Template:Unreferenced
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This template should only be used on articles that have no citations or references at all. Don't add this template to articles that contain even one general reference, bare URL, or citation-containing footnote. A citation is any description of a reliable source that supports any of the article content. The format of the citation and the name of the section heading are not what determines whether a link or citation is a source. |
Usage
{{Unreferenced|date=February 2026}}{{Unreferenced|find=World War II|find2=Mediterranean|date=February 2026}}
When to use
You should only add this template to articles that contain no citations or references of any kind.
Do not add this template:
- In articles that have some citations, but not enough, the {{More citations needed}} template should be used instead as a general template, or the {{Unreferenced section}} template for individual sections that have no citations.
- In articles containing a list of sources at the end, but no inline citations, including parenthetical references or in-text attributions, consider {{no footnotes}} when the article would be significantly improved by detailed attribution of sources to specific claims.
- Watch out for lists of general references that someone has incorrectly listed under
==External links==. If the link leads to a reliable source that supports some article content, then that website is a reference, not an external link. - Other templates, listed below, should be used when the citations are inadequate for other reasons.
Alternatives:
- Be bold! Consider searching for sources and citing them in the article, instead of adding this template.
- In articles about people and businesses, consider using the more specific
{{Third-party sources}}template, to encourage citation of WP:Independent sources rather than the subject's own website. - See Wikipedia:Biographies of living people for guidance on dealing with unreferenced biographies of living people.
- Consider not adding this template to very brief stubs, since anyone visiting the page can see, in a single glance, that it contains no citations.
Parameters
There are six parameters, one positional, and five named parameters. All parameters are optional.
|1=– scope of notification (e.g., 'paragraph', 'section', 'article', etc.) default: 'article'. see Details.|date=– month name and year; e.g. 'February 2026' (no default)|find=– search keywords for {{find sources}} param 1 (double-quoted search); default: page title. See details below.|find2=– search keywords for {{find sources}} param 2 (unquoted search). Alias:unquoted. See below.|small=– set toleftorno; see details at Ambox. Default: standard-width banner.|status=– if set tohasaref, alters the tracking category to Category:All articles possibly lacking sources
Examples
{{Unreferenced|date=February 2026}}
or
{{subst:Unreferenced}}
Substitution of this template will automatically fill the date parameter.
The optional |find= parameter is available, for modifying the operation of the {{find sources}} links displayed by the template:
{{Unreferenced|find=search keyword(s)|date=February 2026}}
see below for details.
To flag an individual section as being unreferenced, use the {{Unreferenced section}} template, which categorizes more narrowly:
{{Unreferenced section|date=February 2026}}
Details
Positional parameter 1
- Positional parameter
|1=is the 'type' parameter, which may be set to paragraph or section or any string value. To mark an unreferenced section of an article, please use {{Unreferenced section}} instead.
Date parameter:
- The
|date=parameter is (generally[1]) used to indicate when the template was added to a page. An example of its usage is{{Unreferenced|date=February 2026}}. Adding this parameter sorts the article into monthly subcategories of Category:Articles lacking sources, rather than adding it to Category:Articles lacking sources itself, allowing the oldest problems to be identified and dealt with first. If the date parameter is omitted, a bot will add it later.
Find parameters:
- There are two 'find' parameters available to control the presentation and operation of the {{find sources}} links optionally displayed by the {{Unreferenced}} template. By default, the template displays {{find sources}} with a quoted search query equivalent to the exact article title. Sometimes, especially if the article has a long, descriptive title, or if it includes parenthetical disambiguation terms, this may not give useful results. The find parameters can be used to provide the search keywords of your choice to the {{find sources}} links. Use:
|find=to specify keywords for an exact search (double-quoted query); this corresponds to {{find sources}} positional param|1.|find2=to specify keywords for an unquoted search; this corresponds to {{find sources}} param|2. The alias|unquoted=may be used instead.
The value "none" may be passed to 'find' (|find=none) to suppress display of find sources links. (Note that specifying |find=none and a nonempty value for |find2= is not a valid combination.)
General information
This template can either be placed at the top of an article, at the bottom of the article page (in an empty "References" or "Notes" section—usually just before a {{Reflist}} template), or on the article's talk page.
Categorization
This template adds the article to Category:Articles lacking sources and a monthly subcategory such as Category:Articles lacking sources from February 2026 (as described above), which are hidden categories.
The similar template {{More citations needed}} adds an article to Category:Articles needing additional references. {{More medical citations needed}} adds the article to Category:Articles needing additional medical references as well as Category:Articles needing additional references.
Short-cut
- {{Unref}}
- {{NR}}
- {{No ref}}
- {{No sources}}
- {{Citesources}}
TemplateData
TemplateData for Unreferenced
This template generates a tag to indicate that an article has no citations.
| Parameter | Description | Type | Status | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Type (e.g., section) | 1 | Text to replace the word "article", usually "section". This is a legacy feature, and this usage has been replaced with the separate '{{Unreferenced section}}' template.
| String | optional |
| Month and year | date | Provides the month and year of the citation request; e.g., 'January 2013', but not 'jan13'
| String | suggested |
| Find sources keywords | find | Search string for 'find sources' template. May be one or more words. Set to value 'none' to suppress 'find sources' output.
| String | optional |
Tracking categories
See also
- Wikipedia:Citation needed and {{Citation needed}} – for marking a particular claim as needing a citation
- {{Find sources}}
- {{More citations needed}}
- {{Unreferenced section}}
- Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles
- Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup
Footnotes
- ^ Because of the nature of the workflow using the current date makes sense, it is simpler to add, especially for the WP:bots it means that older dated categories do not have to be constantly created and deleted, and it enables some measure of progress. Moreover it is "good enough" to get the articles into the workflow and the intention is to ensure they are cleaned up eventually. Occasionally however it may be useful to bulk add items, to older categories, for example when the system was initially set up, when merging two schemes or when adding to the current month would swamp it disproportionately.