Template:Find sources documentation
This template produces a series of links to various search interfaces to help find additional reference material for articles. This template should not be used in articles themselves - see Wikipedia:EL#Links normally to be avoided.
Usage
The first parameter is the main search term, which will be treated as a literal string if multi-part (e.g. Albert Einstein will be searched as the single string "Albert Einstein" not "Albert" and "Einstein" separately).
Optional subsequent parameters (up to 4) are additional search terms. They can be enclosed in double quotation marks, preceded by an unspaced - (hyphen) to exclude them from the search results, or both (e.g. -"Marilyn Monroe" to exclude matches containing the phrase "Marilyn Monroe", but not either name by itself, from the search results). You do not need to add -wikipedia, as the template automatically does this for you. Also, there is no need to add words in plural form unless irregular, as the search interface will match (for example) billiards as well given a search term of billiard.
If no parameters are given, the name of the current subpage is used as the search string. If the current subpage has a disambiguator in parentheses, e.g. Happy Birthday (Stevie Wonder song), then the main part of the page name will be quoted and the disambiguation text will follow, like "Happy Birthday" Stevie Wonder song. You can specify that another title be used by using the title parameter.
Search engines
The template includes links to the following search engines: {{{linkDescriptions}}}
Examples
 | Don't panic! This section looks broken until it is transcluded at Template:Find sources. |
- Default search:
{{{{{template}}}}}
- produces:
- {{ {{{template}}} }}
- Simple search:
{{{{{template}}}|Albert Einstein}}
- produces:
- {{ {{{template}}}|Albert Einstein}}
- Complex search:
{{{{{template}}}|Albert Einstein|physics OR cosmology|-"Marilyn Monroe"|relativity|science}}
- produces:
- {{ {{{template}}}|Albert Einstein|physics OR cosmology|-"Marilyn Monroe"|relativity|science}}
(Note that Google and many other search engines use capitalized boolean operators "OR" and "AND".)
- Custom title search:
{{{{{template}}}|title=Happy Birthday (Stevie Wonder song)}}
- produces:
- {{ {{{template}}}|title=Happy Birthday (Stevie Wonder song)}}
See also
Topic templates
Domain-specific implementations of {{Find sources}}:
- {{Find biographical sources}}
- {{Find general sources}}
- {{Find medical sources}}
- {{Find video game sources}}
Additional resources
- {{Refideas}} - template to include links to possible sources
- {{Search}} - the original search template on which this template was based
- {{Search for}} - a multi-purpose search engine sidebar
- {{Reliable sources for medical articles}}
- Help:Find sources
- Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup/Verifiability and sources
- Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/Search links
This template is used by Module:Find sources/autodoc to make automatic documentation for source-finding templates based on Module:Find sources. It is not intended to be called from normal wikitext pages.
Parameters
- template - the name of the template, without the "Template:" prefix. Required.
- shortcuts - space to insert a box of shortcut links for the template. Optional.
- isUsedInMainspace - if present, suppresses the message about not using the template in mainspace. Optional.
- linkDescriptions - space to insert a list of descriptions of the search engines the template uses. Required.