The basics[edit]
Per the verifiability policy, any statement that is or could reasonably be contested should be accompanied by one or more reliable sources to back it up. Likewise, all sources quoted, referenced, or otherwise utilized in the writing of an article must be properly cited. There are a couple ways to do this, but the citation style should be consistent throughout each article.
- If contributing to an existing page, use whatever style is already in place or start a discussion on the talk page explaining why you'd like to change it.
General information about citing sources on Wikipedia[edit]
ProveIt[edit]
I recommend you use ProveIt, a tool that makes the citation process a bit easier. Go to Special:Preferences, go to the Gadgets tab, and check the appropriate box to enable ProveIt.
While editing with ProveIt enabled, you will see a toolbar in the bottomright part of your browser with two tabs: "References (#)" where # is the number of references currently on the page, and "Add a Reference."
Detailed instructions are available here but basically you just click Add a Referenc and fill in as many fields as appropriate -- including a unique "<ref> name." When you're done filling in information about the source, click in the edit box, placing your cursor where you want the citation to go, and click "Insert into edit form" at the bottom of the ProveIt "Add a Reference" tab.
To reuse a reference, click the "References (#)" tab and click the reference you want to reuse. It will first highlight the citation in the edit box. Click in the edit box to place the cursor where you want the additional use of the citation. At the bottom of the "References (#)" tab click "Insert this reference at cursor."
To edit a reference you've already added, select the "References (#)" tab, click the reference you want to edit, select "edit this reference," and save when done.
ProveIt has some quirks that may prove annoying. A good practice is to save the page any time you make a change, then edit the page again to allow ProveIt to refresh.
The rest of this citations section assumes you're not using ProveIt and/or want more control over your citations[edit]
In-text citations[edit]
Although Wikipedia does not specifically mandate it, footnotes are preferred--and far more common--than parenthetical citations in-text. For most people, this is probably the biggest difference between citing sources on Wikipedia and doing so in an academic research paper. Footnotes are handled through the <ref></ref> tags and in almost all cases should be placed at the end of a sentence after the ending punctuation.
What goes between the <ref> and </ref> tags is either a full or short citation, but use of one or the other should be consistent throughout the article.
- A full citation is equivalent to what you would see in a Works Cited list: it should be formatted in a standardized citation style like APA or MLA, all citations should follow the same citation style, and it should provide as much information as possible to allow a reader to find the source (a hyperlink is ideal).
- A short citation is equivalent to what you would see in a parenthetical in-text citation, the exact details of which depend on the citation style you choose for the article (APA, MLA, etc.). It contains basic information that can be cross-referenced with a separate list of sources.
Reference list[edit]
The kind of reference list you use partly depends on the kind of in-text citations you've chosen.
- If you've used full citations in the text, you simply need a separate section called "References" at the end of the article which will contain all of the full citations.
- If you've used short citations in the text, you will need two separate sections at the end of the article:
- a "Works Cited," "Bibliography," or "References" section which will contain a list of full citations (kind of like a Works Cited section of a research paper). None of the footnotes link to this section.
- a "Notes" or "References" section that contains all of the short citations. It is this section the footnotes will link to, which the reader can then cross-reference with the other section above.
Examples of articles using the "full citations with references" method[edit]
Examples of articles using the "short citations with bibliography and references" method[edit]
Relevant wikimarkup to use when citing sources[edit]
The easiest way to figure out how references are managed is to see how they've been done in the past. Edit a page that already uses them (preferably a Featured or Good article) and compare the wikimarkup inside to how the page looks.
Add a reference by using the <ref></ref> tags. Just put your citation in between them and it will appear in the references list at the bottom.
If one doesn't exist, you'll need to include the tag {{reflist}} at the bottom of the page in a separate section called something like "Notes" or "References."
If you want to reuse the same source, give the tag a name. For example, <ref name="McLuhan">McLuhan, Marshall. (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.</ref>. Later, if you simply put <ref name="McLuhan"/> it will refer back to the citation above without having to duplicate the citation itself.
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