Template:Citation needed/doc

{{Citation needed}} (also known by the redirects {{Cn}} and {{Fact}}) is a template used to identify questionable claims that lack a citation to a reliable source. The template 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=December 2024}}

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, not full dates. The names of the months are capitalised in English. Any deviation from these two rules will result in an "invalid date parameter" error.

It is also recommended to add the (non-displayed) |reason= 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.

Examples

This sentence shows the template used at the end.{{Citation needed|reason=reliable source needed for the whole sentence}}

The above wikitext will render as follows:

This sentence shows the template used at the end.^{[citation needed]}

The template should be inserted after punctuation, such as a period or comma.

When not to use this template

Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons should be removed immediately. Do not tag it: immediately remove it. For more information, see the section on poorly sourced contentious material in the Biography of Living Persons policy.

Material that is doubtful and harmful may be removed immediately, rather than tagged. See Burden of evidence.

The {{cn}} template is intended for use when there is a general question of the verifiability of a statement, or when an editor believes that a reference verifying the statement should be provided. Other templates are available for other or more specific issues, see the list of inline templates. For example, claims that you think are incorrect should be tagged with {{Dubious}}, and those which represent a non-neutral view should be tagged with {{POV-statement}}. Being specific about the nature of the problem will help other editors correct it.

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.

Any editor may add this template to any uncited passage for any reason, but 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 and facts whose accuracy might be challenged (e.g., statistics) require citations.

This template is intended for specific passages that need citation. For entire articles or sections that contain significant material lacking sources (rather than just specific short passages), there are other, more appropriate templates, such as {{Unreferenced}} or {{Refimprove}}.

How to respond to this tag

The addition of this tag is a request for an inline citation to support the tagged statement. If you are able to provide a citation to support the claim, then please do so.

Except for certain kinds of claims about living people, which require immediate production of inline citations, there is no specific deadline for providing citations. Please do not delete information that you believe is correct simply because no editor has bothered to provide a citation within an arbitrary time limit. Where there is some uncertainty about its accuracy, most editors are willing to wait about a month to see whether a citation can be provided.

See also

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

Inline templates

• {{Cite quote}}: for "actual quotations" which need citations to make them proper
• {{Page number}}: request a page number for an existing citation
• {{List fact}}: request a citation of a source which justifies inclusion of a given entry in a list
• {{Clarify}}: request clarification of wording or interpretation
• {{Reference necessary}}^{[citation needed]}: wrapper for a portion of a paragraph to highlight it as needing citation
• {{Nonspecific}}: flag a general, yet factual statement as needing to be made more specific before it can be verified
• {{Examples}}: request examples for clarification
• {{Cn-span}} Example text^{[citation needed]}: highlights the text that needs verifying

Incomplete citations

• {{Page needed}}: in-line request for the page number or page numbers in a work such as journal for an existing citation.
• {{Season needed}}, similar to {{page needed}}: for missing TV season & episode number
• {{Volume needed}}, similar to {{page needed}}: for missing journal, newspaper, comic, etc., volume and issue numbers)
• {{Full}}: in-line request for full citation, for example when only (Author, YEAR) is given.

Verification

• {{Dead link}}: request a fix for a dead external link within a paragraph or a reference citation.
• {{Failed verification}}: source was checked, and did not contain the cited material
• {{Request quotation}}: request a direct quote from an inaccessible source, for verification purposes
• {{Self-citation}}: flag a source that cites the author
• {{Verify credibility}}: flag a source as possibly being unreliable and/or unverifiable
• {{Verify source}}: request that someone verify the cited source backs up the material in the passage
• {{Primary source claim}}: flags a statement as only being verified by a Primary source

Content

• {{Dubious}}: flag something as suspected of being incorrect
• {{Vague}}: flag a statement that is too vague to be unambiguously verifiable.
• {{Or}}: flag something as possibly containing original research
• {{undue-inline}}: show that a statement does not ascribe appropriate weight to its sources, according to their prominence; use in preference to...
• {{POV-statement}}: dispute the neutrality of a passage
• {{Weasel-inline}}: Avoid weasel words
• {{Peacock term}}: Avoid peacock terms too
• {{Jargon-statement}}: ...and Jargon
• {{Who}}: for placement after descriptions of a group of persons
• {{Whom}}: placement after mention of a vague third party claim that is not sourced
• {{Quantify}}: flag a statement as being vague regarding the amount of something
• {{When}}: flags a particular time period as being vague or ambiguous
• {{Time fact}}

request a source confirming or providing the chronology or timeline of a statement

• {{Definition}}: flag a definition as being ambiguous/confusing

Timeliness

• {{Update after}}: a template that only shows itself after a specified time, indicating an exceptional statement that will date quickly

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
• {{Cite check}}, article/section may have inappropriate or misinterpreted citations
• Citation method and style
  • {{Citation style}}
  • {{No footnotes}}