English Wikipedia @ Freddythechick:Verification methods

This is an essay.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

These examples show several common methods that Wikipedia editors use to make their articles verifiable. Wikipedia editors are free to use any of these methods, or to develop newer methods—no particular method is preferred. However some method is required and each article must use the same method throughout the entire article. (When making changes to an article that already has sources, an editor should study the method already in use.)

This article is only intended to provide examples and give a rough introduction to the methods in use. This article does not debate their respective merits or consider any precise technical details. For this information, please see other guides such as: Citing sources, Citation templates, Footnotes and Harvard references.

Temporary references

It is more important to provide some kind of source than to format the source perfectly. Later editors can easily fix a badly formatted citation, but they will find it difficult or impossible to do the research necessary to find a source for a random bit of material added to an article. Newer editors may use any means necessary to provide a source for the material they bring to Wikipedia.

A book: add the authors name, the book's title, year of publication and the page number that the material comes from. The year is important since it establishes which edition of the book was used.
A website: provide the URL (in brackets) of the particular webpage on which this material appears.

These examples require almost no knowledge of Wikipedia's special characters or markup language, and no knowledge at all of proper citation formats.

Markup

Renders as

This is material that comes from a book. (John Doe, Book of Facts, 1990, page 21)

This is other material that comes from a website.[http://example.org]

This is material that isn't obvious, that you're sure is true, but that you haven't found a source for yet.<sup class="noprint Inline-Template " style="white-space:nowrap;">[<i>[[Wikipedia:Citation needed|<span title="Wikipedia:Citation needed">citation needed</span>]]</i>]</sup>

General references section

Many articles have a list of references (i.e. a bibliography) at the end of the article. The references are assumed to verify material throughout the article. This section should contain full citations. For information on how to write proper citations for journals, web sites, newspaper articles, and other sources (without using templates) see Wikipedia:Citing sources#Examples.

Example 1

Markup

Renders as

This is material that comes from a book.

This is other material that comes from a different book.

<div class="fake-heading h2">References</div>
* [[John Doe|Doe, John]] (1991), ''Book of Facts'', Great Books, [[ISBN (identifier)|ISBN]] [[Special:BookSources/9780123456878 |9780123456878]]
* [[Jane Doe|Doe, Jane]] (2001), ''More Facts'', Better Books, [[ISBN (identifier)|ISBN]] [[Special:BookSources/9780123456878 |9780123456878]]

Example 2: Using citation templates

This example uses citation templates to format the references. Templates (such as {{cite book}} or {{citation}}) are not essential, but many editors find them useful. For more information on using citation templates, see Wikipedia:Citation templates.

Markup

Renders as

This is material that comes from a book.

This is other material that comes from a different book.

<div class="fake-heading h2">References</div>
* <cite id="CITEREFDoe1992" class="citation book cs1">[[John Doe|Doe, John]] (1992). ''Book of Facts''. Great Books. [[ISBN (identifier)|ISBN]] [[Special:BookSources/9780123456878|<bdi>9780123456878</bdi>]].</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=Book+of+Facts&rft.pub=Great+Books&rft.date=1992&rft.isbn=9780123456878&rft.aulast=Doe&rft.aufirst=John&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fenwiki.freddythechick.net%3AEnglish+Wikipedia+%40+Freddythechick%3AVerification+methods" class="Z3988"></span>
* <cite id="CITEREFDoe2002" class="citation book cs1">[[Jane Doe|Doe, Jane]] (2002). ''More Facts''. Better Books. [[ISBN (identifier)|ISBN]] [[Special:BookSources/9780123456878|<bdi>9780123456878</bdi>]].</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=book&rft.btitle=More+Facts&rft.pub=Better+Books&rft.date=2002&rft.isbn=9780123456878&rft.aulast=Doe&rft.aufirst=Jane&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fenwiki.freddythechick.net%3AEnglish+Wikipedia+%40+Freddythechick%3AVerification+methods" class="Z3988"></span>

Full citations in footnotes

Many articles verify the text by placing the citation in a footnote. This is a method of inline citation. Inline citations allow a direct connection between the source and the text it verifies. See Footnotes for information on using footnotes.

