 | This help page is ahow-to guide. It explains concepts or processes used by the Wikipedia community. It is not one ofWikipedia's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels ofconsensus. |
When you add information to Wikidata, pleasecite your sources. Most of the time, it's super easy and requires just four clicks. This page showshow to add sources to Wikidata.
Find the "Statement" you want to add a source for. In the example, which isbased on this edit to the Wikidata entry forVaricella vaccine, the statement that needs a ref is the claim that the vaccine is anWHO Model List of Essential Medicines.
Underneath the claim, find "+ add reference". Click that. It will add your source where it currently says "0 references".
The easiest ones to add are plain links to websites or common identifiers (e.g.,ISBN,DOI,PMID, etc.) There is a searchable list with common options preloaded. For this example, the webpagehttps://list.essentialmeds.org/medicines/221 is being added as the source, so click on 'reference URL' in the list:
The 'stated in' option allows you to cite a notable work (e.g., any book that Wikidata has an entry for, which includes all books that Wikipedia has an article about). If you want to cite theWHO Model List of Essential Medicines, or a notable textbook likeHarrison's Principles of Internal Medicine, then you can use the 'stated in' option and search for the name of that book. (For a non-notable book, use the ISBN-13 or ISBN-10 options instead.)
| If you are citing... | then use... |
|---|---|
| a webpage | reference URL |
| a book with anISBN | ISBN-13 orISBN-10 |
| anotable book (with a Wikipedia article, or at least with a Wikidata entry) | stated in |
| a medical article indexed byPubMed | PubMed publication ID |
| a journal article with aDOI | DOI |
| a book or publication with aWorldCat (OCLC) number | OCLC control number |
When you choose the source type, a new empty box appears next to it. That's where you paste your source (e.g., URL, ISBN, or other id number).
Wikidata sources don't usually add full citation information (e.g., author or publisher names – though this is possible and not very difficult to '+add'page(s) and similar 'properties' immediately under your ref), so you don't usually need to collect or format anything beyond the URL or other key identifier unless you want to.
You can cite multiple sources for the same statement. If you want to add another source for the same statement, in the same edit, then click the '+ add reference' button now and repeat these steps. Alternatively, you can do this as a separate edit.
Click the 'publish' button for the statement.
You're done!
