Template:Citation needed

[edit] [purge] Template documentation

An introductory version of this documentation is provided at Wikipedia:Citation needed.

{{Citation needed}} or {{Fact}} is a template used to identify questionable claims which lack a citation to a reliable source. It produces a superscripted notation like the following:

Humphrey Bogart has won several snooker world championships.^{[citation needed]}

Usage

You may append a date to the template in the following format:

{{Citation needed|date=November 2009}}

Notes:

• Do not substitute this template.
• If you don't add a date parameter, a bot will date your entry with the month and year at a later time.
• The date parameter consists of the name of the current month and the year only, no dates. The names of the months are capitalised in English.
  Any deviation from these two rules will result in an "invalid date parameter" error.

You are also recommended to also add a "dummy" parameter to leave a better record for future editors. For example, the following usage might be appropriate to the claim that "Humphrey Bogart has won several snooker world championships.":

{{Citation needed|reason=please give a reliable source for this assertion. I thought he was an actor.}}

Adding this template to an article places the article into Category:Articles with unsourced statements or a dated subcategory thereof.

Please remove the template when you add a citation for a statement.

When not to use this template

Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons should be removed immediately. Do not tag it— remove it. For more information, see the section on poorly sourced contentious material in the Biography of Living Persons policy. Material which is doubtful and harmful may be removed immediately, rather than tagged. See Unsourced material. If you have the time and ability to find an authoritative reference, please do so. Then add the citation yourself, or correct the article text. After all, the ultimate goal is not to merely identify problems, but to fix them. Many editors object to what they perceive as overuse of this tag, particularly in what is known as "drive-by" tagging, which is applying the tag without attempting to address the issues at all. Consider whether adding this tag in an article is the best approach before using it, and use it judiciously. Wikipedia's verifiability policy does not require reliable sources for common facts (e.g., "The Moon orbits the Earth"), or that citations be repeated through every sentence in a paragraph. All direct quotations, statistics, and facts whose accuracy might be challenged require citations. This template is intended for specific passages which need citation. For articles or sections which have significant material lacking sources (rather than just specific short passages), there are other, more appropriate templates, such as {{Unreferenced}}.

See also

• Wikipedia:Citing sources
  • Especially: Unsourced material
• Wikipedia:Verifiability
• Wikipedia:Reliable sources
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check

Inline templates

• {{Cite quote}}^{[cite this quote]}: for "actual quotations" which need citations to make them proper
• {{Page number}}^{[page needed]}: request a page number for an existing citation
• {{List fact}}^{[list membership disputed]}: request a citation of a source which justifies inclusion of a given entry in a list
• {{Clarify}}^{[clarification needed]}: request clarification of wording or interpretation
• {{Reference necessary}}Example text^{[citation needed]}: wrapper for a portion of a paragraph to highlight it as needing citation

Incomplete citations

• {{Page needed}}^{[page needed]}: in-line request for the page number or page numbers in a work such as journal for an existing citation.
• {{Season needed}}^{[season & episode needed]}, similar to {{page needed}}: for missing TV season & episode number
• {{Volume needed}}^{[volume & issue needed]}, similar to {{page needed}}: for missing journal, newspaper, comic, etc., volume and issue numbers)

Verification

• {{Dead link}}^{[dead link]}: request a fix for a dead external link within a paragraph or a reference citation.
• {{Failed verification}}^{[not in citation given]}: source was checked, and did not contain the cited material
• {{Request quotation}}^{[Need quotation on talk to verify]}: request a direct quote from an inaccessible source, for verification purposes
• {{Self-citation}}^{[self-citation]}: flag a source that cites the author
• {{Verify credibility}}^{[unreliable source?]}: flag a source as possibly being unreliable and/or unverifiable
• {{Verify source}}^{[verification needed]}: request that someone verify the cited source backs up the material in the passage

Content

• {{Dubious}}^{[dubious – discuss]}: flag something as suspected of being incorrect
• {{or}}^{[original research?]}: flag something as possibly containing original research
• {{POV-statement}}^{[neutrality disputed]}: dispute the neutrality of a passage
• {{weasel-inline}}^{[weasel words]}: Avoid weasel words.
• {{who}}^[who?]: for placement after descriptions of a group of persons.
• {{whom}}^{[by whom?]}: placement after mention of a vague third party claim that is not sourced.

Article message box templates

• {{Unreferenced}}, article/section has no sources/references/citations given at all
• {{Refimprove}}, article/section has weak or incomplete sources/references/citations
• {{Citecheck}}, article/section may have inappropriate or misinterpreted citations