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Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced articles/How to guide

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by RDBury (talk | contribs) at 19:30, 21 February 2010 (→Step by Step: fix markup). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Step by Step

This section is a suggested outline of the steps to take with an article with an 'unreferenced' tag. This is meant as a guide for editors starting out with this project and more experienced editors will probably want to apply their own methods according to their individual preferences and style.

  1. Read and understand the appropriate guidelines for WP:Identifying reliable sources and WP:Notability if you are not already familiar with them. Certain types of subject have specific guidelines, for example WP:Notability (criminal acts).
  2. Read the article to attempt to get a basic understanding of the subject. It may help to have a background in the area.
  3. When appropriate, consider changing the article to a redirect.
  4. Check to make sure that the article does not already have references. Perhaps they can be found under External Links or within the body of the text.
    • Verify the any references found to ensure that they support either the accuracy of the article or the notability of the subject.
    • If the article has even one reference or external link (that is related to the article content) use -
    • Consider relabeling sections or moving and reformatting the references so they will be more recognizable as such.
    • If the original tag was incorrect, leave the original date when replacing it with a new tag.
    • If the reference is spam or completely unrelated, you may want to remove it and consider further action.
  5. If the article meets the WP:Criteria for speedy deletion then so nominate it. If suspicious, check for possible copyright violation.
  6. If the article has no references then search for candidates.
    • Use a search engine. Consider using {{find}} to look for sources. To do this, add {{find|ArticleName}} to your sandbox or other temporary edit space and preview, then follow the links to generate search in five of Google's search spaces. Check also for reasonable variations on the name of the subject.
    • Certain types of articles may require different or additional searches.
    • Check the 'What links here' link on the article page to see if and relevant references were given in those articles.
    • Check the 'Other languages' links to see if references were given in the these versions of the article.
  7. Check candidate references. In order to be usable a possible reference must:
    • Be reliable, see WP:Identifying reliable sources.
    • Be either evidence for notability or support the content of the article. This is where it helps to have a basic understanding of the subject of the article. For example the US Postal Service is not a possible reference for Envelope (mathematics).
  8. At this point several outcomes are possible:
    • Use WP:Citing sources as a guide for formatting and style.
    • In order to help people find this project, consider using an edit summary like the following: Wikipedia:Unreferenced articles; [[Wikipedia:Unreferenced articles|you can help!]]
    • Add a link to the reference you found.
    • Keep in mind that the goal of this project is to provide the minimum required references for every article, not to do a full fact check. This is not to discourage people from doing a full fact check if they want to, but for this project the idea is to quickly find a reference and move on to the next article.
  9. In some cases sources you turn up may conflict with the article content or even with each other. This does not necessarily imply that the content is incorrect since different authors may use different terminology or have different points of view. Again, it's not the goal of the this project to resolve such issues but consider adding {{Disputed}}, {{Expert-subject}} or a similar tag to draw attention to the problem.
  10. If the content of an article is simply too abstruse to understand and the references you find don't help to clarify the subject then don't hesitate to ask for help in the relevant project or portal page.
  11. Follow up on proposed mergers and deletions at a later date.
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