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Harvard citation templates, along with Harvard reference templates, are tools that can be used when documenting the sources of a Wikipedia article, if the editor has chosen to follow the Harvard referencing citation style. These templates were created to do two things: to make it easier to create correctly formatted Harvard references and citations, and to give editors the option to create a hyperlink to a Harvard reference.

The use of Citation templates is not required by WP:CITE and is neither encouraged nor discouraged by any other Wikipedia citation guidelines. They may be used at the discretion of individual editors, subject to agreement with the other editors on the article. Some editors find them helpful, while other editors find them annoying, particularly when used inline in the text. Because they are optional, editors should not change articles from one style to the other without consensus.

Harvard references and citations
Main article at Harvard referencing


 * Harvard references, collected under a ==References== heading at the bottom of the article, contain a full and detailed description of the magazines, news article, books or other sources of information that are cited in the article text.  There are several examples of Harvard  references at the bottom of this article.
 * Harvard citations, placed inside the text of an article immediately after a direct quote or a significant piece of information from a verifiable source, are used to cite the particular reference that the information came from. More than one citation within the article can refer to a single reference, since a single source may be used more than once . The citation must includes the author(s) name(s) and the year of publication, and can optionally include page numbers. The citation link will point to the first Harvard reference in the References section that matches both the author(s) and publication date (see examples below).
 * Both the in-text citations and the references at the bottom of the page have format rules. For a full description of their format with examples, see Harvard referencing.

Citation template styles
A summary of the syntax of all Harvard citation templates is at Citation templates.

The Harvard citation templates available for use can be divided into two groups, depending on the format used for displaying page numbers. One style displays page numbers using p., creating a citation that looks like. The second style uses a colon, as for example.

The actual text that you would write in order to display this on the page, including the wikitext of the templates, would look like this:  ... creating a citation that looks like. The second style uses a colon, as for example.

With p.
Three templates are currently available using this style:  ,   and   . Except for their different names, the and  templates are identical. The name of the former has been shortened, making it quicker and easier to type. The third template,, does not display the surrounding parentheses (brackets), so the "nb" in its name is an abbreviation for "no brackets." This style is very useful for placing more than one citation inside a single set of parentheses, which is often done when listing a number of related articles. An example of using a number of citations together inside parentheses might look like this:

 "Although most scholars accept the blahblah theory, a few have criticized its main points (e.g., , and )."

The actual text that you would write in order to display this on the page, including the wikitext of the templates, would look like this:  "Although most scholars accept the blahblah theory, a few have criticized its main points (e.g., , and )."

With colon
Three templates are currently available using this style: ,  and  :
 * is identical in every way to and , except for the different page display style.
 * In the same way,  is identical  to  aside from page display.

is different in that it displays the name(s) or the author(s) outside the parentheses, with they publication year inside. There is currently no template of this sort which uses p. to display page numbers. An example of in use might look like this:

 "Moreover, rejected the blahblah theory on the grounds that it was not the topic of any Wikipedia article."

The actual text that you would write in order to display this on the page, including the wikitext of the templates, would look like this:  "Moreover, rejected the blahblah theory on the grounds that it was not the topic of any Wikipedia article."