Generate an identifier suitable as an anchor for a Harvard citation. This template, which can be used with either the name {{SfnRef}} or the name {{harvid}}, is intended to be paired with Harvard citation templates such as {{Sfn}}, {{harv}}, and {{harvnb}}. This templates uses the same arguments as the other citation templates. As explained below, this template is needed only in some cases when the Harvard citation templates are used.

{{SfnRef|Last name of author(s)|Year}}

or

{{harvid|Last name of author(s)|Year}}

The first parameter is the first author's last name. Up to four authors can be given as parameters; if there are more than four authors, list only the first four. The last parameter is the year of publication, possibly with a letter suffixed to avoid ambiguity if there are multiple citations by the same set of authors in the same year.

All named parameters such as |p= are ignored.

This template creates the proper value for the |ref= parameter for use with {{cite journal}}, {{cite book}}, {{citation}}, and the other templates implemented via {{citation/core}}, and for use by {{vcite journal}}, {{vcite book}} and other templates that generate Vancouver system references. It is intended to be paired with {{Sfn}} and uses the same arguments. As explained below, {{SfnRef}}/{{harvid}} is only necessary in a subset of the cases where {{Sfn}} is used.

{{Sfn}} creates a short footnote that is linked to a full footnote. {{Sfn}} creates the link automatically, but the full footnote must be assigned the proper ID value to be a valid target for that link.

When using the {{citation/core}} family of citation templates, the ID is created via the |ref= parameter. In most cases, the parameter should be coded as |ref=harv: this generates the ID from the last names of the first four authors. This parameter setting is not needed for {{citation}}, which defaults to |ref=harv. However, if |last1= etc. are not used, such as when the author of the source is unknown and the short footnote specifies an organization name, |ref=harv will not create the proper ID value. In those cases, use {{SfnRef}} to create the proper value without having to know the rules for how {{Sfn}} creates the ID.

The {{vcite journal}} etc. templates (with "vcite", not "cite") do not support |ref=harv and require the use of {{SfnRef}}/{{harvid}} to work with Harvard citations.

With the shortened footnote template

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}}

|ref=harv will not work in this case because "Rolling Stone" is not the name of the author. 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.

With other Harvard templates

For example, a References section might contain the following markup:

{{vcite journal |author=Peh WC, Ng KH |title=Preparing the references |journal=Singapore Med J |volume=50 |issue=7 |pages=659–61 |year=2009 |pmid=19644619 |url=http://smj.sma.org.sg/5007/5007emw1.pdf |format=PDF |ref={{harvid|Peh|Ng|2009}} }}

This markup uses {{harvid|Peh|Ng|2009}} to generate the anchor identifier "CITEREFPehNg2009", used internally to link Harvard references to citations. (This identifier is not visible to the article's reader.) The generated citation looks like this:

Peh WC, Ng KH. Preparing the references [PDF]. Singapore Med J. 2009;50(7):659–61. ᱪᱷᱟᱸᱪ:PMID.

Article prose can link to this citation with markup like the following:

{{harv|Peh|Ng|2009}}

which generates the following:

(Peh & Ng 2009)

To see how it works, click on the "(Peh & Ng 2009)".