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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: ...
If this was a non-blind citation of web-only material, it may be worth the effort to search the target site for an equivalent page at a new location, an indication that the whole site has moved, etc. If the link was merely a "convenience link" to an online copy of material that originally appeared in print, and an appropriate substitute cannot ...
In the first part, each section of text that is either based on, or quoted from, an outside source is marked as such with an inline citation. This is usually displayed as a superscript footnote number: [1] The second necessary part of the citation or reference is the list of full references, which provides complete, formatted detail about the ...
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 ...
Like text, media must be produced by a reliable source and be properly cited. Additionally, an archived copy of the media must exist. It is convenient, but by no means necessary, for the archived copy to be accessible via the Internet.
Some fields (such as a web address, also known as a URL) will have a icon next to them. After filling in this field, you can click it to handily autofill the remaining fields. It doesn't always work properly, though, so be sure to double check it. Often, you will want to use the same source more than once in an article to support multiple facts.
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:
There are two simple ways to create a new reference: Fully automatic (by just inserting a web URL) or manually by filling in a template (where you add each piece of information separately). The automatic option is the easiest. Wikipedia can often auto-format a reference citation if you just insert the website URL and click "Generate".