Help:Citation Style 1

Citation Style 1 (CS1) is a collection of reference citation templates that can be modified to create different styles for different referenced materials. Its purpose is to provide a set of default formats for references on Wikipedia. It includes a series of templates that in turn use Module:Citation/CS1.

This help page is a how-to guide. It explains concepts or processes used by the Wikipedia community. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels of consensus.

Shortcuts HELP:CS1 WP:CS1

This page in a nutshell: This is an introductory how-to for Wikipedia's most frequently used citation style. It does not cover every option of every citation template. See individual templates' documentation (e.g. at Template:Cite journal) for details beyond this basic cheatsheet.

This help page has testcases demonstrating various uses.

The use of CS1 or of templates is not compulsory; per WP:CITESTYLE:

Wikipedia does not have a single house style. Editors may choose any option they want; one article need not match what is done in other articles or what is done in professional publications or recommended by academic style guides. However, citations within a given article should follow a consistent style.

WP:CITEVAR additionally states:

If the article you are editing is already using a particular citation style, you should follow it; if you believe it is inappropriate for the needs of the article, seek consensus for a change on the talk page.

CS1 uses (in addition to Wikipedia's own Manual of Style) elements of The Chicago Manual of Style and the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, with significant adaptations.

Style

There are a number of templates that use a name starting with cite; many were developed independently of CS1 and are not compliant with the CS1 style. There are also a number of templates that use one of the general use templates as a meta-template to cite a specific source.

To be compliant with CS1, a template must:

• Use Module:Citation/CS1 or one of the templates listed below.
• Use a period as a punctuation mark to separate fields and end the citation.
• Use a semicolon as a punctuation mark to separate authors and editors.
• Format the title of longer works in italics.
• Format the title of short works such as chapters in quotes.

Templates

General use

The following is a list of templates that implement Citation Style 1 for one or more types of citations but are not restricted to any specific source.

Yes	Indicates that the corresponding tool or gadget can generate the template anytime user wishes. However, this does not mean that the tool or gadget fully supports all parameters or provides an interface for them. In fact, none of the mentioned items do so.
Sometimes	Indicates that the corresponding tool or gadget may or may not generate the corresponding template. For more information, see associated footnote.

General-use CS1 templates

Template	Use	Citoid	Citation expander	RefToolbar 2.0	ProveIt	SnipManager
{{Cite arXiv}}	arXiv preprints
{{Cite AV media}}	audio and visual sources				Yes	Yes
{{Cite AV media notes}}	liner notes from albums, DVDs, CDs and similar audio-visual media
{{Cite book}}	books	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
{{Cite conference}}	conference papers				Yes
{{Cite encyclopedia}}	edited collections				Yes
{{Cite episode}}	television or radio programs and episodes				Yes
{{Cite interview}}	interviews
{{Cite journal}}	academic and scientific papers published in journals	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
{{Cite magazine}}	magazines and newsletters				Yes
{{Cite mailing list}}	archived public mailing lists
{{Cite map}}	maps
{{Cite news}}	news articles in print, video, audio or web	Yes	Sometimes[lower-alpha 1]	Yes	Yes	Yes
{{Cite newsgroup}}	online newsgroups
{{Cite podcast}}	audio or video podcast
{{Cite press release}}	press releases				Yes
{{Cite report}}	reports by government departments, instrumentalities, operated companies, etc.				Yes
{{Cite serial}}	audio or video serials
{{Cite sign}}	signs, plaques and other visual sources				Yes
{{Cite speech}}	speeches
{{Cite tech report}}	technical reports
{{Cite thesis}}	theses	Yes			Yes
{{Cite web}}	web sources not characterized by another template	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

1. Citation expander will only attempt to tidy up the citation and will not add new content

Specific source

There are a number of templates that are CS1 compliant, because they use a CS1 template as a base, but are tied to a specific source; these are listed in Category:Citation Style 1 specific-source templates.

How the templates work

CS1 uses a series of templates that provide a consistent output. The main difference is in parameters optimized for the subject. For example, {{cite book}} has fields for title and chapter, whereas {{cite journal}} has fields for journal and title.

This help page uses the names most commonly used across the templates series; see each template's documentation for details.

CS1 templates present a citation generally as:

• With author:

Author (n.d.). "Title". Work. Publisher. Identifiers.

• Without author:

"Title". Work. Publisher. n.d. Identifiers.

(where "n.d." could also be any other valid date formatted per the MOS)

Authors

An author may be cited using separate parameters for the author's surname and given name by using |last= and |first= respectively. If a cited source has multiple authors, subsequent authors can be listed in the citation using |last2= and |first2=, |last3= and |first3=, etc.^{[Note 1]} For symmetry with the other numbered parameters, |last1= and |first1= are available as well, as shown in the following example:

{{cite book |last1=Hawking |first1=Stephen |last2=Hawking |first2=Lucy |title=George's Secret Key to the Universe}}

Hawking, Stephen; Hawking, Lucy. George's Secret Key to the Universe.

For symmetry with similar parameters for editors and other contributors (discussed further below), longer parameter forms are also available for authors: |author-last= and |author-first=, as well as numbered variants like |author-lastn= and |author-firstn= or |authorn-last= and |authorn-first= (with n referring to this author's number in the list). Because the shorthand parameters might erroneously have been used also for editors and other types of contributors by some Wikipedians in the past, please make sure that the parameters actually refer to authors when expanding |last= and |first= parameters to their longer equivalents (equivalent parameters for editors etc. exist as well, see below).

If a cited source has a large number of authors, one can limit the number of authors displayed when the citation is published by using the |display-authors= parameter as described in detail in the Display options section of this help page.

If a cited author is notable and the author has a Wikipedia article, the author's name can be linked with |author-link=.^{[Note 2]} If a citation includes multiple notable authors, one may use |author-linkn= or |authorn-link=, etc. This method is used because the |last=- and |first=-type parameters do not allow wikilinking. However, |author-link= cannot be used to link to an external website; the external link will not render correctly.^{[Note 2]} Below is an example of a wikilinked author credit:

{{cite book |author-last1=Hawking |author-first1=Stephen |author-link1=Stephen Hawking |author-last2=Hawking |author-first2=Lucy |title=George's Secret Key to the Universe}}

Hawking, Stephen; Hawking, Lucy. George's Secret Key to the Universe.

When an author is cited, the date of the cited work is displayed after the author's name, as shown in the example below:

{{cite book |author-last1=Hawking |author-first1=Stephen |author-link1=Stephen Hawking |author-last2=Hawking |author-first2=Lucy |title=George's Secret Key to the Universe |date=2007}}

Hawking, Stephen; Hawking, Lucy (2007). George's Secret Key to the Universe.

If no author is cited, the date appears after the title, as shown in the example below:

{{cite book |title=George's Secret Key to the Universe |date=2007}}

George's Secret Key to the Universe. 2007.

