"The Cunctator" cunctator@gmail.com wrote in message news:dfd0b40603010650j26db2be3hb32609b54602566a@mail.gmail.com...
How do I cite sources? There is no clear, concise guide that I've been able to find. In short, can reference templates and the <ref> tag be used together?
This depends on which group of "reference templates" you mean.
If you mean {{cite journal}} and {{cite book}} (which used to be 17 different flavours of {{journal reference}} and {{book reference}}) then yes, there is no problem.
You chunter along writing your text when suddenly you need a reference<ref>{{cite book | title = References are easy | author = someone }}</ref>, so you simply stick it in, as the actress<ref>{cite web | url = example.com/actress | title = Old Slapper }}</ref> to the bishop<ref>{{cite news | title = Cleric in uproar | work = Tabloid Muckraker }}</ref>.
One suspects we will have as much trouble over people who want their references inside the punctuation as we used to over US/UK punctuation :-)
Then later in the article you have your standard ==References== section, which starts with <references/> at which point your collected references are "flushed out" as Ævar so lovingly puts it. There's nothing to stop you adding more after that if you have further references which weren't used at specific points in the text.
If however you mean the multifarious "footnote" templates, then I fear you are in for a disappointment. Because of the way the parser work with extensions, you cannot use <ref> inside a template.
HTH HAND