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Wikipedia:Citing sources

• Birth, Marriage, Death in the UK

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Wikipedia:Citing sources

Births, Marriages, Deaths

This page documents an English Wikipedia style guideline. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense and the occasional exception. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

Shortcuts: WP:CS WP:CITE WP:REF

This page in a nutshell: This page describes how to use citations in articles.

A citation is a line of text that uniquely identifies a source. For example, this is a citation:

• Ritter, R. (2002). The Oxford Style Manual. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-860564-1. 

It allows a reader to find the source and verify that it supports material in Wikipedia. Citations are required for quotes, most images, information about living persons and anything that is likely to be challenged.

An article, paragraph or sentence is usually connected to the citation in one of four ways:

1. General reference: By placing the citation in a list at the end of an article.
2. Footnote: By placing it in a footnote following the sentence or paragraph it supports.^[1]
3. Shortened footnote: By placing the citation in the list and naming only the author, year and page number in a footnote.^[2]
4. Parenthetical reference: By placing the citation in the list and naming the author, year and page number in parenthesis (Ritter 2002, p. 45).

These are the most common methods of making articles verifiable. A Wikipedia editor is free to use any of these methods or to develop new methods; no method is preferred. Each article should use the same method throughout—if an article already has some citations, an editor should adopt the method already in use or seek consensus before changing it.

If you do not know how to format a citation, provide enough information to identify the source and others will improve the citation.

Quick summary

Footnote summary

The most common method for citing sources in Wikipedia is footnote referencing. The basic steps are:

• Immediately after the text that requires a source, add <ref>details of the citation</ref>. This will appear as a numbered superscript link.
• If you are working on a new page, or adding the first footnote to a page, add the following wiki markup at the bottom of the page, where the reference listing will appear:

==Notes==

<references />

• Your details of the citation text will appear in the appropriate section towards the bottom of the article, listed along with other footnotes; clicking on the numbered superscript link in the text will jump to it.

General reference summary

If a source supports a significant amount of the material in an article, another method is general referencing. The basic steps are:

• If you are working on a new page, or adding the first references to a page, add the following wiki markup at the bottom of the page, where the reference listing will appear:

==References==

* details of the citation

Your details of the citation text will appear in the appropriate section towards the bottom of the article, listed in a bullet format. Over-reliance on general referencing in an article may lead to that article being tagged with the {{nofootnotes}} tag. For book references, use of general referencing may lead to individual references being tagged with {{page number}} tags.

When to cite sources

Main article: Wikipedia:Verifiability

Wikipedia is by its very nature a work by people with widely different knowledge and skills. The reader needs to be assured that the material within it is reliable. The purpose of citing sources is:

• To ensure that the content of articles can be checked by any reader or editor.
• To show that your edit is not original research and to reduce editorial disputes.
• To avoid claims of plagiarism and copying.
• To help users find additional information on the topic.
• To ensure that material about living persons complies with biography policy.
• To improve the credibility of Wikipedia.

When adding material that is challenged or likely to be challenged

Main article: Wikipedia:Verifiability

Wikipedia:Verifiability says: "All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged should be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation."

The need for citations is especially important when writing about opinions held on a particular issue. Avoid weasel words where possible, such as, "Some people say ..." Instead, make your writing verifiable: find a specific person or group who holds that opinion and give a citation to a reputable publication in which they express that opinion. Remember that Wikipedia is not a place for expressing your own opinions or for original research. Opinions, data and statistics, and statements based on someone's scientific work should be cited and attributed to their authors in the text.

When quoting someone

Main articles: Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:MOS#Quotations

You should always add a citation when quoting published material, and the citation should be placed directly after (or just before) the quotation, which should be enclosed within double quotation marks—"like this"—or single quotation marks if it is a quote-within-a-quote—"and here is such a 'quotation' as an example." For long quotes, you may wish to use Quotation templates.

