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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.
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:
Alternatively, learn referencing in VisualEditor. The source editor shows underlying wiki markup like [[Earth]] . The VisualEditor works like a word processor.
When referencing books, it is imperative to cite the page numbers. Providing the specific page (or pages) allow other editors to verify what is being stated. Without the specific page(s), the process of verification becomes tedious and virtually impossible with certain non-digitized scientific volumes.
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.
If the correct parameters are used, this template produces output identical to that of the {} template, with one important exception: By default, this Citation template uses periods (full stops) in places where the Citation template use commas by default; either type of template can use periods (full stops) or commas by using an optional parameter.
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 ...
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 ...