If the cited source does not credit an author, as is common with newswire reports, press releases or company websites use:

|author=<!--Not stated-->

This HTML comment alerts fact-checking and citation-fixing editors, and potentially bots, that the cited source did not name an author—the author was not overlooked. Without this entry editors and bots would waste time researching cited sources for a non-existent author credit.

When using |author= avoid citations like {{cite news |work=Weekday Times |author=''Weekday Times'' editors |title=...}}, unless the article is on a field in which the majority of professional journals covering that field use such a citation style.

Editors should use an |author= organizational citation when the cited source, such as a committee report, specifically names an official body or a sub-unit of the publisher as the collective author of the work, e.g. |author=Commission on Headphone Safety or |author=Rules Sub-committee. Do not use |author= to assert what you think was probably the collective author when the source itself does not specifically specify a collective author; doing so is original research and falsification of source verifiability and reliability.

|author= should never hold the name of more than one author. Separate individual authors into enumerated individual |authorn= parameters.

Editors

An editor may be cited using separate parameters for the editor's last and first name. A single or first editor would use |editor-last= and |editor-first=; subsequent editors would use |editor2-last= and |editor2-first=, |editor3-last= and |editor3-first=, etc.

If an editor has a Wikipedia article, you may wikilink to that Wikipedia article using |editor-link=.^{[Note 2]} If a cited work has multiple editors, you may use |editor2-link=, |editor3-link=, etc. to wikilink to each editor's Wikipedia article. This method is used because |editor-last= and |editor-first= do not allow wikilinking. |editor-link= cannot be used to link to an external website.

If a cited source has a large number of editors, one can limit the number of editors displayed when the citation is published using the |display-editors= parameter as described in detail in the Display options section of this help page.

Translators

A translator may be cited using separate parameters for the translator's last and first name. A single or first translator would use |translator-last= and |translator-first=; subsequent translators would use |translator2-last= and |translator2-first=, |translator3-last= and |translator3-first=, etc.

If a translator has a Wikipedia article, you may wikilink to that Wikipedia article using |translator-link=.^{[Note 2]} If a cited work has multiple translators, you may use |translator2-link=, |translator3-link=, etc. to wikilink to each translator's Wikipedia article. This method is used because |translator-last= and |translator-first= do not allow wikilinking. |translator-link= cannot be used to link to an external website.

Others

• others: This parameter is used to credit contributors other than an author or an editor, such as an illustrator. You should include both the type of contribution and the name of the contributor, for example |others=Illustrated by John Smith.^{[Note 2]}

Dates

Dates are indicated by these parameters:

• date: Date of publication edition being referenced, in the same format as other dates in citations in the same article. Must not be wikilinked.
  • or: year: Year of publication edition being referenced. Do not use in combination with date, except in the rare case that both of the following conditions are met:
    1. the publication-date format in the template is YYYY-MM-DD
    2. the citation requires a CITEREF disambiguator
• orig-date: Original publication date or year, for display (in square brackets) after the date (or year). For clarity, please supply specifics, for instance |orig-date=first published 1859 or |orig-date=composed 1904. This parameter displays only if there is a value for date (or year). Alias: origyear.

When a source does not have a publication date, use |date=n.d. or |date=nd

Acceptable date formats are shown in the "Acceptable date formats" table of the Manual of Style/Dates and numbers § Dates, months and years. Further points:

• Prescriptions about date formats apply only when the date is expressed in terms of Julian or Gregorian dates, or when the date contains one of the seasons (spring, summer, autumn or fall, winter). Sources are at liberty to use other ways of expressing dates, such as "spring/summer" or a date in a religious calendar; editors should report the date as expressed by the source. Although the seasons are not normally capitalized, they are capitalized when used as dates in CS1 templates, and the capitalization of the season stated by the source may be altered to follow this convention. In cases where the date as expressed in the source is not compatible with the template software, the citation should be created without using a template.
• Do not wikilink.
• Access and archive dates in references should be in either the format used for publication dates, or YYYY-MM-DD.

Date format compliance with Wikipedia's Manual of Style

CS1 uses Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers § Dates, months, and years (MOS:DATEFORMAT) as the reference for all date format checking performed by Module:Citation/CS1. For various reasons, CS1 is not fully compliant with MOS:DATEFORMAT. This table indicates CS1 compliance with the listed sections of MOS:DATEFORMAT.

CS1 compliance with Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers

Section	Compliant	Comment
Acceptable date formats table	yes	Exceptions: linked dates not supported; sortable dates not supported ({{dts}} etc.); proper name dates not supported with the exception of 'Easter YYYY' and 'Christmas YYYY'; shortened month names longer than three characters or with terminating periods not supported; quarterly dates supported in the form 'First Quarter 2020'
Unacceptable date formats table	yes
Consistency	yes†	Article-level restrictions are beyond the scope of CS1 †CS1/CS2 templates follow the format specified by the article's {{use dmy dates}} or {{use mdy dates}} templates; see Auto-formatting citation template dates
Strong national ties to a topic	no
Retaining existing format	no
Era style	no	Dates earlier than 100 not supported. Wikipedia editors seldom read ancient manuscripts directly; the specific, modern, published edition read by the editor is what goes in the source citation. Thus, the date of the source actually consulted should be provided in |date=, and the date of the ancient source may be provided in |orig-date=; the format of the orig-date value is not checked for errors.
Julian and Gregorian calendars	limited	Julian prior to 1582; Gregorian from 1582; assumes Gregorian in the overlap period of 1582 – c. 1923
Ranges	yes	Exceptions: does not support the use of – or   does not support dates prior to 100; does not support solidus separator (/) does not support " to " as a date separator does not support YYYY–YY where the two-digit year is less than 13 (change to YYYY–YYYY to eliminate the error message)
Uncertain, incomplete, or approximate dates	yes	Exceptions: does not support {{circa}} or {{floruit}}; does not support dates prior to 100; Supports c. only with a single year value (no ranges or day/month combinations).
Days of the week	no
Seasons	limited	CS1 capitalizes seasons used as dates in citations, in line with external style guides
Decades	no
Centuries and millennia	no
Abbreviations for long periods of time	no

Date range, multiple sources in same year

If dates are used, the year range is 100 to present without era indication (AD, BC, CE, BCE). In the case where the same author has written more than one work in the same year, a lower-case letter may be appended to the year in the date parameter (|date=July 4, 1997b) or the year parameter (|year=1997b).

Auto-formatting citation template dates

Citation Style 1 and 2 templates automatically render dates (|date=, |access-date=, |archive-date=, etc.) in the style specified by the article's {{use dmy dates}} or {{use mdy dates}} template. Editors may also choose how CS1/CS2 templates render dates by the use of |cs1-dates=<keyword> in the article's {{use xxx dates}} template.