When adding material to the biography of a living person

Main article: Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons

Biographies of living persons should be sourced with particular care, for legal and ethical reasons. All contentious material about living persons must cite a reliable source. If you find unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about a living person—whether in an article or on a talk page—remove it immediately! Do not leave it in the article while you request a source. Do not move it to the talk page. This applies whether the material is in a biography or any other article.

When checking content added by others

You can also add sources for material you did not write. Adding citations is an excellent way to contribute to Wikipedia. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check for organized efforts to add citations.

When uploading an image

Images must include source details and a copyright tag on the image description page. It is important that you list the author of the image if known (especially if different from the source), which is important both for copyright and for informational purposes. Some copyright licenses require that the original author receive credit for their work.

• If you download an image from the web, you should give the URL:

Source: Downloaded from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4280841.stm

• If you got the image from an offline source, you should specify:

Source: Scanned from public record #5253 on file with Anytown, Somestate public surveyor

Any image with a non-free copyright license must be accompanied by a non-free use rationale (also called a fair use rationale) for each article in which the image is used.

Putting together the citation

Main article: Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Adding_the_citation

This section describes how to put together the text of a citation. Before you add it to a Wikipedia article, you may need to enclose it in tags or add an additional shortened version to the article.

Citation styles

See also: Citation, APA style, MLA style, The Chicago Manual of Style, Author-date referencing, Vancouver system, Bluebook, and Wikipedia:Citing sources/example style

All citation techniques require detailed full citations to be provided for each source used. Full citations must contain enough information for other editors to identify the specific published work you used. There are a number of styles used in different fields. They all include the same information but vary in punctuation and the order of the author's name, publication date, title, and page numbers. Any of these styles is acceptable on Wikipedia so long as articles are internally consistent. You should follow the style already established in an article, if it has one. Where there is disagreement, the style used by the first editor to use one should be respected. There are some specific examples of citations here.

Full citations for books typically include the following information:

• the name of the author or authors
• the title of the book
• the date of publication, and page numbers.
• The name of the publisher, city of publication, and ISBN are optional, although publisher is generally required for featured articles.

Full citations for journal articles typically include:

• the name of the author or authors
• year and sometimes month of publication
• the title of the article
• the name of the journal
• volume number, issue number (if the journal uses them), and page numbers

Citations for newspaper articles typically include:

• the byline (author's name),
• the title of the article in quotes,
• the name of the newspaper in italics,
• date of publication,
• page number(s)
• and a comment with the date you retrieved it if it is online (invisible to the reader).^{[dubious – discuss]}

Citations for world wide web articles (for reliable sources such as the Australian War Memorial) typically include:

• the name of the author or authors,
• the title of the article in quotes,
• the name of the website (linked to a Wikipedia article about the site if it exists, or to Website's "about page"),
• date of publication,
• page number(s) (if applicable),
• the date you retrieved it (invisible to the reader if the article has a date of publication),^{[dubious – discuss]}
• optional comment or small quote.

Including page numbers

If you are quoting from, paraphrasing, or referring to a specific passage of a book or article, you should if possible also cite the page number(s) of that passage. In the case of books, the edition of the book should also be included because pagination can change between editions. Page numbers are especially important in case of lengthy unindexed books. Page numbers within a book or article are not required when a citation is for a general description of a book or article, or when a book or article, as a whole, is being used to exemplify a particular point of view.

Cite the place where you found the material

It is improper to obtain a citation from an intermediate source without making clear that you saw only that intermediate source. For example, you might find some information on a Web page that is attributed to a certain book. Unless you look at the book yourself to check that the information is there, your source is really the Web page, which is what you must cite. The credibility of your article rests on the credibility of the Web page, as well as the book, and your article must make that clear.

Links and ID numbers

A citation ideally includes a link or ID number to help editors locate the source.

If you have a URL (webpage) link, you can add it to the title part of the citation, so that when you add the citation to Wikipedia the URL becomes hidden and the title becomes clickable. To do this, enclose the URL and the title in square brackets—the URL first, then a space, then the title. For example:

Brown, R.: [http://webpage.html "Size of the Moon"], ''Scientific American'', 51(78):46.

