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Help:Referencing for beginners with citation templates

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by SlimVirgin (talk | contribs) at 23:59, 23 January 2010 (two people disagree; please discuss on talk). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Per Citing sources, because citation templates can be contentious, editors should not change an article with a distinctive citation format to another without gaining consensus. Where no agreement can be reached, defer to the style used by the first major contributor. Do not add templates to citations that are already correctly formatted.

This is one reference method. Copy and paste the following immediately after what you want to reference:

<ref>{{cite news
| author =
| title =
| quote =
| publisher = ''''
| date =
| pages =
| url =
| accessdate =
}}</ref>

Simply put as much information as you can to the right of the equal signs. Example:

Inflation seems unlikely in 2010.<ref>{{cite news
| author = Patricia Sabatini
| title = Inflation unlikely to be a threat as economy emerges from recession
| quote = ...the Federal Reserve would continue to leave interest rates at record lows.
| publisher = ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette''
| date = October 16, 2009
| pages =
| url = http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09289/1005873-28.stm
| accessdate = 2010-01-05
}}</ref>Cite error: The <ref> tag name cannot be a simple integer (see the help page).

Reporter Patricia Sabatini goes to the right of the "author =". Put the publisher's name inside the quotes to italicize Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Leave fields like "pages =" blank if it doesn't apply. The accessdate is when you fetched the reference such as today; the date is when the article was published. The url is the line like ''http://www.etc''; copy and paste the url in if available. There are more fields possible like ISBN, co-authors which you can add; see citing sources.

That's it! You're done. When editing, you'll see your reference next to the text; but after saving, readers will only see a reference number there; your reference should appear below. Good luck!

Caveat: while this reference method is popular, some editors prefer alternatives (see below). It varies by article. When possible, use the citation style others prefer. Sometimes the choice of citation template can become contentious. See Citing sources for further discussion.

References

Further information

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