Template:Find sources documentation

This template produces a series of links to various search interfaces to help find additional reference material for articles. This template should not be used in articles themselves - see Wikipedia:EL#Links normally to be avoided.

Usage

The first parameter is the main search term, which will be treated as a literal string if multi-part (e.g. Albert Einstein will be searched as the single string "Albert Einstein" not "Albert" and "Einstein" separately).

Optional subsequent parameters (up to 4) are additional search terms. They can be enclosed in double quotation marks, preceded by an unspaced - (hyphen) to exclude them from the search results, or both (e.g. -"Marilyn Monroe" to exclude matches containing the phrase "Marilyn Monroe", but not either name by itself, from the search results). You do not need to add -wikipedia, as the template automatically does this for you. Also, there is no need to add words in plural form unless irregular, as the search interface will match (for example) billiards as well given a search term of billiard.

If no parameters are given, the name of the current subpage is used as the search string. If the current subpage has a disambiguator in parentheses, e.g. Happy Birthday (Stevie Wonder song), then the main part of the page name will be quoted and the disambiguation text will follow, like "Happy Birthday" Stevie Wonder song. You can specify that another title be used by using the title parameter.

Search engines

The template includes links to the following search engines: {{{linkDescriptions}}}

Examples

• Default search:

{{{{{template}}}}}

produces:

{{ {{{template}}} }}

• Simple search:

{{{{{template}}}|Albert Einstein}}

produces:

{{ {{{template}}}|Albert Einstein}}

• Complex search:

{{{{{template}}}|Albert Einstein|physics OR cosmology|-"Marilyn Monroe"|relativity|science}}

produces:

{{ {{{template}}}|Albert Einstein|physics OR cosmology|-"Marilyn Monroe"|relativity|science}}

(Note that Google and many other search engines use capitalized boolean operators "OR" and "AND".)

• Custom title search:

{{{{{template}}}|title=Happy Birthday (Stevie Wonder song)}}

produces:

{{ {{{template}}}|title=Happy Birthday (Stevie Wonder song)}}

See also

• {{Find sources}} - main find sources template
• {{Find medical sources}} - top medical databases and sources
• {{Find video game sources}} - includes a link to Gwern's Google RS
• {{Reliable sources for medical articles}}
• {{Refideas}} - template to include links to possible sources
• {{Search}} - the original search template on which this template was based
• {{Search for}} - a multi-purpose search engine sidebar
• Help:Find sources
• Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup/Verifiability and sources
• Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/Search links

Template documentation[create]

Editors can experiment in this template's sandbox (create | mirror) and testcases (create) pages.
Add categories to the /doc subpage. Subpages of this template.