For web-only sources you should also include a "Retrieved on" date in case the webpage changes in future: Retrieved on [[2008-07-15]].

You can also add an ID number to the end of a citation. The ID number might be an ISBN number for a book, a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) for an article, or any of several ID numbers that are specific to particular article databases, such as a PMID number for articles on Pubmed. It may be possible to format these so that they are automatically activated and become clickable when added to Wikipedia, for example by typing ISBN (or PMID) following by a space followed by the ID number.

If your source is not findable online, it should be findable in reputable libraries, archives, or collections. If a citation without an external link is challenged as unfindable, any of the following is sufficient to show the material to be reasonably findable (though not necessarily reliable): providing an ISBN or OCLC number; linking to an established Wikipedia article about the source (the work, its author, or its publisher); or directly quoting the material on the talk page, briefly and in context.

Convenience links

Main article: Wikipedia:Copyrights#Linking to copyrighted works

A "convenience link" is a link to a copy of your source on a webpage provided by someone other than the original publisher or author. For example, a copy of a newspaper article no longer available on the newspaper's website may be hosted elsewhere. When offering convenience links, it is important to be reasonably certain that the convenience copy is a true copy of the original, without any changes or inappropriate commentary, and that it does not infringe the original publisher's copyright. Accuracy can be assumed when the hosting website appears reliable, but editors should always exercise caution, and ideally find and verify multiple copies of the material for contentious items.

Where several sites host a copy of the material, the site selected as the convenience link should be the one whose general content appears most in line with Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and Wikipedia:Verifiability.

Sources in different languages

Main article: Wikipedia:Verifiability#Non-English sources

Because this is the English Wikipedia, English-language sources should be given whenever possible, and should always be used in preference to other language sources of equal caliber. However, do use sources in other languages where appropriate. If quoting from a different language source, an English translation should be given with the original-language quote beside it.

Citation templates and tools

For more details on this topic, see Wikipedia:Citation templates.

Citation templates are used to format citations in a consistent way. The use of citation templates is neither encouraged nor discouraged. Templates may be used or removed at the discretion of individual editors, subject to agreement with other editors on the article. Because templates can be contentious, editors should not change an article with a distinctive citation format to another without gaining consensus.

There are (at least) two families of citation templates. The {{Citation}} template is intended to provide citations for many types of sources. The other family has names of the form {{Cite xxx}} (for example, {{Cite book}} and {{Cite web}}). These two families produce different citation styles. For example, the {{Cite xxx}} family separates elements with a full stop, while the {{Citation}} template separates elements with a comma. Thus, these two families should not be mixed in the same article.

There are several webpages/tools that can help quickly produce a citation in a standard template format. You may only need one piece of information and they can fill in the rest of the details. The resulting citation will be enclosed in "cite" tags, and it will be formatted in a particular way depending on which kind of template is being used. You can then copy all the text from there. It may still require additional tags before you can add it to a Wikipedia article.

There is a list of citation creation tools at the end of this article.

Need to qualify sources

Sources for uncontentious statements do not necessarily need to be described beyond adding the citation. No further description would be needed with the following, for example:

The word caffeine comes from the French term for coffee: café.^[3]

However, points which are more controversial, where there are contradictory studies or different opinions, may need to include more descriptive context to "qualify" the nature of the source. For example (from Super-recursive algorithm):

Martin Davis has described some of Burgin's claims as "misleading".^[4]

Here it is important to identify in the text exactly who is making the claim, since it would be inappropriate for Wikipedia to advocate that "Burgin's claims are misleading."

Adding the citation

See also: Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners and Wikipedia:Verification methods

Discussed below are the several ways to add a citation to an article. Whichever style you choose, sections containing citations should be placed after the "See also" section and before the "Further reading" section.^[5] Once a style is selected for an article it is inappropriate to change an article to another unless there is a reason that goes beyond mere choice of style.^[6]

General reference

If a source supports a significant amount of the material in an article, it may sometimes be acceptable to simply add the citation at the end. It serves as a general reference, not linked to any particular part of the article. This is more likely to be appropriate for relatively undeveloped articles or those covering a very simple or narrow topic.

