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It is possible to create original research based on any source: primary, secondary or tertiary; and in all cases this should be avoided. However, particular care should be taken with primary sources because it is easy to misuse them. Most statements of fact or opinion come ultimately from primary sources, via analysis, interpretation or synthesis.
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 above the edit box there is a row of "markup" formatting buttons which include a <ref></ref> button to the right—if you highlight your whole citation and then click this markup button, it will ...
Essays, proposals and information pages should only be cited as opinions or advice, not admonishment. They should not be used as an end-run around the Wikipedia process of establishing consensus. It is not a good idea to quote essays—including this one—as though they are Wikipedia-approved policies or guidelines. Essays can be written ...
They rely on primary sources for their material, making analytic or evaluative claims about them. [d] For example, a review article that analyzes research papers in a field is a secondary source for the research. [e] Whether a source is primary or secondary depends on context. A book by a military historian about the Second World War might be a ...
Sources that are reliable for some material are not reliable for other material. For instance, otherwise unreliable self-published sources are usually acceptable to support uncontroversial information about the source's author. You should always try to use the best possible source, particularly when writing about living people.
Inline verifiability and sources cleanup templates; Wikipedia:Verification methods – listing examples of the most common ways that citations are used in Wikipedia articles; Wikipedia:Citing sources/Example edits for different methods – showing comparative edit mode representations for different citation methods and techniques.
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Providing sources for your edits, in particular for edits that are challenged by other editors, is mandated by Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Verifiability, which are policy. Citing reliable sources serves several purposes: To ensure that articles are accurate and credible. To show that your edit isn't original research.