Template:Unreferenced

A checked version of this page, approved on 28 October 2020, was based on this revision.

This content is in the Template Namespace. Used for page-templates that can be re-used across the wiki.

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Shortcut

{{Unr}}

This template is used on many pages and changes may be widely noticed. Test changes in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. Consider discussing changes on the talk page before implementing them.

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, parenthetical reference, or citation-containing footnote. A citation is any description of a reliable source that supports any of the article content, even a bare URL. 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

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 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.

How to use

{{Unreferenced|date=April 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=April 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=April 2026}}

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=April 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 parameter:

The |find= parameter is 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 term 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 parameter can be used to provide the search keywords of your choice to the {{find sources}} links. The value "none" may be passed (|find=none) to suppress display of find sources.

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 April 2026 (as described above), which are hidden categories.

Differences from related templates

Short-cut

{{Unref}}
{{NR}}
{{No ref}}
{{No sources}}
{{Citesources}}

TemplateData

This is the TemplateData for this template used by TemplateWizard, VisualEditor and other tools. Click here to see a monthly parameter usage report for this template based on this TemplateData.

TemplateData for Unreferenced

This template generates a tag to indicate that an article has no citations.

Template parameters[Edit template data]
This template prefers inline formatting of parameters.
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. Example section Auto value `section`	String	deprecated
Month and year	`date`	Provides the month and year of the citation request; e.g., 'January 2013', but not 'jan13' Example January 2013 Auto value `{{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}`	String	suggested

Tracking categories

Footnotes

↑ Because of the nature of the workflow using the current date makes sense, it is simpler to add, especially for the [[Wikipedia:WP:bot|]]s 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.

The above documentation is transcluded from Template:Unreferenced/doc.
Editors can experiment in this template's sandbox and testcases pages.
Add categories to the /doc subpage. Subpages of this template.

[date-1] Because of the nature of the workflow using the current date makes sense, it is simpler to add, especially for the [[Wikipedia:WP:bot|]]s 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.

[1]

v t e Citation and verifiability article maintenance templates
Sourcing	{{Circular}} {{Excessive citations}} {{Expand with relevant sources}} {{Further reading cleanup}} {{More citations needed}} {{More citations needed section}} {{More footnotes needed}} {{No footnotes}} {{One source}} {{One source section}} {{Only primary sources}} {{NRIS-only}} {{Partisan sources}} {{Primary sources}} {{Refexample}} {{Refexample section}} {{Religious text primary}} {{Self-published}} {{Self-reference}} {{Sources exist}} {{Text-source}} {{Third-party}} {{Unreferenced}} {{Unreferenced section}} {{Unreliable sources}} {{Uncited category}} {{User-generated}}
BLP-specific	{{BLP unsourced}} {{BLP unsourced section}} {{BLP primary sources}} {{BLP self-published}} {{BLP sources}} {{BLP sources section}} {{BLP IMDb-only refimprove}} {{BLP IMDb refimprove}} {{BLP no footnotes}} {{BLP more footnotes needed}} {{BLP one source}}
Topic specific	{{Localist}} {{Media IMDb refimprove}} {{More medical citations needed}} {{More science citations needed}} {{Neologism}} {{Science review}} {{Unreferenced-law}} {{Unreferenced-law section}} {{Unreferenced-medical section}}
Dispute-related	{{Cite check}} {{Cite check section}} {{Disputed}} {{Dispute about}} {{Disputed section}} {{Expert needed}} {{Hoax}} {{Original research}} {{Original research section}} {{Speculation}} {{Speculation section}} {{Synthesis}} {{Verifiability}} {{Verify sources}}
Citation improvements	{{Bad linked references}} {{Citation style}} {{Citations broken}} {{Cleanup bare URLs}} {{Format footnotes}} {{Full citations needed}} {{Ibid}} {{Page numbers improve}} {{Page numbers needed}}
General advice	Citing sources Reliable sources Maintenance template removal Citation needed Find sources Combining sources Referencing styles