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{} for references to books {{cite journal}} for magazines, academic journals, and papers; A template window then pops up, where you fill in as much information as possible about the source, and give a unique name for it in the "Ref name" field. Click the "Insert" button, which will add the required wikitext in the edit window.
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:
When editing, you'll see your reference next to the text; but after saving, readers will only see a reference number there; your reference should appear below. Good luck! If you get a warning about a missing "References" section at the end of the page, just add it:
A named reference or a sfn reference pair is transfered into the page by the standard copy and paste technique. Other Tools Re-Fill and Ref-links edit references by adding basic information to bare URLs in citations. Wikipedia tool for Google Books converts a long Google Books URL into a filled-out {} template which is pasted into an 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.
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
The in-text cite may be defined with a name so they can be reused within the content and may be separated into groups for use as explanatory notes, table legends and the like. The reference list shows the full citations with a cite label that matches the in-text cite. The cite label is a caret ^ with a backlink to the in-text cite. When a named ...
Do not insert a "Citation needed" tag to make a point, to "pay back" another editor, or because you "don't like" a subject, a particular article, or another editor. If your work has been tagged If you can provide a reliable source for the claim, then please add it!