View source for Help:Referencing for beginners with citation templates

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{{Wikipedia how to}}
{{see also|Help:Introduction to referencing|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 {{tl|cite news}} template (see [[Wikipedia:Template index/Sources of articles/Citation quick reference|Citation quick reference]] for other types of citations). [[Cut, copy, and paste#Copy and paste|Copy and paste]] the following immediately after what you want to reference:

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

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

{{pre|<nowiki>Going forward, Jimmy Wales emphasizes quality over quantity for Wikipedia articles.</nowiki>}}

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

{{pre|<nowiki>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></nowiki>}}

The {{para|last}} and {{para|first}} parameters are for the author's name. {{para|date}} is when the article was published. {{para|url}} may be given if there is also an online version of the newspaper article and the {{para|access-date}} parameter is when you viewed the online version. {{para|page}} is for the page of the material needed to support the statement. (If multiple pages are needed, use {{para|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:

{{quotation|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>

[...]
{{fake heading|sub=3|References}}
{{Reflist}}
}}

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

{{Wikipedia referencing}}

[[Category:Wikipedia how-to|{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Wikipedia quick introductions]]