Acceptable |cs1-dates= keywords

Keyword	Definition
l	long-form publication and access- / archive-dates; this is the default case when |cs1-dates= is omitted or empty
ll
ls	long-form publication dates; abbreviated access- / archive-dates
ly	long-form publication dates; year-initial numeric access- / archive-dates (ymd)
s	abbreviated publication and access- / archive-dates
ss
sy	abbreviated publication dates; year-initial numeric access- / archive-dates (ymd)
y	year-initial numeric publication, access- and archive-dates (ymd); cs1|2 cannot reformat Month YYYY, Season YYYY, date-ranges of any form, or Julian calendar dates into ymd format
yy

Example: to have the CS1/CS2 templates in an article render their publication dates in the long form (fully spelled-out month names) with access-/archive-dates rendered in short form (abbreviated month names), write:

{{use dmy dates|date=November 2024|cs1-dates=ls}}

This documentation page has {{use dmy dates|date=November 2024|cs1-dates=y}} at the top of this section so this cs1 template will render with ymd dates:

{{cite web |title=Example Webpage |date=31 October 2017 |website=Example |url=https://example.com/ |access-date=Dec 5, 2017}}

"Example Webpage". Example. 2017-10-31. Retrieved 2017-12-05.

This global setting may be overridden in individual CS1/CS2 templates by use of |df=; abbreviated date forms are not supported by |df=.

Nota bene: CS1/CS2 auto-date formatting does not apply when previewing an article section that does not contain a {{use xxx dates}} template.

Titles and chapters

• title: The title of the cited source. Titles are displayed in italics, except for short works such as a {{cite press release}} and cited articles in {{cite news}}, {{cite journal}}, {{cite magazine}}, {{cite web}}, {{cite conference}}, and {{cite podcast}}, where the title is shown in quotation marks. For templates like these that show the title in quotation marks, any double quotation marks inside the title should be converted to single quotation marks. Use title case unless the cited source covers a scientific, legal or other technical topic and sentence case is the predominant style in journals on that topic. Use either title case or sentence case consistently throughout the article. Do not omit a leading "The" from the title. Subtitles are typically separated from titles with ": " though " – " is also used. As with trademarks, Wikipedia does not attempt to emulate any stylistic flourishes used by the cited source's publisher, such as ALL-CAPS, all-lower-case, Small Caps, etc.; use either standard title case or sentence case consistently. If the cited source is itself notable and has a Wikipedia article, the title can be wikilinked. Wikilinking the title will make it impossible to use the "url" parameter to link to an external copy of the cited source, so only do this when citing works that do not need to be externally linked. A link to the actual source is preferred to a link to a Wikipedia article about the source.
• script-title: Languages that do not use a Latin-based alphabet, Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, etc., should not be italicized and may also read right-to-left (RTL). To include titles in these languages, use script-title. Titles in script-title are wrapped in special HTML markup to isolate RTL script from adjacent left-to-right text. Part of that special markup is a language attribute that browsers can use to assist in the proper display of the script. Editors must add a prefix to the script that will identify the language. The prefix is one of the [[Help:Citation Style 1#|script-<param>= language codes|supported language codes]] followed by a colon: |script-title=ar:العربية. Unrecognized codes are ignored and will display in the rendered citation.
• trans-title: If the cited source is in a foreign language, an English translation of the title can be given here. This field will be displayed in square brackets after the title and will be linked to |url= if used.
• chapter: The title of the cited chapter from the source, written in full. Displayed in quotes before the title. For websites arranged in sections the "at" parameter serves a similar function: |at=Featured News
• script-chapter: Languages that do not use a Latin-based alphabet, Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, etc., may possibly read right-to-left (RTL). To include chapter titles in these languages, use script-chapter. Chapter titles in script-chapter are wrapped in special HTML markup to isolate RTL script from adjacent left-to-right text. Part of that special markup is a language attribute that browsers can use to assist in the proper display of the script. Editors must add a prefix to the script that will identify the language. The prefix is one of the [[Help:Citation Style 1#|script-<param>= language codes|supported language codes]] followed by a colon: |script-chapter=ar:العربية. Unrecognized codes are ignored and will display in the rendered citation. This field will be displayed following the transliterated title.
• trans-chapter: If the cited source is in a foreign language, an English translation of the cited chapter title can be given here. This field will be displayed in square brackets within the quotation marks that enclose the chapter field.

Titles containing certain characters will both display and link incorrectly unless those characters are replaced or encoded like this:

Character	Must be replaced with
newline	space
[	[
]	]
|	|

|script-<param>= language codes

Language codes known to cs1|2 for languages that do not use a Latin script are:

• ab: Abkhazian
• am: Amharic
• ar: Arabic
• be: Belarusian
• bg: Bulgarian
• bn: Bengali
• bo: Tibetan
• bs: Bosnian
• ce: Chechen
• dv: Divehi
• dz: Dzongkha
• el: Greek
• fa: Persian
• grc: Ancient Greek
• gu: Gujarati
• he: Hebrew
• hi: Hindi
• hy: Armenian
• ja: Japanese
• ka: Georgian
• kk: Kazakh
• km: Khmer
• kn: Kannada
• ko: Korean
• ku: Kurdish
• ky: Kyrgyz
• lo: Lao
• mk: Macedonian
• ml: Malayalam
• mn: Mongolian
• mni: Manipuri
• mr: Marathi
• my: Burmese
• ne: Nepali
• or: Odia
• ota: Ottoman Turkish
• pa: Punjabi
• ps: Pashto
• ru: Russian
• sd: Sindhi
• si: Sinhala
• sr: Serbian
• syc: Classical Syriac
• ta: Tamil
• te: Telugu
• tg: Tajik
• th: Thai
• ti: Tigrinya
• tt: Tatar
• ug: Uyghur
• uk: Ukrainian
• ur: Urdu
• uz: Uzbek
• yi: Yiddish
• yue: Cantonese
• zh: Chinese

Type

• type: Specifies the type of work cited. Appears in parentheses immediately after the title. Some templates use a default that can be overridden; example: {{cite press release}} will show "(Press release)" by default. Other useful values are: Review, Systemic review, Report, Abstract, Meta-analysis, Original article, Oral history, Email, Website, Text, Document. Alias: medium, in {{cite AV media}}, where typical values are: Motion picture, Moving image, Television production, Videotape, DVD, Blu-ray, Trailer, CD, Radio broadcast, Podcast, Sound.

