Wikipedia:Verifiability: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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{{nutshell|Other people have to be able to check that you didn't just make things up. This means that all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an [[WP:INCITE|inline citation]].}}

{{Content policy list}}

'''Verifiability''' on Wikipedia is the ability to cite [[Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources|reliable sources]] that [[Wikipedia:No original research|directly support]] the information in an article. All information in Wikipedia must be verifiable, but because other policies and guidelines also influence content, verifiability does ''not guarantee'' inclusion. The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is '''verifiability, not truth'''—whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been [[Wikipedia:Published|published]] by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true.<small>This sentence is disputed.</small>

It must be ''possible'' to attribute all information in Wikipedia to reliable, published sources that are appropriate for the content in question. However, in practice it is only necessary to provide [[Wikipedia:Citing sources|inline citations]] for quotations and for any information that has been challenged or that is likely to be challenged.<ref>See the section [[Wikipedia:No_original_research#Using_sources|''Using sources'']] of the policy ''No original research'', that describes summarizing materials ''in your own words'', leaving nothing implied that goes beyond the sources.</ref> Appropriate citations guarantee that the information is not [[Wikipedia:No original research|original research]], and allow readers and editors to check the source material for themselves. Any material that requires a citation but does not have one may be removed. Unsourced contentious material [[Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons|about living people]] must be removed immediately. For help on adding citations, see [[Wikipedia:Citing sources|Citing sources]]. This policy applies to all material in the [[Wikipedia:mainspace|mainspace]].