Template:More citations needed/doc

Usage

When to use

This template indicates that the article needs additional inline citations. This template should be used only for articles where there are some, but insufficient, inline citations to support the material currently in the article.

Some editors understand this template to be redundant when it is used on articles clearly marked as stubs, since by definition stubs are unlikely to be well referenced.

Only use Template:Unreferenced for articles that have no references at all.

• Please consider marking individual unreferenced statements with the {{Citation needed}} inline template, instead of placing this template.

Placement

According to wikipedia:MOS:LAYOUT, maintenance templates, such as this one, should (except when section-specific) be placed after hatnotes, at the start of the article.

Auto-categorization

This template adds the article to Category:Articles needing additional references from April 2025, and Category:All articles needing additional references, both hidden categories.

Parameters

There are six parameters, one positional, and five named parameters. All parameters are optional.

• |1= – scope of notification (e.g., 'section', 'article') default: 'article'.
• |date= – month name and year; e.g. 'April 2025' (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 to left or no; see details at Ambox. Default: standard-width banner.
• |talk= – title of talk page section where discussion can be found

Details

Talk parameter

A |talk= parameter is allowed; setting this to any value will result in the message "See talk page for details." being included in the tag. If the value is a valid anchor on the talk page (e.g., the title of a section or subsection heading), then the talk page link will go directly to that anchor; if not, then to the top of the page.

Date parameter

This template also includes support for using the |date= parameter. Adding this parameter sorts the article into subcategories of Category:Articles needing additional references and out of the parent category, allowing the oldest problems to be identified and dealt with first. A bot will add this parameter, if it is omitted. Be careful not to abbreviate the date, because then it will automatically add a redlinked category instead of the correct category. The simplest way to use this parameter manually is {{More citations needed|{{subst:DATE}}}}, but it can be done more explicitly as {{More citations needed|date=April 2025}} (both result in the same output). Do not use {{More citations needed|date={{subst:DATE}}}} because {{subst:DATE}} already includes the leading date= code.

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.)

Examples

Listed below are several examples of usage:

{{More citations needed|date=April 2025}} or the common redirect: {{Refimprove|date=April 2025}}

{{More citations needed|section|date=April 2025}}  or use the alternative template: {{More citations needed section|date=April 2025}}

The template can be made smaller with {{More citations needed|section|small=y}} or use the alternative template {{More citations needed section|small=y}}

{{More citations needed|section|{{subst:DATE}}|talk=Talk page section name|small=y}}

The optional |find= parameter is available, for modifying the operation of the {{find sources mainspace}} links displayed by the template:

{{More citations needed|find=search keyword(s)|date=April 2025}}

Differences from related templates

{{Unreferenced}} and {{Citation needed}}

• Use Unreferenced when there are no citations of any kind in an article. If citations have been added to an article, but they are insufficient, then use More citations needed.
• Alternatively, if an article has sufficient inline citations, but lacks citations covering specific information (such as missing a citation on a quotation), then use the inline citation template {{Citation needed}} to indicate more precisely where additional citations are needed. Unlike the inline Citation needed, More citations needed is placed as a general banner at the top of an article.
• The {{Unreferenced section}} template is available to use for problems that are not article-wide.
• If you decide to change a tag from Unreferenced to More citations needed, don't forget to update the date stamp in the tag, if necessary.

{{Citation style}}

• The More citations needed template is intended for use in articles that need additional citations, while the citation style template is used to request consistency within the citations present in an article (see wikipedia:CITEVAR). For example, use citation style when there is a mixture of footnotes and parenthetical references.

TemplateData

This is the TemplateData for this template used by TemplateWizard, VisualEditor and other tools. See a monthly parameter usage report for Template:More citations needed in articles based on its TemplateData.

TemplateData for More citations needed

This template generates a tag to indicate that the article needs additional inline citations.

Template parameters

This template prefers inline formatting of parameters.

Parameter		Description	Type	Status
Affected area	1	Text to replace the word "article", usually "section" Example section Auto value article	Line	optional
Talk page section	talk	Section name on the talk page for further discussion	Line	optional
Make template small	small	Enter any text here to make the template box small and aligned to the left. Example y Auto value y	Line	optional
Find	find	Search keywords for double-quoted search to pass to 'find sources'.	Line	optional
Find2	find2 Unquoted	Search keywords for unquoted search to pass to 'find sources'.	Line	optional
Month and year	date	The month and year that the template was placed (in full). "{{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}" inserts the current month and year automatically. Example June 2013 Auto value {{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}	Line	suggested
name	name	no description	Unknown	optional

Redirects

This template can also be invoked with:

1. {{+r}}
2. {{+R}}
3. {{Add references}}
4. {{Additional citations}}
5. {{Citations missing}}
6. {{Citations needed}}
7. {{Cite sources}}
8. {{Cleanup-cite}}
9. {{Cleanup-verify}}
10. {{Few references}}
11. {{Few refs}}
12. {{Few sources}}
13. {{Improve-refs}}
14. {{Improve references}}
15. {{Improve sources}}
16. {{Missing citations}}
17. {{More citations}}
18. {{More cn}}
19. {{More references}}
20. {{More references needed}}
21. {{More refs}}
22. {{More sources}}
23. {{More sources needed}}
24. {{Needs additional citations}}
25. {{Needs more citations}}
26. {{Needs more references}}
27. {{Needs more sources}}
28. {{Not verified}}
29. {{Ref-improve}}
30. {{Ref improve}}
31. {{Reference improve}}
32. {{Referenced}}
33. {{Refimprove}}
34. {{Sources}}
35. {{Sources needed}}
36. {{Verification}}
37. {{Verify}}

• Also known as... – list of templates that redirect here and may also be used

See also

• {{Refbegin}}
• {{Refend}}
• {{Reflist}}
• {{Verify source}}
• {{Refideas}}
• Template:Citation needed/doc#Inline templates
• wikipedia:Wikipedia:Template index/Cleanup/Verifiability and sources