Language

• language: The language (or a comma-separated list of the languages) in which the source is written, as either the ISO 639 language code (preferred) or the full language name. Examples: |language=ru; |lang=fr, pt-br; |lang=Russian; |language=French, Portuguese. See the list of supported codes and names. Do not use templates or wikilinks. Displays in parentheses with "in" before the language name or names. When the only source language is English, no language is displayed in the citation. The use of languages recognized by the citation module adds the page to the appropriate subcategory of Category:CS1 foreign language sources. Because cs1|2 templates are often copied from en.wiki to other wikis, the use of language codes is preferred so that language names render in the correct language and form, e.g. espagnol at a French-language wiki instead of the English word "Spanish". Aliases: lang

Work and publisher

Further information: WP:CITEHOW

• work: Used by some templates such as {{cite web}} (where it is aliased to website), {{cite news}} (aliased to newspaper), {{cite magazine}} (aliased to magazine), {{cite journal}} (aliased to journal), and others where the citation is usually to a specific item (given in the "title" parameter) found in a larger work (this "work" parameter), most commonly an article in a website or print periodical, or an episode in a TV series. Do not confuse this with the "publisher" parameter, which is for the publishing company. If the work is notable and has an article in Wikipedia, it should be wiki-linked at first appearance in citations in the article. If the "title" is already linked-to externally, do not externally link to the "work". If the work title as given by the site/publication would be exactly or substantially the same as the name of the publisher, do not use the "publisher" parameter (see below for more detail).

On websites, in most cases "work" is the name of the website (as usually given in the logo/banner area of the site, and/or appearing in the <title> of the homepage, which may appear as the page title in your browser tab, depending on browser). Do not append ".com" or the like if the site's actual title does not include it (thus |work=[[Salon (magazine)|Salon]], not Salon.com). If no clear title can be identified, or the title explicitly is the domain name, then use the site's domain name. Do not falsify the work's name by adding descriptive verbiage like "Website of [Publisher]" or "[Publisher]'s Homepage". Capitalize for reading clarity, and omit "www.", e.g. convert "www.veterinaryresourcesuk.com" to "VeterinaryResourcesUK.com".

Many journals use highly abbreviated titles when citing other journals (e.g. J. Am. Vet. Med. for Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association) because specialists in the field the journal covers usually already know what these abbreviations mean. Our readers usually do not, so these abbreviations should always be expanded.

If the titled item being cited is part of some other larger work, as in a book in a series, a special issue of a periodical, or a sub-site at a domain (e.g., you are citing the law school's section of a university's website system), it is usually better to use the name of that more specific work than just that of the entire larger work. Various citation templates provide separate fields for such information, e.g. |chapter=|title=|volume=|series= in {{Cite book}}. If the nature of the work and its relation to the site, book, or other context in which it is found is complicated or confusing, simply explain the situation after the citation template and before the </ref> that closes the citation.

• publisher: the name of the organization that actually published the source. The field should not include the corporate designation such as "Ltd" or "Inc.", unless some ambiguity would result or the organization is usually known with that designation even in everyday use (e.g. Apple Inc., which otherwise might be confused with Apple Records and other publishers). "Publisher", "Publishing" and "Publications" can be abbreviated "Pubr.", "Pubg." and "Pubs." respectively, but some templates in this series include a period (full-stop) immediately after this parameter, so the period may have to be omitted; check the output if you abbreviate here. They are usually safe to omit, but are usefully included where the publisher's name might be confusing without it. This is most often the case when the publisher's name is something like "Joshua Martin Publications", which without the designation might be mistaken for a co-author/editor. A leading "The" can generally be omitted, again unless confusion might result (e.g., for The International Cat Association, "The" is part of their official acronym, TICA). If the publisher is notable and has an article independent of the "work", the "publisher" parameter can include a wiki-link to that article, but should never externally link to the publisher's website. Whether the publisher needs to be included depends to an extent on the type of work and sometimes on its recognizability. WP:Citing sources, and most off-Wikipedia citation guides, suggest that it should be used for books (even famous ones), but not necessarily other works. The "publisher" parameter should not be included for widely-known mainstream news sources, for major academic journals, or where it would be the same or mostly the same as the work. For example, the "publisher" parameter should be omitted in these examples:

  |work=[[Amazon.⁠com]]|publisher=Amazon Inc.

  |newspaper=The Aberdeen Times|publisher=The Aberdeen Times

  |newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|publisher=The New York Times Company

  |newspaper=[[USA Today]]|publisher=[[Gannett Company]]

  |journal=[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]|publisher=[[Nature Research]]

If the work is self-published, this is a very important fact about potential reliability of the source, and needs to be specified; no consensus exists for the exact value of |publisher= in such a case, but some printed style guides suggest "author", while many Wikipedia editors have used "self-published" for increased clarity. When an exhaustive attempt to discover the name of the publisher (try whois for websites, and WorldCat for books, etc.) fails, use |publisher=<!--Unspecified by source.--> to explicitly indicate that this was checked, so other editors do not waste time duplicating your fruitless efforts. Do not guess at the publisher when this information is not clear. See next entry for co-published works and how to specify multiple publishers and their locations.

• location (alias |publication-place=): Geographical place of publication (not where you found your copy, nor location of material in the source). This is usually City, Country, or City, US State. The city name by itself can be used for world-recognized cities like New York, London (except in articles about Canadian topics), Paris, Tokyo. Simply having a unique name does not mean it is globally recognizable; e.g., many people do not know where Mumbai is, especially if they are old enough that it was called Bombay for much of their lives. If in doubt, be more not less specific, since "Toronto, Canada" and "San Francisco, California" do not actually hurt anything. Be more specific when a City, Country would be ambiguous, e.g. |location=Hanley, Staffordshire, UK, versus |location=Hanley, Worcestershire, UK. Do not use sub-national postal abbreviations ("DE", "Wilts", etc.), per MOS:POSTABBR. The location parameter should be omitted when it is implied by the name of the work, e.g. The Sydney Morning Herald. The location parameter should be used when the location is part of a common appellation of but not the actual title of a periodical. For example, the newspaper formerly known as and sometimes still called the San Jose Mercury News is actually The Mercury News and can be entered with |newspaper=The Mercury News |location=San Jose, Calif., which yields: The Mercury News. San Jose, Calif. A similar example is The Times of London (contrast The New York Times). Per WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT, provide the location of the edition you are using (e.g., if a publisher has operations in both New York and London and you have the London-published edition, use |location=London, even if the publisher's corporate HQ is in New York). If your edition specifically gives multiple locations, this can be indicated with, e.g., |location=New York / London. This same technique can be used for co-published works, e.g.: |location=Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois / Los Angeles|publisher=[[Council of Science Editors]] / [[Loyola Marymount University]] Press; just get them in corresponding order in both parameters. The templates do not have separate |location1=, |publisher1=, etc., parameters. For historical publications that are still worth citing and still findable (e.g. via book digitizers – see the "via" parameter below), do not confuse the printer (printing press owner-operator) with the publisher (organization or person that sponsored the work); an edition may have a printer's name in larger type than the publisher, but for citation purposes we care about the publisher. If the distinction cannot be determined for certain in a particular case, list both. While some off-site publishers lean toward omitting publishing locations, they can serve more than purely bibliographical purposes on Wikipedia (e.g. an overabundance of material published in one place in an article about another place may reveal an editorial bias).
• publication-date: Date of publication when different from the date the work was written. Displays only if date or year are defined and only if different, else publication-date is used and displayed as date. Use the same format as other dates in the article; do not wikilink. Follows publisher; if work is not defined, then publication-date is preceded by "published" and enclosed in parenthesis.
• via (optional): Name of the content deliverer (when they are not the publisher). "via" is not a replacement for "publisher", but provides additional detail. It may be used when the content deliverer presents the source in a format other than the original, or when the URL provided does not make clear the identity of the deliverer, or as suggested in WP:The Wikipedia Library, e.g. WP:Credo accounts/Citations. See also § Registration or subscription required. Typical uses of this parameter are identification of a book-scanning and -databasing project such as those provided by the Internet Archive, Project Gutenberg, and Google Books; journal indexing and search services through which we commonly find academic articles, e.g. PubMed Central, Paperity, and JSTOR; and other aggregators or indexers of previously-published content, such as Dictionary.com. Use via only when a standard identifier cannot be used (see § Identifiers). Example: {{Cite dictionary |entry=skeptic |entry-url=https://www.dictionary.com/browse/skeptic?s=t#collins-section |title=[[Collins English Dictionary]] |edition=Complete & Unabridged Digital |date=2012 |location=London |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] |via=[[Dictionary.com]] |access-date=4 November 2024}}

