This article relies excessively on references to primary sources. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please improve this article by adding secondary or tertiary sources. Find sources: "Primary sources" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2026) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
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Use this template to tag information or analysis that you believe is improperly or unnecessarily supported by a primary source, so that other editors can see whether this use is appropriate or replace it with a citation to a secondary source.
Usage
{{Primary sources|date=April 2026}}for entire articles{{Primary sources|section|date=April 2026}}for sections
Substitution of this template will automatically fill the date parameter.
{{subst:Primary sources}}
Optional find parameters are available, for modifying the operation of the {{find sources}} links displayed by the template:
{{Primary sources|find=double-quoted search keyword(s)|find2=unquoted keywords|date=April 2026}}
This template will categorize tagged articles into Category:Articles lacking reliable references.
There is currently no consensus on where in the article to place templates such as this.
When to use
The presence of primary sources in an article doesn't mean the article must be tagged. Primary sources may be used on Wikipedia, but they need to be handled with care.
Whether a source is independent is a different concept from whether it is a primary source. To tag an article as lacking sufficient independent sources, use instead the templates {{independent sources}} or, in the case those sources are published directly by the person/organization itself, {{self-published}}.
Some alternatives include:
- {{independent sources}} – When the source is written by or paid for by the subject (e.g., an op-ed written by the subject, an advertisement).
- {{self-published source}} – When the source is written by and published by the subject (e.g., a personal or business website).
- {{user-generated source}} – When the source is written by ordinary people on the internet (e.g., a wiki).
- {{}} (this template)) – When the source contains no analysis, comparison, evaluation, etc. of the subject (e.g., WP:PRIMARYNEWS).
Many sources fall into multiple categories. It's best to use the most specific or important one, instead of filling the page with similar tags.
Parameters
There are five parameters, one positional, and four named parameters. All parameters are optional.
|1=– scope of notification (e.g., 'paragraph', 'section', 'article', etc.) default: 'article'. see Details.|date=– month name and year; e.g. 'April 2026' (no default)|talk=– section or fullpage id of discussion|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.
Details
Positional parameter 1
- Positional parameter
|1=is the 'type' parameter, which may be set to paragraph or section or any string value.
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{{Primary sources|date=April 2026}}. Adding this parameter sorts the article into monthly subcategories of Category:Articles lacking sources, rather than adding it to the category 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 parameters:
- There are two 'find' parameters available to control the presentation and operation of the {{find sources}} links optionally displayed by the {{}} 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. Note that booleans, exclusion terms (preceded by minus sign) and other search operators may be used in unquoted search (|find2=) if valid for the search domains:
{{Primary sources|find=John Adams|find2=president -Quincy}}⟶ (see Examples below)
- Param
|find=may take the special valuenonein order to suppress display of find sources links. (Note that specifying|find=noneand a nonempty value for|find2=is not a valid combination.)
Wrappers
To tag an individual section instead of the whole article, you can use {{Primary sources section}} template.
If you use template {{BLP primary sources}}, it indicates that the article is a biography of a living person, and also sorts the article into subcategories of Category:BLP articles lacking sources. This serves to indicate a problem with the policy on self-published sources in biographies of living persons.
Examples
{{primary sources|date=April 2026}}
This article relies excessively on references to primary sources. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please improve this article by adding secondary or tertiary sources. Find sources: "Primary sources" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2026) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Exclusion term in unquoted search:
{{Primary sources|find=John Adams|find2=president -Quincy}}⟶This article relies excessively on references to primary sources. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please improve this article by adding secondary or tertiary sources.
Find sources: "John Adams" president -Quincy – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2026) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
For Biographies of Living Persons:
{{BLP primary sources|date=April 2026}}
This biography of a living person relies too much on references to primary sources. Please help by adding secondary or tertiary sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. Find sources: "Primary sources" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2026) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Redirects
Aliases include:
- {{Primary}}
- {{Primary source}}
- {{Primary Sources}}
- {{Primarysource}}
- {{Primarysources}}
- {{PrimarySources}}
Aliases
- {{BLP primary sources}} – this template with
|BLP=yes
See also
- Primary source templates:
- {{Primary sources section}}
- {{BLP primary sources}}
- {{Only primary sources}}
- {{Primary source inline}} – inline with text, to object to the inappropriate use of a primary source (regardless of whether the primary source is independent of the subject)
- Third-party source templates:
- {{Third-party}}
- {{Third-party inline}} – inline with text, to request an independent source
- Wikipedia:Identifying and using primary and secondary sources
- Wikipedia:Secondary does not mean independent
- Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup
- Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles
Notes
- ^ Because of the nature of the workflow using the current date makes sense, it is simpler to add, especially for the WP:bots 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.
TemplateData
TemplateData for Primary sources
| Parameter | Description | Type | Status | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Focus | 1 | Use if the focus is a particular section or paragraph
| String | optional |
| Month and year | date | Month and year when template was applied; if left blank, this will be filled by a bot
| String | suggested |
| Talk | talk | Section name or full page and section of discussion
| String | optional |
| Find | find | Search keywords for 'find sources' double-quoted (exact) search. May be one or more words. Leave empty to suppress 'find sources' output.
| String | optional |
| Find2 | find2 unquoted | Search keywords for 'find sources' unquoted search. | String | optional |