__NOTOC__  30pxThis template should be used only on articles that have no sources.    Alternatives:  In articles that have some sources, but not enough, the  template should be used instead.   Other templates, listed below, should be used when the sources are inadequate for other reasons.  Be bold! Consider searching for references and adding them to the article, instead of this template.  Consider not adding this template to extremely short articles.  This adds articles to :Category:Articles lacking sources. This template should not be substituted (subst:).  Usage This template should be placed at the top of an article. There are two optional parameters:  Description field: The optional description field is used to indicate more specifically what should be referenced. An example of its usage is {{unreferenced|article's section called "Childhood"}}. The description field is commonly omitted, which is acceptable, and the information box displayed in an article would then read "This article does not cite any references or sources." If a description is supplied, the word article in the information box is replaced with the description; for the example just given, the information box would read "This article's section called 'Childhood' does not cite any references or sources."   Date parameter: The date parameter, which is recommended, is used to indicate when the template was added to a page. An example of its usage is {{unreferenced|date= }}. Adding this parameter sorts the article into monthly subcategories of :Category:Articles lacking sources, rather than adding it to :Category:Articles lacking sources itself, allowing the oldest problems to be identified and dealt with first. If the date parameter is omitted, a bot will add it later.  The two optional fields can be used together, and placed in either order. For example, both {{unreferenced|article's section called "Childhood"|date= }} and {{unreferenced|date= |article's section called "Childhood"}} have the same effect.   Differences from related templates   One difference between the {{unreferenced}} template and the similar templates {{refimprove}} and {{unreferencedsection}} is that {{unreferenced}} adds an article to  :Category:Articles lacking sources, while {{refimprove}} and {{unreferencedsection}} add an article to :Category:Articles needing additional references.  A common practice is to supply a description of "section", as in {{unreferenced|section}}, which results in an information box reading "This section does not cite any references or sources." This is the same message that is displayed when using {{unreferencedsection}}, but the two templates place an article in different categories, as noted above.  Note: when adding {{unreferenced|section}} to a section of an article, then the date parameter must be included. Otherwise, SmackBot will change the template to {{unreferencedsection}} when it adds the date parameter.  Redirects The following templates redirect to {{unreferenced}}, meaning that they are synonyms that work exactly as {{unreferenced}} works:  The following template previously redirected to {{unreferenced}}, but has been changed:  ( and  (both now redirect to )  See also The following templates are useful in cases where there are some sources, but these are inadequate or insufficient:          Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles  Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup