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This guide helps beginners reference Wikipedia articles without using templates, providing clear instructions and examples.
Inline citations are usually small, numbered footnotes like this. [1] They are generally added either directly following the fact that they support, or at the end of the sentence that they support, following any punctuation. When clicked, they take the reader to a citation in a reference section near the bottom of the article.
Citations can also be placed as external links, but these are not preferred because they are prone to link rot and usually lack the full information necessary to find the original source in cases of link rot. In cases where citations are lacking, the template {} can be added after the statement in question.
The easiest way to start citing on Wikipedia is to see a basic example. The example here will show you how to cite a newspaper article using the {} template (see Citation quick reference for other types of citations). Copy and paste the following immediately after what you want to reference:
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) is a Baptist theological institute in Louisville, Kentucky. It is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention . The seminary was founded in 1859 in Greenville, South Carolina , where it was at first housed on the campus of Furman University .
This example is the most basic and includes unique references for each citation, showing the page numbers in the reference list. This repeats the citation, changing the page number. A disadvantage is that this can create a lot of redundant text in the reference list when a source is cited many times. So consider using one of the alternatives ...
Welcome to Wikipedia, the Referencing for beginners is designed to help you put references in your text, or add missing references to existing text. While there are many types of referencing system in use on Wikipedia, only about four are now in common use.
Citation Hunt: A tool for browsing snippets of Wikipedia articles that lack citations. Citer: Converts a URL, DOI, ISBN, PMID, PMCID, OCLC, or Google Books URL into a citation and shortened footnote. It also can generate citations for certain major news websites (e.g., The New York Times) and the Wayback Machine.