• This template will categorize tagged articles into Category:Articles lacking reliable references.
• This template is a self-reference, and thus is not appropriate for Sayahna:Subst.
• There is currently no consensus on where on the article to place templates such as this.

When to use

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 and/or replace it with a citation to a stronger, secondary source. Primary sources may be used on Wikipedia, but they need to be handled with care.

"Primary source" does not mean that the author is too closely affiliated with the subject. As a general rule, primary sources include all scientific journal articles about experiments, "eyewitness" newspaper stories, and historical documents. If you are looking for an independent, third-party source, use {{third-party}} instead.

How to use

This template also has several optional fields.

If you pass in an unnamed parameter, it specifies which part of the article inappropriately relies solely on primary sources. By default, the entire article needs third-party sources, i.e. it's equivalent to:

{{Primary sources|article}}

To be more specific on which section of the article needs third-party sources, use:

{{Primary sources|section about the childhood}}

This would show up as:

If you pass in a |date= parameter (month year), it sorts the article into subcategories of Category:Articles lacking reliable references and out of the parent category. This in turn allows the oldest problems to be identified and dealt with first. If the date parameter is omitted, a bot will add it later.

If you use {{BLP primary sources}} (which is a wrapper for {{Primary sources}} with the BLP=yes parameter), 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.

Note that order does not matter with respect to the above optional parameters. Both {{Primary sources|section|date=December 2024}} and {{Primary sources|date=December 2024|section}} will produce the same result.

Examples

{{BLP primary sources|date=December 2024}}

Redirects

Aliases include:

• {{Primary}}
• {{Primary source}}
• {{Primary Sources}}
• {{Primarysource}}
• {{Primarysources}}
• {{PrimarySources}}

Aliases

1. {{BLP primary sources}} - this template with BLP=yes

See also

• Primary source templates
  • {{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)
  • {{Religious text primary}} — message box analogous to this one, but for religious texts in particular
• Third-party source templates
  • {{Third-party}} — To request WP:Independent sources (regardless of whether they are primary or secondary sources)
  • {{Third-party-inline}} — Inline with text, to request an independent source
• {{Unreliable sources}} — Dependence on unreliable sources
• {{One source}} — Dependence on a single source
• {{Unreferenced}} — No sources at all
• Wikipedia:Identifying and using primary and secondary sources
• Wikipedia:Secondary does not mean independent
• Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup
• Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles

TemplateData

This is the TemplateData documentation for this template used by VisualEditor and other tools.

Primary sources

<templatedata>{

 "description": "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 and/or replace it with a citation to a stronger, secondary source. Primary sources may be used on Wikipedia, but they need to be handled with care.",
 "params": {
   "date": {
     "label": "Date",
     "description": "Month and year when template was applied; if left blank, this will be filled by a bot",
     "type": "string",
     "default": "",
     "required": false
   },
   "1": {
     "label": "Focus",
     "description": "Indicate if the focus is a particular section; not including this parameter implies the entire article",
     "type": "string",
     "default": "",
     "required": false
   }
 }

}</templatedata>