Articles that use full references in footnotes: 7 World Trade Center · Acrocanthosaurus · Acetic acid · Aggie Bonfire · 35 mm film · Ahmedabad · 1981 Irish hunger strike · Alaska Mental Health Enabling Act · 200 (Stargate SG-1) · 1987 · Apollo 8 · 1080° Snowboarding · 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack · Flag of Armenia · Aldol reaction · ASCII · Azerbaijani people · 1933 Atlantic hurricane season · Al-Kateb v Godwin · 300 (film), · Alanya · Archimedes · Asteroid belt · Aikido · Ben Gurion International Airport · 3D Monster Maze. · Ace Books These articles also have additional general references: Eagle Scout · €2 commemorative coins · Acorn Computers · Absinthe · 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane · Aramaic language · 1896 Summer Olympics · Mumia Abu-Jamal · Michel Foucault · Anarcho-capitalism · Algerian civil war

Example 3: using cite.php with citation templates

This example uses {{cite book}} templates to format the full citations and {{reflist}} to format the footnotes. This is the most common implementation in Wikipedia, used in millions of articles.

Article	This is some material.^[1] This material comes from a book.^[2] This is more material that comes from a different book.^[3] This is more material that comes from the second book.^[3] This is a point that needs clarification.^[4] References ^ This tells exactly where this material came from. ^ Doe, John (1993). Book of Facts. Great Books. ISBN 9780123456878. ^ ^3.0 ^3.1 Doe, Jane (2003). More Facts. Better Books. ISBN 9780123456878. ^ This footnote clarifies the point above.
Wikitext	<syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext">This is some material.^[1] This material comes from a book.^[2] This is more material that comes from a different book.^[3] This is more material that comes from the second book.^[3] This is a point that needs clarification.^[4] References ^ This tells exactly where this material came from. ^ Doe, John (1993). Book of Facts. Great Books. ISBN 9780123456878. ^ ^3.0 ^3.1 Doe, Jane (2003). More Facts. Better Books. ISBN 9780123456878. ^ This footnote clarifies the point above. </syntaxhighlight>

Example 4: using cite.php with handwritten inline citations

Some editors prefer to format the citation by hand.

Article	This is some material.^[1] This material comes from a book.^[2] This is more material that comes from a different book.^[3] This is more material from the second book.^[3] This is a point that needs clarification.^[4] References ^ This tells exactly where this material came from. ^ Doe, John (1994), Book of Facts, Great Books, ISBN 9780123456878 ^ ^3.0 ^3.1 Doe, Jane (2004), More Facts, Better Books, ISBN 9780123456878 ^ This footnote clarifies the point above.
Wikitext	<syntaxhighlight lang="xml">This is some material.^[1] This material comes from a book.^[2] This is more material that comes from a different book.^[3] This is more material from the second book.^[3] This is a point that needs clarification.^[4] References ^ This tells exactly where this material came from. ^ Doe, John (1994), Book of Facts, Great Books, ISBN 9780123456878 ^ ^3.0 ^3.1 Doe, Jane (2004), More Facts, Better Books, ISBN 9780123456878 ^ This footnote clarifies the point above. </syntaxhighlight>

Example 5: using cite.php with list defined references

This example uses a method that was introduced in the summer of 2009 and is used in a few articles.

Article	This is some material.^[1] This material comes from a book.^[2] This is more material that comes from a different book.^[3] This is more material from the second book.^[3] This is a point that needs clarification.^[4] References ^ This tells exactly where this material came from. ^ Doe, John (1995). Book of Facts. Great Books. ISBN 9780123456878. ^ ^3.0 ^3.1 Doe, Jane (2005). More Facts. Better Books. ISBN 9780123456878. ^ This footnote clarifies the point above.
Wikitext	<syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext">This is some material.^[1] This material comes from a book.^[2] This is more material that comes from a different book.^[3] This is more material from the second book.^[3] This is a point that needs clarification.^[4] References ^ This tells exactly where this material came from. ^ Doe, John (1995). Book of Facts. Great Books. ISBN 9780123456878. ^ ^3.0 ^3.1 Doe, Jane (2005). More Facts. Better Books. ISBN 9780123456878. ^ This footnote clarifies the point above. </syntaxhighlight>

Example 6: using {{Ref}} and {{Note}}

Many older articles use the templates {{Ref}} and {{Note}}. This referencing style has been largely replaced by the use of <ref> and {{reflist}} (or {{reflist-talk}}, for talk pages).

Article	This is some material.^[1] This material comes from a book.^[2] This is more material that comes from a different book.^[3] This is more material from the second book.^[4] This is a point that needs clarification.^[5] References ^ This tells exactly where this material came from. ^ Doe, John (1996), Book of Facts, Great Books, ISBN 9780123456878 ^ ^ Doe, Jane (2006), More Facts, Better Books, ISBN 9780123456878 ^ This is a footnote that clarifies the point above.
Wikitext	<syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext">This is some material.^[6] This material comes from a book.^[7] This is more material that comes from a different book.^[8] This is more material from the second book.^[9] This is a point that needs clarification.^[10] References ^ This tells exactly where this material came from. ^ Doe, John (1998), Book of Facts, Great Books, ISBN 9780123456878 ^ ^ Doe, Jane (2008), More Facts, Better Books, ISBN 9780123456878 ^ This is a footnote that clarifies the point above.

