Wikipedia:Template index/Sources of articles/Citation quick reference

Note that the use of these templates is not required.

Use of these templates is manual, authors may copy-and-paste the desired template into their text, and erase fields they do not need. Remember the, and a vertical bar between fields.

Introductory ("Beginner" and "Tutorial") pages such as the CITING SOURCES tab in the Tutorial page do not necessarily cover templates. Another template which covers all these uses may be found at Citation. For more information see Citing sources.

If you are using the inline reference citation style in your article (using

See full list of citation templates at Citation templates. For other templates, see  Template namespace.

Citing a book
cite book


 * Not complete

Citing a journal
cite journal


 * Not complete

Citing a news article
cite news


 * Not complete


 * title is required, rest is optional. Note that title must be on one line in order for the hyperlink to display properly.
 * author: Author
 * last works with first to produce
 * author-link works either with author or with last & first to link to the appropriate wikipedia article. Does not work with URLs.
 * author2, or last2 & first2: allows additional authors
 * author2-link and author-last2: allow links to Wikipedia pages for additional authors
 * url: Link to the news item if available online
 * format: Format, i.e. PDF. Don't specify for HTML (implied as default).
 * Specify as 'fee required' if free access no longer available.
 * Specify as 'Reprint' if a full original version but not hosted by the original publisher.
 * work: If this item is part of a larger work (such as a newspaper), name of that work.
 * publisher: Publisher, if any.
 * date: date of publication, in same format as dates in the body of the article.
 * pages or page: the page number or numbers of the relevant information (e.g. pages=31-32 or page=157). Note that "pages" overrides "page" if they are both present.
 * access-date: Date when item was accessed, in same format as dates in the body of the article.
 * language: the language in which the source is written.
 * quote: Relevant quote.

Citing the web
cite web


 * Not complete

This template is specifically for web sites which are not news sources. See also citation templates for more on templates for citing open-source web content in Wikipedia articles. Here are some convenient examples.


 * Common form for cases where little is known about authorship of the page


 * Using author


 * Using last, first

The most common parameters are as follows. See also the complete documentation in Template:Cite web.
 * url (required): URL of online item.
 * title (required): Title of online item.
 * access-date in same format as dates in body of article.
 * either author, or last and first to produce . Don't wikilink these; instead use author-link to link to the appropriate wikipedia article. Does not work with URLs. More authors can be added as author2 author3 etc. as can first, last pairs of parameters. When there are multiple authors, both author2-link and author-link2 allow links to multiple authors' Wikipedia pages.


 * date: Full date of publication, in same format as main text of article. Or, use year. If you also have the day, use date instead. (optional)
 * archive-url: URL of the archive location of the item, and archive-date: Date when the item was archived, in same format as main text of the article.