Pages

CS1/CS2 template support for
|volume=, |issue=, |page(s)=

Template	|volume=	|issue=	|page(s)=	|quote-page(s)=
{{citation}}	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
{{cite arXiv}}	No	No	Yes	Yes
{{cite AV media}}	Yes	No	No	No
{{cite AV media notes}}	No	No	Yes	Yes
{{cite bioRxiv}}	No	No	Yes	Yes
{{cite book}}	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
{{cite citeseerx}}	No	No	Yes	Yes
{{cite conference}} (as a book)	No	No	Yes	Yes
{{cite conference}} (as a journal)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
{{cite encyclopedia}}	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
{{cite episode}}	No	Yes	No	No
{{cite interview}}	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
{{cite journal}}	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
{{cite magazine}}	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
{{cite mailing list}}	No	No	No	No
{{cite map}} (as book)	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
{{cite map}} (as journal or magazine)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
{{cite news}}	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
{{cite newsgroup}}	No	No	No	No
{{cite podcast}}	No	No	No	No
{{cite press release}}	No	No	Yes	Yes
{{cite report}}	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
{{cite serial}}	No	No	No	No
{{cite sign}}	No	No	No	No
{{cite speech}}	No	No	No	No
{{cite ssrn}}	No	No	Yes	Yes
{{cite tech report}}	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
{{cite thesis}}	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
{{cite web}}	No	No	Yes	Yes

An editor may use any one of the following parameters in a given citation to refer to the specific page(s) or place in a cited source that contains the information that supports the article text. If more than one of the following parameters are used in the same citation, the error message Extra |pages= or |at= (help) will display in the published citation. When more than one of the following parameters is used in error, |page= overrides both |pages= and |at=; |pages= overrides |at=. To resolve the error, remove extra parameters of this type until only one remains in the affected citation.

• page: page in the cited source containing the information that supports the article text, for example |page=52.
  • Note: For a hyphenated page, use |page=12{{hyphen}}34. This will not only properly display a hyphen, but also reduce the likelihood that an editor/bot will convert this to |pages=12{{endash}}34 by mistake.
• pages: pages in the cited source containing the information that supports the article text. Separate page ranges with an en dash: – , for example |pages=236–239. Separate non-sequential pages either with commas or semicolons, for example |pages=157, 159. The form |pages=461, 466–467 is used when you are citing both non-contiguous and sequential pages. For page numbers higher than 999, either do not use thousands separators or enclose the page number in accept-this-as-written markup to avoid commas being erroneously interpreted as list separators, e.g. |pages=((1,234{{endash}}1,235)). For multiple hyphenated pages, use the accept-this-as-written markup to avoid the hyphens being converted to dashes, e.g. |pages=((1{{hyphen}}2)), ((3{{hyphen}}4)).
  • Note: CS1 citations do not record the total number of pages in a cited source; do not use this parameter for that purpose.
• at: place in the cited source containing the information that supports the article text when a page number is not given, is inappropriate or is insufficient. Common examples include column or col., paragraph or para. and section or sec. Depending on the source being cited, other indicators may be appropriate to use with the |at= parameter including, but not limited to, track, hours, minutes and seconds, act, scene, canto, book, part, folio, stanza, back cover, liner notes, indicia, colophon, dust jacket, etc. Examples include |at=Column 2 or |at=Paragraph 5 or |at=Back cover or |at=Act III, Scene 2.
• quote-page: The number of a single page quoted in |quote=. Use either |quote-page= or |quote-pages=, but not both. Should be a subset of the page(s) specified in |page=, |pages= or |at=. Displays preceded by p. unless |no-pp=yes. If hyphenated, use {{hyphen}} to indicate this is intentional (e.g. |quote-page=3{{hyphen}}12). Alias: none.
• OR: quote-pages: A list or range of pages quoted in |quote=. Use either |quote-page= or |quote-pages=, but not both. Should be a subset of the pages specified in |pages= or |at=. Separate using an en dash (–); separate non-sequential pages with a comma (,). Displays preceded by pp. unless |no-pp=yes is defined. Hyphens are automatically converted to en dashes; if hyphens are appropriate because individual page numbers contain hyphens, for example: pp. 3-1–3-15, use double parentheses to tell the template to display the value of |quote-pages= without processing it, and use {{hyphen}} to indicate to editors that a hyphen is really intended: |quote-pages=((3{{hyphen}}1{{ndash}}3{{hyphen}}15)). Alias: none.

If the same source is reused with different pages, separate citations must be created. A way around this problem is to use a short citation {{sfn}}, or {{rp}} to provide linked page number citations.

Edition identifiers

• edition: Identifies the particular edition of a cited source when the source has more than one edition, such as "2nd", "Revised", etc. Note that this parameter automatically displays " ed." after your entry. For example, |edition=Revised third displays as: Revised third ed. The edition parameter can be omitted if there is no content difference between two editions of the same work; e.g. if a book was identically published in the UK and the US except, for example, ISBN number and cover art, it is not necessary to indicate either "UK" or "US" edition; or if citing minute:seconds of a film available in both a regular edition and a "Special Limited Collector's Edition", if the running time and cut are the same, it is not necessary to cite the particular edition.
• series: When the source is part of a series, such as a book series or a journal where the issue numbering has restarted. For journal series, |series= should be limited to Original/New Series, First/Second/Third/... Series, or similar.^{[Note 3]}
• volume: For a source published in several volumes. This field is displayed in bold after the title and series parameters. An alternative is to include the volume information in the title parameter after the main title. Separate volume ranges with an en dash: – , for example |volume=I–IV. Separate non-sequential volumes either with commas or semicolons, for example |volume=I, III. The form |volume=I, III–V is used when you are citing both non-contiguous and sequential volumes. For volume numbers higher than 999, either do not use thousands separators or enclose the volume number in accept-this-as-written markup to avoid commas being erroneously interpreted as list separators.
• issue: When the source is part of a series that is published periodically. Alias: number. When the issue has a special title of its own, this may be given, in italics, along with the issue number, e.g. |issue=2, ''Modern Canadian Literature''. Please choose either |issue= or |number= depending on what nomenclature is actually used in a publication. If a publication carries both, issue and number designations (typically one being a year-relative and the other an absolute value), provide them both, for example |issue=2 #143. Separate ranges with an en dash: – , and non-sequential numbers either with commas or semicolons. For numbers higher than 999, either do not use thousands separators or enclose the number in accept-this-as-written markup to avoid commas being erroneously interpreted as list separators.