Parenthetical references

Harvard references and author-date referencing, which are both parenthetical referencing, are commonplace in academic writing. See Wikipedia:Author-date referencing for more information on using Harvard references.

Articles using Harvard references: Actuary

Note that this example uses the templates {{Harv}} and {{Citation}} to create a link from the citation and to the full reference.

Example 7

Article	This material comes from a book (Doe 1997, p. 23). This is more material from that book (Doe 1997, pp. 431–437). This material comes from a different book (Doe 2007, p. 24). This is a point that needs clarification.^[1] Notes ^ This footnote clarifies the point above. References Doe, John (1997), Book of Facts, Great Books, ISBN 9780123456878 Doe, Jane (2007), More Facts, Better Books, ISBN 9780123456878
Wikitext	<syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext">This material comes from a book (Doe 1997, p. 23). This is more material from that book (Doe 1997, pp. 431–437). This material comes from a different book (Doe 2007, p. 24). This is a point that needs clarification.^[1] Notes ^ This footnote clarifies the point above. References Doe, John (1997), Book of Facts, Great Books, ISBN 9780123456878 Doe, Jane (2007), More Facts, Better Books, ISBN 9780123456878 </syntaxhighlight>

Short citations in footnotes

These are used for articles that have multiple references different pages of the same source.

Articles that use page references in footnotes: An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump · Conatus · The Age of Reason · History of artificial intelligence · Chinese Room · Georg Cantor · Ælle of Sussex · Alpha Kappa Alpha · 1880 Republican National Convention · Adi Shankara · Áedán mac Gabráin · Abbey Theatre · 0.999... · BC Rail · Black pepper · Alpha Phi Alpha · Bengali language

Example 8: Using handwritten citations

Article	This material comes from a book.^[1] This is more material that from that book.^[2] This material comes from a different book.^[3] This material comes from the same page of the second book.^[3] This is a point that needs clarification.^[4] Notes ^ Doe 1998, p. 23 ^ Doe 1998, pp. 431–437 ^ ^3.0 ^3.1 Doe 2008, p. 24 ^ This footnote clarifies the point above. References Doe, John (1998), Book of Facts, Great Books, ISBN 9780123456878 Doe, Jane (2008), More Facts, Better Books, ISBN 9780123456878
Wikitext	<syntaxhighlight lang="xml">This material comes from a book.^[1] This is more material that from that book.^[2] This material comes from a different book.^[3] This material comes from the same page of the second book.^[3] This is a point that needs clarification.^[4] Notes ^ Doe 1998, p. 23 ^ Doe 1998, pp. 431-437 ^ ^3.0 ^3.1 Doe 2008, p. 24 ^ This footnote clarifies the point above. References Doe, John (1998), Book of Facts, Great Books, ISBN 9780123456878 Doe, Jane (2008), More Facts, Better Books, ISBN 9780123456878 </syntaxhighlight>

Example 9: Using citation templates to create a link

This example uses {{Harvnb}} and {{Citation}} templates to format the citation and automatically create a link between the author-date in the footnote and the full reference in the references section. This method is used in about 15,000 articles.^[1]

Article	This material comes from a book.^[2] This is more material from that book.^[3] This material comes from a different book.^[4] This material comes from the same page of the second book.^[4] This is a point that needs clarification.^[5] Notes ^ As of fall, 2011 ^ Doe 1999, p. 23 ^ Doe 1999, pp. 431–437 ^ ^4.0 ^4.1 Doe 2009, p. 24 ^ This footnote clarifies the point above. References Doe, John (1999), Book of Facts, Great Books, ISBN 9780123456878 Doe, Jane (2009), More Facts, Better Books, ISBN 9780123456878
Wikitext	<syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext">This material comes from a book.^[1] This is more material from that book.^[2] This material comes from a different book.^[3] This material comes from the same page of the second book.^[3] This is a point that needs clarification.^[4] Notes ^ Doe 1999, p. 23 ^ Doe 1999, pp. 431–437 ^ ^3.0 ^3.1 Doe 2009, p. 24 ^ This footnote clarifies the point above. References Doe, John (1999), Book of Facts, Great Books, ISBN 9780123456878 Doe, Jane (2009), More Facts, Better Books, ISBN 9780123456878</syntaxhighlight>

Example 10: Using {{sfn}}

{{Sfn}} is a new template introduced in the summer of 2009. Several thousand articles use it to create shortened footnotes.

