Template:One source

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Purpose

This template alerts people to encyclopedic content which appears to rely on a single source.

A single source is usually less than ideal, because a single source may be inaccurate or biased. Without other sources for corroboration, accuracy or neutrality may be suspect. By finding multiple independent sources, the reliability of the encyclopedia is improved. For BLP articles that cite one source and need more, use {{BLP one source}} instead.

Citing only one source is not a violation of any policy. Consider not adding this tag to stubs, articles that are being actively expanded, or articles that have no apparent problems with verifiability and neutrality.

This tag is more specific than the widely used {{More citations needed}} and {{More footnotes needed}} templates. It should be used preferentially to either of those templates when the article in question not only needs additional inline citations but when it needs more than one source.

Usage

{{One source|date=September 2025}}

{{One source|section|date=September 2025}}

{{One source|text=Alternate first sentence|date=September 2025}}

{{One source|section|find=topic search keywords|date=September 2025}}

Parameters

Subject

The first unnamed parameter replaces "This article relies" with "This PARAMETER relies".

For example, {{One source|section}} displays:

Text

You can replace the entire first sentence by specifying the text= parameter. This can be used when the standard wording is not applicable, but the general intent of the template is.

Date

As with most cleanup templates, the |date= parameter sorts the article into subcategories of Category:Articles lacking sources, allowing the oldest problems to be identified and dealt with first. You do not need to specify the date manually; a bot will add it later automatically.

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.

The second param is especially useful with the 'section' version of the template. Try setting |find=Article titleTemplate:Zwsp|find2=Section title}} for improved search results in this case.

The value "none" may be passed to 'find' (|find=none) to suppress display of find sources links. (Note that specifying |find=none and a nonempty value for |find2= is not a valid combination.)

Editorial usage

This template should only be used for encyclopedic content which has a verified, cited source, but only the one source.

A single source is not automatically a problem. Good judgment and common sense should be used.

Please consider improving the article or making a good-faith attempt to find additional citations before adding this template.

It is considered good form to provide a rationale in your edit summary or on the talk page of the article. The more specifically you describe your concerns, the less likely other editors are to misunderstand.

If you believe problems exist beyond the sources themselves, address that issue with an appropriate template (see below), rather than simply questioning the sources.

Alternatives

• Inline version
  • {{Single Source-inline}} – same concept but used within the context of individual sentences or phrases.
• Sources and citations
  • {{Failed verification}} – Citation does not support the article's claim(s)
• Article content
  • {{POV}} – Neutrality, point-of-view, bias

Administrivia

This template will categorise tagged articles into Category:Articles needing additional references. If a date is supplied, a monthly category like Category:Articles needing additional references from September 2025 will be used instead.

Do not subst: this template.

TemplateData

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

TemplateData for One source

Use this maintenance template to indicate that an article relies largely or entirely on a single source.

Template parameters

This template prefers inline formatting of parameters.

Parameter		Description	Type	Status
Month and year	date	The month and year that the template was placed (in full). "{{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}" inserts the current month and year automatically. Example January 2013 Auto value {{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}	Line	suggested
Talk page section	talk	Section name on the talk page (or talk page together with section) for further discussion Example Discussion, Talk:Article#Discussion	Line	optional
Custom first sentence	text	Text to replace the entire first sentence of the template	Line	optional
Affected area	1	Text to replace the word "article", usually "section" Example section Auto value section	Line	optional
"Find sources" verbatim search term	find	Verbatim search term for the links in the template for finding sources	Line	optional
"Find sources" non-verbatim search term	find2 unquoted	Non-verbatim search term for the links in the template for finding sources	Line	optional

See also

• Template:One source section
• Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup
• Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles

The above documentation is transcluded from Template:One source/doc. (edit | history)
Editors can experiment in this template's sandbox (create | mirror) and testcases (create) pages.
Add categories to the /doc subpage. Subpages of this template.