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Whether a source is usable also depends on context. 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 ...
Citations are important in Wikipedia to ensure that information comes from actual, reliable sources (WP:V, WP:CITE). There are three preferred ways of citing sources: Footnotes; Footnotes with list-defined references; Shortened footnotes
Otherwise reliable news sources—for example, the website of a major news organization—that publish in a blog-style format for some or all of their content may be as reliable as if published in standard news article format (See also Wikipedia:Verifiability § Newspaper and magazine blogs).
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:
An example of usage in a published source is not of itself valid as a citation, because your selection of that example constitutes original work. If you are adding new content, it is your responsibility to add sourcing information along with it. Material provided without a source is significantly more likely to be removed from an article.
The integrity of qualitative data depends on the questions used and the demographic make-up of the samples questioned; sound secondary sources will comment on the impact of the questioning strategy and the sample questioned and this should be referred to in the article.
A general reference is a citation to a reliable source that supports content, but is not linked to any particular text in the article through an inline citation. General references are usually listed at the end of the article in a "References" section, and are usually sorted by the last name of the author or the editor.
Book publishers have little incentive to worry about facts since people generally buy books based on the author rather than the publisher. For this reason books are seldom very reliable sources. When you cite a newspaper, you are also relying on the author but mainly on the publication.