External links

• url: Adds a link to the title
• chapter-url: Adds a link to the chapter.
• format: Format of the document at its URL (e.g., PDF, XLS, etc.). Do not specify for HTML as it is implied as the default. Do not use this parameter for completely different purposes, with annotations such as "fee required" or "reprint"; its intent is to notify readers what the file format is (e.g. in case some browsers might have trouble with it, or some might prefer to save the link to disk rather than open it in the browser). Access restrictions can be shown using the appropriate |url-access= parameter, see Registration or subscription required. Other notes about reprintings, etc., should be placed after the template, and before </ref>.

Using |format=

When MediaWiki encounters an external link URL with a '.pdf' or '.PDF' extension, it renders the external link with a PDF icon in place of the usual external-link icon. To make rendered cs1|2 citations that link to PDF documents somewhat more accessible, cs1|2 automatically adds a parenthetical PDF annotation so that those readers using screen-reader technology can know the type of the linked file. This is imperfect because some on-line sources redirect .pdf URLs to .html landing pages (this is common for PDF documents behind paywalls or registration barriers). Because the parenthetical PDF annotation happens automatically, editors are not required to set |format=PDF, though doing so causes no harm. The |format=PDF parameter may be deleted as part of a more substantial edit but editors should consider that many cs1|2 templates are copied from en.Wikipedia to other-language Wikipedias when articles here are translated to that other language. Do not assume that other-language Wikipedias use up-to-date cs1|2 templates; many do not, so removing |format=PDF here can affect readers/translators at other Wikipedias.

Online sources

Main pages: Wikipedia:External links and Wikipedia:Citing sources

Links to sources are regarded as conveniences and are not required, except when citing Web-only sources. There are many digital libraries with works that may be used as sources.

• Links should be to full versions of the source.
• Online sources that require payment or subscription may be included per Wikipedia:Verifiability.

Do not link to:

• Sites that do not have permission to republish the work or that otherwise violate copyright.
• Commercial sites such as Amazon, unless no alternative exists.
• Reviews of the work.
• Very short extracts such as Google Books snippet view where there is not enough context to verify the content, unless the entire work is also freely available there. (See WP:BOOKLINKS)

Link formats

Links should be kept as simple as possible. For example, when performing a search for a Google Book, the link for Monty Python and Philosophy would look like:

https://books.google.com/books?id=NPDgD546-doC&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false

But can be trimmed to:

https://books.google.com/?id=NPDgD546-doC&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false

or:

https://books.google.com/?id=NPDgD546-doC&printsec=frontcover

or:

https://books.google.com/?id=NPDgD546-doC (if Google Books does not provide the cover page).

Pages

A direct link to a specific page may be used if supported by the host. For example, the link to page 172 of Monty Python and Philosophy on Google Books:

https://books.google.com/?id=NPDgD546-doC&pg=PA172

like so:

|page=[https://books.google.com/?id=wPQelKFNA5MC&pg=PA172 172]

Special characters

URLs must begin with a supported URI scheme. http:// and https:// will be supported by all browsers; however, ftp://, gopher://, irc://, ircs://, mailto: and news: may require a plug-in or an external application and should normally be avoided. IPv6 host-names are currently not supported.

If URLs in citation template parameters contain certain characters, then they will not display and link correctly. Those characters need to be percent-encoded. For example, a space must be replaced by %20. To encode the URL, replace the following characters with:

Character	space	"	'	<	>	[	]	{	|	}
Encoding	%20	%22	%27	%3C	%3E	%5B	%5D	%7B	%7C	%7D

Single apostrophes do not need to be encoded; however, unencoded multiples will be parsed as italic or bold markup. Single curly closing braces also do not need to be encoded; however, an unencoded pair will be parsed as the double closing braces for the template transclusion.

Access date

• access-date: The full date when the content pointed to by url was last verified to support the text in the article; do not wikilink; requires url; use the same format as other access and archive dates in the article's citations. It is not required for linked documents that do not change. For example, access-date is not required for links to copies of published research papers accessed via DOI or a published book, but should be used for links to news articles on commercial websites (these can change from time to time, even if they are also published in a physical medium). Note that access-date is the date that the URL was checked to not just be working, but to support the assertion being cited (which the current version of the page may not do). Can be hidden or styled by registered editors. Alias: accessdate.

Web archives

Further information: Wikipedia:Link rot

• archive-url. Alias: archiveurl.
• archive-date. Alias: archivedate.

The original link may become unavailable. When an archived version is located, the original URL is retained and |archive-url= is added with a link to an archived copy of a web page, usually from services like WebCite and the Internet Archive. |archive-date= must be added to show the date the page was archived, not the date the link was added. When |archive-url= is used, |url= and |archive-date= are required, else an error will show. When an archived link is used, the citation displays with the title linked to the archive and the original link at the end: Monty Python and Philosophy. Archived from the original on 2013-05-01.

• url-status: To change the order with the title retaining the original link and the archive linked at the end, set |url-status=live:

Monty Python and Philosophy. Archived from the original on 2013-05-01.

When the original URL has been usurped for the purposes of spam, advertising, or is otherwise unsuitable, setting |url-status=unfit or |url-status=usurped suppresses display of the original URL (but |url= and |archive-url= are still required). When the original URL is still 'live' but no longer supports the text in an article, set |url-status=deviated. For further documentation of |url-status=, see Template:Cite web § csdoc urlstatus.

Identifiers

The following identifiers create links and are designed to accept a single value. Using multiple values or other text will break the link and/or invalidate the identifier. In general, the parameters should include only the variable part of the identifier, e.g. |rfc=822 or |pmc=345678.

