How to Cite Wikipedia

Wikipedia is where a great deal of research begins, and students are often unsure whether admitting that is allowed. There are two separate questions: how to format the citation, and whether to cite it at all. The format is simple. The second question matters more.

Should You Cite It?

Wikipedia is a tertiary source: it summarizes secondary sources, which in turn interpret primary ones. Its own help page, "Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia", advises "special caution when using Wikipedia as a source for research projects" and gives the same advice for all tertiary sources such as encyclopedias.

Good uses of Wikipedia:

• Getting oriented in an unfamiliar topic
• Collecting search terms, names and dates to check elsewhere
• Following the numbered references at the bottom of the article to the underlying books and papers

When citing it is appropriate:

• Wikipedia is the object of study (its coverage, its editing disputes, its gender gap)
• You quote its wording as an example of how a topic is popularly described
• Your instructor has said it is acceptable for the assignment

In every other case, find the source behind the claim, read it, and cite that. Do not copy a reference from the bottom of a Wikipedia article into your own list without opening it. That is citing a source you have not read, and Wikipedia's references sometimes do not say what the article claims.

Use the Permanent Link

A Wikipedia article can change minutes after you read it. Each saved version has its own address containing "oldid=" and a number. Citing that address means your reader sees exactly the text you saw. APA requires this form. It is good practice in the other styles, which otherwise rely on an access date.

The worked example is the one APA uses in its own guidance: the article "Oil painting", in the revision dated 8 December 2019.

Quick Reference by Major Style

APA (7th Edition)

In-text: ("Oil Painting," 2019)

The title goes in the author position. In the text it is in quotation marks and title case. Because the link is to an archived version, no retrieval date is needed.

MLA (9th Edition)

In-text: ("Oil Painting")

The date is the date of the revision. If you cite the live URL instead of a permanent link, add an access date at the end: Accessed 21 Sept. 2026.

Chicago (18th Edition)

The Chicago Manual's Citation Quick Guide treats a Wikipedia page as website content: the page title in quotation marks, the Wikimedia Foundation as the owner of the site, the last-modified date, and the URL. Its own example is a Wikipedia project page:

The same pattern for the worked example:

The Quick Guide says website content can often be described in the text alone, with a note added when a formal citation is needed. When a bibliography entry is required, its example is listed under the owner of the site: Wikimedia Foundation. "Wikipedia: Manual of Style." Last modified December 19, 2023, at 21:54 (UTC). The manual's fuller rules for online reference works are in section 14.131.

Harvard (Cite Them Right)

In-text: ('Oil painting', 2019)

IEEE

Adapted from the IEEE Reference Guide's website format, with the title first because there is no author:

In-text: [1]

IEEE journals rarely accept Wikipedia as a reference. For a technical definition, cite a textbook, a standard or a review article.

Finding the Revision Date and Link

1. Open the article and click View history.
2. The top row is the current revision. Its date and time are a link.
3. Click that link. The page reloads with a banner giving the revision date, and the address bar now shows a URL containing "oldid=".
4. Copy that URL and date into your citation.

On desktop you can also use Tools, then Permanent link. The Cite this page tool in the same menu generates entries in several styles. Check its output before using it: when this guide was checked, its APA entry listed "Wikipedia contributors" as the author and added a retrieval time, which does not match APA's own Wikipedia example.

Other Wikimedia Projects and Edge Cases

Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikisource. Use the same pattern with the project's name in place of Wikipedia. For quotations, trace the quotation to its original work; Wikiquote entries usually give one.

Images from Wikimedia Commons. Cite the image and its creator, not Wikipedia. See how to cite an image.

Talk pages and edit histories. If you are researching Wikipedia itself, cite the specific talk page or revision by its permanent link, and name the editor's username only when it is relevant to your analysis.

Other language editions. Cite the edition you read. In APA, follow the original title with a translation in square brackets.

Other wikis (Fandom, a company's internal wiki). Public wikis follow the same pattern. A wiki behind a login is cited like other inaccessible material; APA treats it as a personal communication when readers cannot reach it.

Common Mistakes

• Citing Wikipedia for a claim that needed a scholarly source
• Copying references from the bottom of the article without reading them
• Listing "Wikipedia" or "Wikipedia contributors" as the author in APA or MLA
• Using the live URL with no revision date or access date
• Giving the date you read the article as the publication date
• Using the footer's "last edited" date with a permanent link to a different revision

Sources for These Formats

• APA Style, "Wikipedia Entry References" (apastyle.apa.org)
• MLA Handbook, 9th ed., and the MLA Style Center (style.mla.org)
• The Chicago Manual of Style, 18th ed., section 14.131 on online reference works, and Citation Quick Guide, "Website Content" (chicagomanualofstyle.org)
• Pears and Shields, Cite Them Right, Harvard section on wikis
• IEEE Reference Guide, version 3.28.2025, section T, "Websites"
• Wikipedia, "Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia" (en.wikipedia.org)

Full style rules: APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE.