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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:
{{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.
Simply use the citation template and <ref> tags as you would for any other footnote, but define an "image" group in the <ref> tag. To create the references list, add a second {{reflist}}, also specifying the image group. In the examples below, the citation is underlined, and the relevant parts defining the image group are in bold.
This template is specifically for web sites which are not news sources. See also citation templates for more on templates for citing open-source web content in Wikipedia articles. Here are some convenient examples. Common form for cases where little is known about authorship of the page {{Cite web |url= |title= |access-date= |format= |work= }}
For white papers, or unpublished papers, please use one of the templates listed on this page in the "Citation Style 1 templates" box (often {{cite report}} or {}). If you have a digital object identifier (DOI) for the journal reference you wish to add, Wikipedia has a citation bot that will read that DOI and expand it into a full reference with ...
Each in-text cite is formatted as a superscripted alphanumeric character called the cite label and is enclosed by brackets; example: [1]. The cite label has an HTML link to the full citation in the reference list. In-text cites are automatically ordered by the cite label starting from the first use on a page.
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
This page explains how to place and format both parts of the citation. Each article should use one citation method or style throughout. If an article already has citations, preserve consistency by using that method or seek consensus on the talk page before changing it (the principle is reviewed at § Variation in citation methods ) .