Sarkarverse:Citing sources: Difference between revisions

{{hatnote|This page is specifically about how to craft references for Wikipedia articles. For the Wikipedia article about citations in intellectual work, school papers, etc., see [[Citation]].<br />For information about citing Wikipedia articles, see [[Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia]].<br />For information on referencing citations in Wikipedia articles, see [[Help:Footnotes|footnotes]], [[WP:Inline citation|inline citation]] and [[Help:Referencing for beginners|referencing for beginners]].}}

{{redirect|WP:CS|the essay about using common sense|WP:UCS}}

{{subcat guideline|content guideline|Citing sources|WP:CS|WP:CITE|WP:REF}}

Citations are used to identify the [[WP:SOURCES|reliable sources]] on which an article is based. In most cases citations appear in the form of [[Help:footnotes|footnotes]], although they can also appear within the body of an article. Citations indicated by a superscript number or other means in a line of text are called [[WP:INCITE|inline citations]].

Wikipedia's [[Wikipedia:Verifiability|Verifiability]] policy requires inline citations for any material [[WP:CHALLENGED|challenged or likely to be challenged]], and for all quotations, anywhere in [[WP:Mainspace|article space]]. However, editors are advised to provide citations for all material added to Wikipedia; any unsourced material risks being unexpectedly challenged or eventually removed.

This page explains how to place and format citations. Each article should use the same citation method throughout; if an article already has citations, adopt the method in use or seek consensus on the talk page before changing it (this principle is known as [[WP:CITEVAR]]). While you should try to write citations correctly, what matters most is that you provide enough information to identify the source. Others will improve the formatting if needed. [[Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners]] provides a brief introduction on how to reference Wikipedia articles.