Help:Referencing for beginners with citation templates

This help page is a how-to guide. It details processes or procedures of some aspect(s) of Wikipedia's norms and practices. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels of consensus and vetting.

See also: Help:Introduction to referencing and Help:Referencing for beginners without using templates

The easiest way to start citing on Wikipedia is to see a basic example. The example here will show you how to cite a newspaper article using the {{cite news}} template (see Citation quick reference for other types of citations). Copy and paste the following immediately after what you want to reference:

<ref>{{cite news
| last =
| first =
| date =
| title =
| newspaper =
| page =
| url =
| access-date =  
| quote =
}}</ref>

and put as much information as you can to the right of the equal signs. For example, suppose you wish to cite the statement

Going forward, Jimmy Wales emphasizes quality over quantity for Wikipedia articles.

in a Wikipedia article's source text by using an article from The New York Times newspaper. It could be done by editing the article's source text to

Going forward, Jimmy Wales emphasizes quality over quantity for Wikipedia articles.<ref>{{cite news
| last = Levine
| first = Robert
| date = August 7, 2006
| title = The Many Voices of Wikipedia, Heard in One Place
| newspaper = The New York Times
| page = C00004
| url = https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/07/technology/07wiki.html
| access-date = January 29, 2020
| quote = ...Jimmy Wales, the site's founder, said that the emphasis going forward would be on quality, not quantity.
}}</ref>

The |last= and |first= parameters are for the author's name. |date= is when the article was published. |url= may be given if there is also an online version of the newspaper article and the |access-date= parameter is when you viewed the online version. |page= is for the page of the material needed to support the statement. (If multiple pages are needed, use |pages= instead.) Unused parameters are best deleted but leaving them blank is okay.

After your edit is published, the statement will have a reference footnote and the reference information will appear later in the page (usually in a References section), like so:

Going forward, Jimmy Wales emphasizes quality over quantity for Wikipedia articles.^[1]

[...]

References

1. ^ Levine, Robert (August 7, 2006). "The Many Voices of Wikipedia, Heard in One Place". The New York Times. p. C00004. Retrieved January 29, 2020. ...Jimmy Wales, the site's founder, said that the emphasis going forward would be on quality, not quantity.

That's it! You're done. Good luck!