• arxiv: arXiv identifier; for example: |arxiv=hep-th/9205027 (before April 2007) or |arxiv=0706.0001 (April 2007 – December 2014) or |arxiv=1501.00001 (since January 2015). Do not include extraneous file extensions like ".pdf" or ".html". Aliases: eprint.
• asin: Amazon Standard Identification Number; if first character of asin value is a digit, use isbn. Because this link favours one specific distributor, include it only if standard identifiers are not available. Example |asin=B00005N5PF. Aliases: ASIN.
  • asin-tld: ASIN top-level domain for Amazon sites other than the US; valid values: ae, au, br, ca, cn, de, es, fr, in, it, jp, mx, nl, pl, sa, se, sg, tr, uk. Aliases: none.
• bibcode: bibcode; used by a number of astronomical data systems; for example: 1974AJ.....79..819H. Aliases: none.
• biorxiv: bioRxiv id, as in the entire DOI (e.g. 10.1101/078733 for http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/10/01/078733 or https://doi.org/10.1101/078733; 10.1101/2020.07.24.220400 for https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.24.220400). Aliases: none.
• citeseerx: CiteSeerX id, a string of digits and dots found in a CiteSeerX URL (e.g. 10.1.1.176.341 for https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.176.341). Aliases: none.
• doi: Digital object identifier; for example: 10.1038/news070508-7. It is checked to ensure it begins with (10.). Aliases: DOI.
  • Supports accept-this-as-written markup to indicate valid DOIs using a non-standard format, see below.
  • doi-broken-date: Date a valid DOI was found to be non-working/inactive at https://doi.org. Use the same format as other dates in the article. Aliases: none.
• eissn: International Standard Serial Number for the electronic media of a serial publication; eight characters may be split into two groups of four using a hyphen, but not an en dash or a space; example |eissn=1557-2986. Aliases: EISSN.
  • Supports accept-this-as-written markup to indicate valid eISSNs using a non-standard format, see below.
• hdl: Handle System identifier for digital objects and other resources on the Internet; example |hdl=20.1000/100. Aliases: HDL.
• isbn: International Standard Book Number; for example: 978-0-8126-9593-9. (See Wikipedia:ISBN and ISBN § Overview.) Hyphens in the ISBN are optional, but preferred. Use the ISBN actually printed on or in the book. Use the 13-digit ISBN – beginning with 978 or 979 – when it is available. If only a 10-digit ISBN is printed on or in the book, use it. ISBNs can be found on the page with the publisher's information – usually the back of the title page – or beneath the barcode as a number beginning with 978 or 979 (barcodes beginning with any other numbers are not ISBNs). For sources with the older 9-digit SBN system, use sbn. Do not convert a 10-digit ISBN to 13-digit by just adding the 978 prefix; the last digit is a calculated check digit and just making changes to the numbers will make the ISBN invalid. This parameter should hold only the ISBN without any additional characters. It is checked for length, invalid characters – anything other than numbers, spaces, and hyphens, with "X" permitted as the last character in a 10-digit ISBN – and the proper check digit. Aliases: ISBN.
  • Use the {{Format ISBN}} template within the parameter – in the form |isbn={{Format ISBN|9780812695939}} – if you are unsure of how any particular ISBN should be hyphenated, as the pattern varies by country and publisher.
  • Supports accept-this-as-written markup to indicate valid ISBNs using a non-standard format, see below.
• ismn: International Standard Music Number; for example: 979-0-9016791-7-7. Hyphens or spaces in the ISMN are optional. Use the ISMN actually printed on or in the work. This parameter should hold only the ISMN without any additional characters. It is checked for length, invalid characters – anything other than numbers, spaces, and hyphens – and the proper check digit. Aliases: ISMN.
• issn: International Standard Serial Number; eight characters may be split into two groups of four using a hyphen, but not an en dash or a space; example |issn=2049-3630. Aliases: ISSN.
  • Supports accept-this-as-written markup to indicate valid ISSNs using a non-standard format, see below.
• jfm: Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der Mathematik; do not include "JFM" in the value; example |jfm=53.0144.01. Aliases: JFM.
• jstor: JSTOR reference number; for example: |jstor=3793107. Aliases: JSTOR.
• lccn: Library of Congress Control Number. When present, alphabetic prefix characters are to be lower case and without a space; example |lccn=79-57364 or |lccn=2004042477 or |lccn=e09001178. Aliases: LCCN.
• mr: Mathematical Reviews; example |mr=630583. Aliases: MR.
• oclc: OCLC Number for looking up publications in the WorldCat union catalog; example |oclc=9355469. Aliases: OCLC.
• ol: Open Library identifier; do not include "OL" in the value; example |ol=7030731M. Aliases: OL.
• osti: Office of Scientific and Technical Information; example |osti=4367507. Aliases: OSTI.
• pmc: PubMed Central; use article number for open repository full-text of a journal article, e.g. |pmc=345678. Do not include "PMC" in the value. See also the pmid parameter, below; these are two different identifiers. Aliases: PMC.
  • pmc-embargo-date: Date that pmc goes live; if this date is in the future, then pmc is not linked until that date. Aliases: none.
• pmid: PubMed; use unique identifier; example |pmid=17322060 See also the pmc parameter, above; these are two different identifiers. Aliases: PMID.
• rfc: Request for Comments; example |rfc=3143. Aliases: RFC.
• sbn: Standard Book Number; example |sbn=356-02201-3. Aliases: SBN.
  • Supports accept-this-as-written markup to indicate valid SBNs using a non-standard format, see below.
• ssrn: Social Science Research Network; example |ssrn=1900856. Aliases: SSRN.
• s2cid: Semantic Scholar corpus ID; example |s2cid=37220927. Aliases: S2CID.
• zbl: Zentralblatt MATH; example |zbl=0472.53010 For zbMATH search results like JFM 35.0387.02 use |jfm=35.0387.02. Aliases: ZBL.

In very rare cases, identifiers are published which do not follow their defined standard format or use non-conforming checksums. These would typically cause an error message to be shown. Do not alter them to match a different checksum. In order to suppress the error message, some identifiers (|doi=, |eissn=, |isbn=, |issn=, and |sbn=) support a special accept-this-as-written markup which can be applied to disable the error-checking (as |<param>=((<value>))). If the problem is down to a mere typographical error in a third-party source, correct the identifier value instead of overriding the error message.

For some identifiers, it is possible to specify the access status using the corresponding |<param>-access= parameter.

For {{cite journal}}, some identifiers (specifying free resources) will automatically be linked to the title when |url= and |title-link= are not used to specify a different link target. This behaviour can be overridden by one out of a number of special keywords for |title-link= to manually select a specific source (|title-link=pmc or |title-link=doi) for auto-linking or to disable the feature (|title-link=none).

It is not necessary to specify a URL to a link identical to a link also produced by an identifier. The |url= parameter (or |title-link=) can then be used for providing a direct deep link to the corresponding document or a convenience link to a resource that would not otherwise be obviously accessible.

A custom identifier can be specified through

• id: A unique identifier, used where none of the specialized identifiers are applicable; wikilink or use an external link template as applicable. For example, |id=NCJ 122967 will append "NCJ 122967" at the end of the citation. You can use templates such as |id={{NCJ|122967}} to append NCJ 122967 instead.

Registration or subscription required

Citations of online sources that require registration or a subscription are acceptable in Wikipedia as documented in Verifiability § Access to sources. As a courtesy to readers and other editors, editors should signal restrictions on access to material provided via the external links included in a citation. These levels describe requirements or constraints related to accessing and viewing the cited material; they are not intended to indicate the ability to reuse, or the copyright status, of the material, since that status is not relevant to verifying claims in articles.