Article	This material comes from a book.^[1] This is more material from that book.^[2] This material comes from a different book.^[3] This material comes from the same page of the second book.^[3] This is a point that needs clarification.^[4] Notes ^ Doe 2000, p. 23. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFDoe2000 (help) ^ Doe 2000, pp. 431–437. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFDoe2000 (help) ^ ^3.0 ^3.1 Doe 2010, p. 24. sfn error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFDoe2010 (help) ^ This footnote clarifies the point above. References Doe, John (2000), Book of Facts, Great Books, ISBN 9780123456878 Doe, Jane (2010), More Facts, Better Books, ISBN 9780123456878
Wikitext	<syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext">This material comes from a book.^[1] This is more material from that book.^[2] This material comes from a different book.^[3] This material comes from the same page of the second book.^[3] This is a point that needs clarification.Cite error: A `<ref>` tag is missing the closing `</ref>` (see the help page). This more material that comes from a different book.^[4] This is a point that needs clarification.^[a] This is another point that needs clarification.^[b] Notes ^ This is a footnote that clarifies the point above. ^ This is another footnote References ^ Doe 2000, p. 23. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFDoe2000 (help) ^ Doe 2000, pp. 431–437. sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFDoe2000 (help) ^ ^3.0 ^3.1 Doe 2010, p. 24. sfn error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFDoe2010 (help) ^ Doe, Jane (2010), More Facts, Better Books, ISBN 9780123456878
Wikitext	<syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext"> This is material that comes from a book.^[1] This more material that comes from a different book.^[2] This is a point that needs clarification.^[a] This is another point that needs clarification.^[b] Notes ^ This is a footnote that clarifies the point above. ^ This is another footnote References ^ Doe, John (1996), Book of Facts, Great Books, ISBN 9780123456878 ^ Doe, Jane (2010), More Facts, Better Books, ISBN 9780123456878 </syntaxhighlight>

[1] This tells exactly where this material came from.

[2] Doe, John (1993). Book of Facts. Great Books. ISBN 9780123456878.

[Doe2003-3] 3.0 ^3.1 Doe, Jane (2003). More Facts. Better Books. ISBN 9780123456878.

[4] This footnote clarifies the point above.

[5] This tells exactly where this material came from.

[6] Doe, John (1993). Book of Facts. Great Books. ISBN 9780123456878.

[Doe2003-7] 3.0 ^3.1 Doe, Jane (2003). More Facts. Better Books. ISBN 9780123456878.

[8] This footnote clarifies the point above.

[9] This tells exactly where this material came from.

[10] Doe, John (1994), Book of Facts, Great Books, ISBN 9780123456878

[Doe2004-11] 3.0 ^3.1 Doe, Jane (2004), More Facts, Better Books, ISBN 9780123456878

[12] This footnote clarifies the point above.

[13] This tells exactly where this material came from.

[14] Doe, John (1994), Book of Facts, Great Books, ISBN 9780123456878

[Doe2004-15] 3.0 ^3.1 Doe, Jane (2004), More Facts, Better Books, ISBN 9780123456878

[16] This footnote clarifies the point above.

[17] This tells exactly where this material came from.

[Doe1995-18] Doe, John (1995). Book of Facts. Great Books. ISBN 9780123456878.

[Doe2005-19] 3.0 ^3.1 Doe, Jane (2005). More Facts. Better Books. ISBN 9780123456878.

[20] This footnote clarifies the point above.

[21] This tells exactly where this material came from.

[Doe1995-22] Doe, John (1995). Book of Facts. Great Books. ISBN 9780123456878.

[Doe2005-23] 3.0 ^3.1 Doe, Jane (2005). More Facts. Better Books. ISBN 9780123456878.

[24] This footnote clarifies the point above.

[25] This footnote clarifies the point above.

[26] This footnote clarifies the point above.

[27] Doe 1998, p. 23

[28] Doe 1998, pp. 431–437

[Doe2008p24-29] 3.0 ^3.1 Doe 2008, p. 24

[30] This footnote clarifies the point above.

[31] Doe 1998, p. 23

[32] Doe 1998, pp. 431-437

[Doe2008p24-33] 3.0 ^3.1 Doe 2008, p. 24

[34] This footnote clarifies the point above.

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Temporary references

General references section

Example 1

Example 2: Using citation templates

Full citations in footnotes

Example 3: using cite.php with citation templates

References

Example 4: using cite.php with handwritten inline citations

References

Example 5: using cite.php with list defined references

References

Example 6: using {{Ref}} and {{Note}}

References

Parenthetical references

Example 7

Notes

References

Short citations in footnotes

Example 8: Using handwritten citations

Notes

References

Example 9: Using citation templates to create a link

Notes

References

Example 10: Using {{sfn}}

Notes

References