උදවු:මූලාශ්‍ර එක්කිරීම පිළිබඳ නවකයින් සඳහා වන උපදෙස්

"Wikipedian protester" by Randall Munroe, xkcd. Wikipedians famously demand citations for facts!

One of the key policies of Wikipedia is that all article content has to be verifiable. This means that reliable sources must be able to support the material. All quotations, any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, and contentious material (whether negative, positive, or neutral) about living persons must include an inline citation to a source that directly supports the material. This also means that Wikipedia is not the place for original work, archival findings that have not been published, or evidence from any source that has not been published.

If you are adding new content, it is your responsibility to add sourcing information along with it. Material provided without a source is significantly more likely to be removed from an article. Sometimes it will be tagged first with a "citation needed" template to give editors a chance to find and add sources, but often editors will simply remove it because they question its veracity.

This tutorial will show you how to add inline citations to articles, and also briefly explain what Wikipedia considers to be a reliable source.

Inline citations

Inline citations are usually small, numbered footnotes like this. They are generally added either directly following the fact that they support, or at the end of the sentence that they support, following any punctuation. When clicked, they take the reader to a citation in a reference section near the bottom of the article.

While editing a page that uses the most common footnote style, you will see inline citations displayed between <ref>...</ref> tags.

If you are creating a new page, or adding references to a page that didn't previously have any, remember to add a References section like the one below near the end of the article:

==References==
{{reflist}}

Note: This is by far the most popular system for inline citations, but sometimes you will find other styles being used in an article. This is acceptable, and you shouldn't change it or mix styles. To add a new reference, just copy and modify an existing one.

References

---

RefToolbar

This screencast walks through how to use RefTools

Manually adding references can be a slow and tricky process. Fortunately, there is a tool called "RefToolbar" built into the Wikipedia edit window, which makes it much easier.

To use it, click on  Cite at the top of the edit window, having already positioned your cursor after the sentence or fact you wish to reference. Then select one of the 'Templates' from the dropdown menu that best suits the type of source. These are:

• {{cite web}} for references to general websites
• {{cite news}} for newspapers and news websites
• {{cite book}} for references to books
• {{cite journal}} for magazines, academic journals, and papers

A template window then pops up, where you fill in as much information as possible about the source, and give a unique name for it in the "Ref name" field. Click the "Insert" button, which will add the required wikitext in the edit window. If you wish, you can also "Preview" how your reference will look first.

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. In this case, you can click Named references   in the toolbar, and select a previously added source to re-use.

Reliable sources

Try it! Take a quiz on reliable sources

See also

• Wikipedia:VisualEditor/User guide#Adding a new reference § Notes
• Wikipedia:VisualEditor/User guide#Editing references § Notes
• Help:Referencing for beginners without using templates
• Help:Referencing for beginners with citation templates
• Help:Citations quick reference
• Help:References and page numbers
• Wikipedia:References dos and don'ts
• Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources
• Wikipedia:Citation templates
• User:Nick Moyes/Easier Referencing for Beginners