The Sun is pretty big, but the Moon is not so big. The Sun is also quite hot.
== References ==
*Brown, R (2006). "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 51(78).
*Miller, E (2005). "The Sun", Academic Press.

Below is how this would look once the edit was saved:

The Sun is pretty big, but the Moon is not so big. The Sun is also quite hot.

References

---

• Brown, R (2006). "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 51(78).
• Miller, E (2005). "The Sun", Academic Press.

Inline reference

In most cases, an inline citation is required in addition to the full citation. This shows which specific part of the article a citation is being applied to. Inline citations are mandated by Wikipedia's featured article criteria and (to a lesser extent) the good article criteria. They are particularly appropriate for supporting statements of fact and are needed for statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, including contentious material about living persons, and for all quotations.

The following are methods of inline citation used in Wikipedia:

Footnote system

For more details on this topic, see Wikipedia:Footnotes.

See also: Help:Footnotes

Many Wikipedia articles, particularly the more developed articles and those which meet good or featured article criteria, place their citations in footnotes. The inline citations in this method appear as small clickable numbers within the text, which link to a numbered list of full citations in footnotes at the end of the article.

For a citation to appear in a footnote, it needs to be enclosed in "ref" tags. You can add these by typing <ref> at the front of the citation and </ref> at the end. Alternatively you may notice below the edit box there is a list of "markup" which includes <ref></ref> - if you highlight your whole citation and then click this markup, it will automatically enclose your citation in ref tags.

The full citation will appear in a section at the end of the article (usually called "Notes" or "References", see Layout). If this section does not already exist, create the section and place either <references/> or {{reflist}} in it. This will automatically generate the list of footnotes.

The example below shows what this would look like in the edit box:

The Sun is pretty big,<ref>Miller, E: "The Sun", page 23. Academic Press, 2005.</ref>
but the Moon is not so big.<ref>Brown, R: "Size of the Moon", ''Scientific American'', 51(78):46</ref>
The Sun is also quite hot.<ref>Miller, E: "The Sun", page 34. Academic Press, 2005.</ref>
==Notes==
<references/>

Below is how this would look in the article, once you had saved your edit:

The Sun is pretty big,^[1] but the Moon is not so big.^[2] The Sun is also quite hot.^[3]

Notes

---

1. ^ Miller, E: "The Sun", page 23. Academic Press, 2005.
2. ^ Brown, R: "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 51(78):46.
3. ^ Miller, E: "The Sun", page 34. Academic Press, 2005.

When citing multiple pages from a single long work, like a book, Template:Rp can be used. The page number is placed after the like so: <ref>[ref information]</ref>{{rp|[number]}}.

Shortened footnotes

Many articles use a shortened version of the citation in the footnote, giving just the author, year (or title) and the page numbers. As before, the list of footnotes is automatically generated in the "Notes" section. A full citation is then added in the "References" section. The inline citation and the full citation may be linked so that the reader may click on the inline citation to highlight the full citation (see wikilinks to full references).

Shortened footnotes are used for several reasons: they allow the editor to cite many different pages of the same source without having to copy the entire citation; they avoid the inevitable clutter when long citations are inserted into the source text; and they bring together all the full citations into a coherent block of code (rather than being strewn throughout the text) which allows the list to be alphabetized and makes it easier to edit all the full citations at once (e.g. adding ISBN, DOI or other detail).

Below is an edit mode view of adding "shortened notes" citations to an article:

The Sun is pretty big,<ref>Miller 2005, p.23.</ref>
but the Moon is not so big.<ref>Brown 2006, p.46.</ref>
The Sun is also quite hot.<ref>Miller 2005, p.34.</ref>
== Notes ==
{{reflist|2}}
== References ==
*Brown, R (2006). "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 51(78).
*Miller, E (2005). "The Sun", Academic Press.

