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This template is an alternative to {{Citation needed}}, for the cases where a reference is alluded to, or given in part, but not specified in enough detail. The factuality may or may not be in question; this template is just about the completeness of the citation.

For an article with numerous partial citations, consider instead the banner template {{Full citations needed}}.

How to use

{{Full citation needed|date=October 2026}}

The template should be placed outside <ref>...</ref> tags.

• Nixon resigned August 9, 1974.<ref>''The New York Times''</ref>{{Full citation needed|date=October 2026}}

  Result: Nixon resigned August 9, 1974.

References

When to use

Use this when you find citations that are hopelessly incomplete, such as:

• The Daily News (but no date or article title)
• Smith 2000 (and no indication of the title, or which of the many authors named "Smith" wrote it)
• According to a press release from the company... (they might send out hundreds every year)

Do not use this when there is enough of a bibliographic citation that you can find the source (e.g., the book or the article), but you want a page number, quotation, or other detail. Instead, use {{page needed}}, {{request quotation}}, or other specific template.

Other information

This template places the article into Category:Articles needing more detailed references or a dated subcategory thereof.

This template is a self-reference and so is part of the Wikipedia project rather than the encyclopædic content.

TemplateData

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

TemplateData for Full citation needed

<templatedata> { "description": "This inline template is used where a reference is alluded to, or given in part, but not specified in enough detail to identify it.", "params": { "date": { "label": "Month and year", "description": "Provides the month and year; e.g., 'January 2013', but not 'jan13'", "type": "string", "autovalue": "{{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}", "suggested": true }, "reason": { "label": "More details", "description": "A reason as to why more details are needed, or which details exactly are needed. Appended to the default hovertext, \"A complete citation is needed.\"", "type": "string" } } } </templatedata>

Redirects

• {{fcn}}
• {{full}}
• {{Citation broken}}
• {{Vague citation}}

See also

• {{Ref expand}} – banner version of this template, for when an article needs many citations to be completed
• {{Incomplete short citation}} – variant of this inline template for when a short citation is too incomplete to identify which long citation it references
• {{Citation needed}} – for when no source is indicated at all
• {{Ref improve}} – banner template for when an article needs more than one citation to be added
• {{Author missing}} – inline template for a specific issue
• {{Year missing}} – inline template for a specific issue
• {{Page missing}} – inline template for a specific issue
• Wikipedia:Citing sources, especially Unsourced material
• Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources
• Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup/Verifiability and sources
• Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles
• Wikipedia:Verifiability
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check

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