
Date and author are missing {{SfnRef|[Description]|n.d.}}[8] [Description]. Publisher. n.d. [Description] n.d.

Purpose

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This template creates the proper value for the |ref= parameter of Citation Style 1 templates ({{Cite journal}}, {{Cite book}}, {{Cite web}}, etc.) and the generic Citation Style 2 template {{Citation}}.[9] It is intended to be paired with {{Sfnp}}, {{Sfn}}, {{Harvp}}, {{Harvnb}}, and related templates, and uses the same arguments. As explained above, {{SfnRef}} is only necessary in a subset of the cases where those are used.

{{Sfnp}} and its variants create a short footnote that is linked to a full footnote. The templates create the link automatically, but the full footnote must be assigned the proper ID value to be a valid target for that link. This usually happens automatically using the full-citation template's author/editor and date/year parameters, but some cases need a custom anchor, and that is what {{SfnRef}} is for.

When using the Citation Style 1 and 2 family of citation templates, a default ID is generated from the last names of the first four authors (or editors if there are no authors specified). However, if none of |last=, |author=, |editor-last=, or their equivalents are present, use {{SfnRef}} inside the CS1/CS2 template's |ref= parameter to create a link anchor (perhaps using the publisher name or work title or an abbreviation thereof) without having to know the rules for how {{Sfnp}}, etc., interpret the anchor ID string which is normally auto-generated.

The {{Vcite journal}} etc. templates (with Vcite, not Cite names) require the use of {{SfnRef}} to work with {{Sfn}}, {{Harvnb}}, and related templates.

Consistent output: For use with CS1/CS2 templates, {{Sfnp}} and its {{Harvp}} companion produce the most consistent citation formatting. For use with Vancouver citation templates (and any other citation styles that do not put dates in parentheses/round-brackets), the matching short-footnote templates are {{Sfn}} and {{Harvnb}}.

See also

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  • {{sfnref inline}} – a <span>-based version for use with manually formatted, non-templated citations
  • {{citeref}} – a wrapper for {{SfnRef}} to create wikilinks with either superscript [n] or plain-text labels to other citations from inside a citation


Notes

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  1. ^ Such as {{Sfnp}}, {{Sfn}}, {{Harvp}}, and {{Harvnb}}.
  2. ^ This is includes the Vancouver style templates, {{Cite comic}}, and {{Cite court}}. Hand-written citations can be assigned an anchor with the {{wikicite}} template.
  3. ^ This anchor would be created automatically in CS1 citation templates using |last=Smith and |date=2024 in the full citation. |author= works the same as |last=. If neither "last" nor "author" are used, |editor= or |editor-last= will be used to create the anchor. If none of these parameters are used, the anchor must be created manually.
  4. ^ This anchor would be created automatically in CS1 citation templates using |last1=Doe, |last2=Pérez, and so on, along with |Date=2024 in the full citation.
  5. ^ This anchor would be created automatically in CS1 citation templates using |Author=Anonymous.
  6. ^ This anchor would be created automatically in CS1 citation templates using |date=n.d. in the full citation.
  7. ^ This anchor would be created automatically in CS1 citation templates leaving |date= blank in the full citation.
  8. ^ This anchor would be created automatically in CS1 citation templates using |date=n.d. and |title=[Description] in the full citation.
  9. ^ As well as {{Vcite journal}}, {{Vcite journal}}, {{Vcite book}} and other templates that generate Vancouver system references; {{cite comic}} for comics; {{cite court}} for U.S. court cases; and {{wikicite}} which wraps around handwritten citations.