Editing Encyclopedia:Citing sources (section)

====Duplicate citations====
{{anchor|DupCites|DUPCITES}}{{shortcuts|WP:DUPCITES|WP:DUPREF}}
Combine ''precisely duplicated full citations'', in keeping with the existing citation style (if any). In this context "precisely duplicated" means having the same content, not necessarily identical strings ("The New York Times" is the same as "NY Times"; different access-dates are not significant). Do not discourage editors, particularly [[WP:BITE|inexperienced]] ones, from adding duplicate citations when the use of the source is appropriate, because a duplicate is better than no citation. But any editor should feel free to combine them, and doing so is the best practice on Wikipedia.

''Citations to different pages or parts of the same source'' can also be combined (preserving the distinct parts of the citations), as described in [[Help:References and page numbers]]. Any method that is consistent with the existing citation style (if any) may be used, or consensus can be sought to change the existing style. Some tools are listed at {{slink|Help:Citation tools#Duplicate reference finders}}.