Citation Needed
An editorial flag marking a claim that is stated without a source and requires one.
"Citation needed" is an inline editorial tag, popularised by Wikipedia's [citation needed] template from the mid-2000s, that marks an unsourced assertion for later verification. It has since escaped into general use as shorthand for "you have not shown this".
As an editorial device it does useful work: it preserves the claim while flagging its status, so readers can weigh the sentence accurately and editors can prioritise repairs. Removing the claim outright would lose information; leaving it unmarked would misrepresent its reliability.
For quotations the tag is especially important. Unsourced quotation attributions spread faster than unsourced facts, because a famous name lends borrowed authority to any sentence pinned to it.
Common mistake: treating the tag as a verdict. It reports an absence of evidence in the text, not a judgement that the claim is false — and it should be resolved by searching, not by deleting.
“Einstein called compound interest the eighth wonder of the world. [citation needed]”
Keep reading the glossary
Assigning a quote to the wrong person — the most common error in quotation.
A quote attributed to a famous person that they almost certainly never said.
A research tradition (and a well-known website) devoted to tracing the true origin of famous quotations.
The process by which a quotation gradually shifts to a more famous name through repeated sharing.