Below is how this would look once the edit was saved:

The Sun is pretty big,^[1] but the Moon is not so big.^[2] The Sun is also quite hot.^[3]

Notes

---

1. ^ Miller 2005, p.23.
2. ^ Brown 2006, p.46.
3. ^ Miller 2005, p.34.

References

---

• Brown, R (2006). "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 51(78).
• Miller, E (2005). "The Sun", Academic Press.

Shortened notes using titles rather than publication dates could look like this in the article:

Notes

---

1. ^ Miller "The Sun", p.23.
2. ^ Brown "Size of the Moon", p.46.
3. ^ Miller "The Sun", p.34.

Parenthetical referencing

For more details on this topic, see Wikipedia:Parenthetical referencing.

A form of parenthetical referencing called author-date referencing is also used in Wikipedia. Under the this system, a short version of the citation is added in parentheses just after the point it is supporting, comprising only the surname of the author(s) and the year of publication, and possibly page numbers. The inline citation usually looks like: (Author 2006:28) or (Author 2006, p.28). The full citation is then added at the end of the article to a "References" section. This list of full citations is usually ordered alphabetically by author name. As with shortened notes, the inline citation and the full citation may be linked so that the reader may click on the inline citation to highlight the full citation (see linking inline and full citations).

Author-date references are the most commonly used citation method in the physical and social sciences (Ritter 2002). Accordingly, they are used in some of Wikipedia's articles on science. For a full discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of author-date referencing, please see Author-date referencing#Pros & cons.

Below is an edit mode view of adding author-date citations to an article:

The Sun is pretty big (Miller 2005),
but the Moon is not so big (Brown 2006, p.46).
The Sun is also quite hot (Miller 2005, p.34).
== References ==
*Brown, R (2006). "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 51(78).
*Miller, E (2005). "The Sun", Academic Press.

Below is how this would look once the edit was saved:

The Sun is pretty big (Miller 2005), but the Moon is not so big (Brown 2006, p.46). The Sun is also quite hot (Miller 2005, p. 34).

References

---

• Brown, R (2006). "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 51(78).
• Miller, E (2005). "The Sun", Academic Press.

Embedded links

For more details on this topic, see Wikipedia:Embedded citations.

If a webpage is used as a source, it can be linked to directly within the article by enclosing the URL in square brackets just after the point it is supporting. When the edit is saved, only a number is visible within the text. For example, a reference to a newspaper article can be embedded by adding: [http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1601858,00.html], which looks like this in the article: [1]

A full citation is also required in a References section at the end of the article. In addition, providing an access date for the link in a comment helps editors recover a link that has become unavailable. for example:

*Plunkett, John. [http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1601858,00.html "Sorrell accuses Murdoch of panic buying"], ''The Guardian'', [[October 27]], [[2005]]. <!--accessed June 5, 2008-->^{[dubious – discuss]}

which appears as:

• Plunkett, John. "Sorrell accuses Murdoch of panic buying", The Guardian, October 27, 2005.

Because of the difficulties in associating them with their appropriate full references, the use of embedded links for inline citations is not particularly recommended as a method of best practice and is not found in featured articles.

Scrolling lists

Scrolling lists, for example of references, should never be used because of issues with readability, accessibility, printing, and site mirroring. Additionally, it cannot be guaranteed that such lists will display properly in all web browsers.

Dealing with citation problems

Unsourced material

Main article: WP:Verifiability

If an article has no references, and you are unable to find them yourself, you can tag the article with the template {{Unreferenced}}, so long as the article is not nonsensical or a biography of a living person, in which case request admin assistance. If a particular claim in an article lacks citation and is doubtful, consider placing {{fact}} after the sentence or removing it. Consider the following in deciding which action to take:

• 1. If a claim is doubtful but not harmful to the whole article or to Wikipedia, use the {{fact}} tag, but remember to go back and remove the claim if no source is produced within a reasonable time.

• 2. If a claim is doubtful and harmful, you should remove it from the article; you may want to move it to the talk page and ask for a source, unless you regard it as very harmful or absurd, in which case it should not be posted to a talk page either. Use your common sense. All unsourced and poorly sourced contentious material about living persons should be removed from articles and talk pages immediately. It should not be tagged. See Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons and Wikipedia:Libel.

Dead links

Preventing dead links

To help prevent dead links, persistent identifiers are available for some sources. Some journal articles have a digital object identifier (DOI); some online newspapers and blogs, and also Wikipedia, have permalinks that are stable. When permanent links aren't available, consider archiving the referenced document when writing the article; on-demand web archiving services such as WebCite (http://www.webcitation.org) are fairly easy to use (see pre-emptive archiving).

Repairing dead links

Dead links should be repaired or replaced if possible. In most cases one of the following approaches will give an acceptable alternative.

• First, check the link to confirm that it is dead. The site may have been temporarily down or have changed its linking structure. If the link has returned to service but has been labeled as a dead link, simply remove the labeling. See {{dead link}}.
• If the document is no longer available at the original website, there may be a copy of the referenced document at a web archiving service. If so, update the reference to include a link to the archived copy of the referenced document.
  • The Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/) has literally billions of archived webpages. Note that there may be a delay of six months before a recent link shows up there. See also the article Wikipedia:Using the Wayback Machine.
  • WebCite is an "on-demand" archiving service (http://www.webcitation.org) that should also be checked.
• If a good copy of the original document cannot be located, it may be possible to find a substitute. Enter key words or phrases or other content from the cited material into the referenced website's search engine, into a similar website's search engine, or into a general search engine such as Google. (A search engine may hold a cached version of the dead link for a short time, which can help find a substitute.) Or, browse the referenced document's website or similar websites. If you find a new document that can serve as a substitute, update the dead link to refer to the new document.
• Deactivate the dead link, and keep the citation information if still appropriate to the article. (This may happen, for example, when an online copy of material that originally appeared in print is no longer online.) In the remaining citation, note that the dead link was found to be inactive on today's date. Even with an inactive link, the citation still records a source that was used, and provides a context for understanding archiving delays or for taking other actions. In order to deactivate the dead link, do one of the following.
  • Turn the dead link into plain text. Remove only enough of the dead link's wikitext or markup language or URI scheme (square brackets, "http://", and so on) so that clicking on the link does not take you to its destination. This will make the link visible to both readers and editors of the article.
  • Turn the dead link into an HTML comment. Place HTML comment markup language around the link. This will make the link disappear when reading the article, but will preserve the link for editors of the article.

If a dead link cannot be repaired or replaced, consider reworking the article section so that it no longer relies on the dead link.

Whether a dead link can or cannot be repaired or replaced, remember that Wikipedia policy (including policy on sources and biographies of living persons) still applies. Consider doing further edits of the citation and cited material, if appropriate, to improve the article.

Use of terms

This guideline uses the terms citation and reference interchangeably. The word "source", as used in Wikipedia, has three related meanings: the piece of work itself, the creator of the work, and the publisher of the work.^[7] Usually, for the purposes of this guideline, the source refers primarily to the document (including webpages) that is being cited/referenced.

The terms Footnote and Note are also used interchangeably. There is no separate usage of the term "Endnote" because each Wikipedia article, like other HTML documents, is considered to be only one page even if it is displayed across several screens.

A common system of citation on Wikipedia is a footnote system, in which case all the above terms may be used interchangeably in some cases.

The terms Further Reading, External links or Bibliography are used as section headings in Wikipedia articles for lists of additional general texts on a topic for those interested, rather than for citations supporting the article.

Tools

Citation creation tools

A wide range of tools are available to help put together a full citation.

Web-based template fillers

These are tools with a website interface that provide a complete formatted reference based on a few initial details.

• Universal Reference Formatter

(Requires at least part of the citation text, or a URL link, or any one of several article ID numbers: ISBN, DOI, PMID, PMC, SICI)

• Google Scholar search add-on
  • {{Google scholar cite}} – a template front-end for the Universal reference formatter

(Search Google Scholar via this webpage and if you find a source you can click to autofill its details back into the Universal Reference Formatter)

• Scopus search add-on
  • Find a reference on Scopus, then with one click it's formatted ready for use in an article.

