Editing Help:Editing (section)

=== Adding references ===
{{further|Help:Referencing for beginners|Wikipedia:Citing sources}}
{{hatnote|Introductions: [[Help:Introduction to referencing with Wiki Markup/1]] and [[Help:Introduction to referencing with VisualEditor/1]]}}
[[File:Citing sources tutorial, part 1.ogv|thumb|upright|A screencast that walks through the essentials needed in citing your sources. <small>(2:01&nbsp;min)</small>]]
[[File:RefTools rework.ogv|thumb|right|upright|A screencast that walks through how to use the various features of RefTools. <small>(5:03&nbsp;min)</small>]]
Generally, sources are added directly after the facts they support at the end of the sentence and after any punctuation. Wikipedia permits editors to use any citation system that allows the reader to understand where the information came from, and strongly encourages the use of [[Wikipedia:Inline citation|inline citations]] to do so. Common methods of placing inline citations include [[Help:Footnotes|footnotes]], [[Help:Shortened footnotes|shortened footnotes]] and [[Wikipedia:Citing sources#Parenthetical referencing|parenthetical references]].

Inline citations are most commonly placed by inserting a reference between <code><nowiki><ref></nowiki></code> ... <code><nowiki></ref></nowiki></code> tags, directly in the text of an article. The reference is a footnote, appearing as an inline link (e.g. <small><sup><span style="color:#002BB8">[1][2]</span></sup></small>) to a particular item in a collated, numbered list of footnotes, found wherever a {{tl|reflist}} template or <code><nowiki><references /></nowiki></code> tag is present, usually in a section titled "References" or "Notes". If you are creating a new page or adding references to a page that didn't previously have any, don't forget to add a references section with this display markup.

There are a number of tools available to help with citation placement and formatting, some of which are internal tools and scripts, whereas others are available from external sites. For an example of the former, [[Wikipedia:RefToolbar|RefToolbar]] is a [[JavaScript]] toolbar displayed above the edit box that provides the ability to automatically fill out various [[Wikipedia:Citation templates|citation templates]] and insert them in the text already formatted inside <code><nowiki><ref></nowiki></code> ... <code><nowiki></ref></nowiki></code> tags. For an example of the latter, the [https://citer.toolforge.org/ Citer] converts a [[digital object identifier]] (DOI) or [[Google Books]] address (URL) into a filled-out {{tl|cite journal}} or {{tl|cite book}} template ready to be pasted into an article. See [[Help:Citation tools]] for many others.