• Reference Generator

(Depending on type of source, requires at least some part of citation, or a URL link, or some form of reference ID number)

• Diberri Template builder

(Requires a URL link or any one of several article ID numbers: DrugBank ID, HGNC ID, ISBN, PubMed ID, PubMed Central ID, PubChem ID)

• {{Cite book}} generator

(For books only; requires ISBN number)

Browser Add-ons

These tools can be integrated into your internet browser.

• WPCITE

(A Firefox add-in allowing you to create a partial {{cite news}} template. See the developer's page for details.)

• refToolbar

(A Javascript gadget, allowing you to format a reference during editing when you already have all the data.)

• Zotero

(A Mozilla Firefox add-on, Zotero allows you to find articles and easily paste their citations into Wikipedia as citation templates, using (on Windows) Ctrl-Alt-C or right-clicking the article and selecting "Export Selected Item..." then "Wikipedia Citation Templates.")

Article checkers

These tools can help you complete partial citations that are already in an article.

• Citation Bot (more info)

(Partial citations must either contain a DOI, PMID, PMC, ISBN, or enough fields to be uniquely found. The bot will also fix formatting errors.)

• tools:~dispenser/cgi-bin/reflinks.py

(Checks an article for working (non-404) references, corrects titles, adds citation templates, and, preforms other misc. fixes. Can be added to the toolbox with this javascript: User:SQL/refcheck.js)

Misc

• WebCite

(WebCite archives a copy of an online source, so a citation can link to the archived copy as well as to the original URL (in case the latter changes in future).

• OttoBib

(OttoBib generates an alphabetized bibliography of books from a list of International Standard Book Number (ISBN) numbers, with output in MLA, APA, Chicago/Turabian, BibTeX, or Wikipedia format (also generates a permalink).

Citation processing tools

• User:CitationTool – tool for finding article-level citation errors and fixing them. Not currently functional.
• Citation bot (formerly DOI bot) – automatically fixes common errors in individual citations, and adds missing fields

Programming tools

• Wikicite is a free program that helps editors to properly reference their Wikipedia contributions using citation templates. It is written in Visual Basic .NET, making it suitable only for users with the .NET Framework installed on Windows, or, for other platforms, the Mono alternative framework. Wikicite and its source code is freely available, see the developer's page for further details.
  • Wikicite+ is a program based on the original Wikicite source code. It features extra validation, bug fixes, additional cite templates (such as cite episode) as well as tools for stub sorting and more. It is also available for free under the Apache License 2.0 and is open source.
• pubmed2wiki.xsl a XSL stylesheet transforming the XML output of pubmed to Wikipedia refs.
• User:Richiez has tools to automatically handle citations for a whole article at a time. Converts occurrences of {{pmid XXXX}} or {{isbn XXXX}} to properly formatted footnote or Harvard style references. Written in ruby and requires a working installation with basic libraries.

See also

• Wikipedia:Verification methods - listing examples of the most common ways that references are used in Wikipedia articles.
• Wikipedia:Citing sources/example style – listing examples of full references using APA and Harvard referencing techniques.
• Wikipedia:Citing sources/Example edits for different methods - showing comparative edit mode representations for different citation methods and techniques.
• Wikipedia:Citing sources/Further considerations - information of additional interest.
• Wikipedia:Citation templates – a full listing of various styles for citing all sorts of materials.
• Wikipedia:Copyright problems – in case of text that has been copied verbatim inappropriately.
• Wikipedia:External links - for information about the External links appendix
• Wikipedia:Layout#Further reading - for information about the Further reading appendix
• Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners – a simple practical guide to getting started.
• Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines – guidelines for dealing with scientific and mathematical articles.
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Citation cleanup - a group of people devoted to cleaning citations
• Reference management software
  • Comparison of reference management software

Notes

References

Further reading