Four access levels can be used:

• access indicator for named identifiers:
  • free: the source is free to read for anyone
• access indicators for url-holding parameters:
  • registration: a free registration with the provider is required to access the source, even if a limited preview, abstract or review may still be available without registration
  • limited: free access is subject to limited trial and a subscription is normally required
  • subscription: the source is only accessible via a paid subscription with the provider of the source ("paywall")

As there are often multiple external links with different access levels in the same citation, each value is attributed to a specific external link.

Access indicators for url-holding parameters

Shortcut

• WP:URLACCESS

Main page: WP:CONLINK

Online sources linked by |url=, |article-url=, |chapter-url=, |contribution-url=, |entry-url=, |map-url=, and |section-url= are presumed to be free-to-read. When they are not free-to-read, editors should mark those sources with the matching access-indicator parameter so that an appropriate icon is included in the rendered citation. Because the sources linked by these URL-holding parameters are presumed to be free-to-read, they are not marked as free. If the registration/limited/subscription access to the source goes dead and is no longer available, then remove the access-indicator parameter and add |archive-url= and |archive-date= values if possible.

URL-holding and access-indicator parameters

URL	Access	Allowed keywords
|url=	|url-access=	registration limited subscription
|article-url=	|article-url-access=
|chapter-url=	|chapter-url-access=
|contribution-url=	|contribution-url-access=
|entry-url=	|entry-url-access=
|map-url=	|map-url-access=
|section-url=	|section-url-access=

For example, this cites a web page that requires registration but not subscription:

{{cite web |url=https://example.com/nifty_data.php |url-access=registration |date=2021-04-15 |title=Nifty example data}}

which renders as:

"Nifty example data". 2021-04-15.

Access indicator for named identifiers

Links inserted by named identifiers are presumed to lie behind a paywall or registration barrier – exceptions listed below. When they are free-to-read, editors should mark those sources with the matching access-indicator parameter so that an appropriate icon is included in the rendered citation. When the sources linked by these named-identifier parameters are not presumed to carry a free-to-read full text (for instance because they're just abstracting services), they may not be marked as limited, registration, or subscription.

Named-identifier and access-indicator parameters

Identifier	Access	Allowed keywords
|bibcode=	|bibcode-access=	free
|doi=	|doi-access=
|hdl=	|hdl-access=
|jstor=	|jstor-access=
|ol=	|ol-access=
|osti=	|osti-access=
|ssrn=	|ssrn-access=
|s2cid=	|s2cid-access=

Some named-identifiers are always free-to-read. For those named identifiers there are no access-indicator parameters; the access level is automatically indicated by the template. These named identifiers are:

• |arxiv=
• |biorxiv=
• |citeseerx=
• |medrxiv=
• |pmc=
• |rfc=

For embargoed pmc that will become available in the future, see pmc-embargo-date.

Tracking of free DOIs

• The template is able to recognize known free-to-read DOI registrants, based on a list in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration. Once a free registrant is identified, the 10.xxxx/... part of the DOI associated with the registrant can be added to the list under local function build_free_doi_registrants_table(). If |doi-access=free is not set, it will place the page in Category:CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI, which is routinely cleared by User:Citation bot.
• The template is also able to recognize known free-to-read journals, assuming they have a clear 10.xxxx/yyyy.... DOI pattern. Once that pattern is identified, it can be added to Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration under local extended_registrants_t = { with the format ['XXXX'] = {'YYYY'},. If there are multiple journals with the same DOI prefix, they can be grouped together with the format ['XXXX'] = {'YYYY', 'ZZZZ', '...'},.
• If you add a free registrant/free journal to the lists in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration, leave a note at User talk:Citation bot so the bot knows about it.

Quote

• quote: Relevant text quoted from the source. Displays enclosed in quotes. When supplied, the citation terminator (a period by default) is suppressed, so the quote must include terminating punctuation. If script-quote is defined, use quote to hold a Romanization (if available) of the text in script-quote.
  • script-quote: Original quotation for languages that do not use a Latin-based script (Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, etc.); not italicized, follows italicized Romanization defined in quote (if available). Alias: none. Must be prefixed with one of the [[Help:Citation_Style_1#|script-<param>= language codes|supported language codes]] to help browsers properly display the script:

    ... |quote=Tōkyō tawā |script-quote=ja:東京タワー |trans-quote=Tokyo Tower ...

  • trans-quote: English translation of the quotation if the source quoted is in a foreign language. Displays in square brackets. Alias: none.

Anchors

The module creates HTML IDs by default suitable for use with shortened footnotes using the Harv- and sfn-family templates. These styles use in-text cites with a link that will jump to the ID created by the CS1 template. The ID is created from up to four author last names and the year, of the format CITEREFlastname(s)year.

|ref=ID: Creates a custom ID equivalent to the value ID. This is useful where the author and/or date is unknown. The {{harvid}} template may be used here to create an ID for the Harv- and sfn-family templates.

Examples of anchors

Kind	Wikitext	ID created	Targetable by
Default, one name	{{cite book |first=Gary L. |last=Hardcastle |title=Monty Python and Philosophy |date=2006}}	CITEREFHardcastle2006	{{harv|Hardcastle|2006|pp=12-34}}
Default, two names	{{cite book |first=Gary L. |last=Hardcastle |first2=George A. |last2=Reisch |title=Monty Python and Philosophy |date=2006}}	CITEREFHardcastleReisch2006	{{harv|Hardcastle|Reisch|2006|pp=12-34}}
|ref= using {{harvid}}	|ref={{harvid|Monty Python and Philosophy|2006}}	CITEREFMonty_Python_and_Philosophy2006	{{harv|Monty Python and Philosophy|2006|pp=12-34}}

Display options

These features are not often used, but can customize the display for use with other styles.

• mode: Sets element separator, default terminal punctuation, and certain capitalization according to the value provided. For |mode=cs1, element separator and terminal punctuation is a period (.); where appropriate, initial letters of certain words are capitalized ('Retrieved...'). For |mode=cs2, element separator is a comma (,); terminal punctuation is omitted; where appropriate, initial letters of certain words are not capitalized ('retrieved...'). These styles correspond to Citation Style 1 and Citation Style 2 respectively. To override default terminal punctuation use postscript.
• author-mask:
• contributor-mask:
• editor-mask:
• interviewer-mask:
• subject-mask:
• translator-mask:

  Replaces the name of the (first) author with em dashes or text. Set <name>-mask to a numeric value n to set the dash n em spaces wide; set <name>-mask to a text value to display the text without a trailing author separator; for example, "with". The numeric value 0 is a special case to be used in conjunction with <name>-link—in this case, the value of <name>-link will be used as (linked) text. In either case, you must still include the values for all names for metadata purposes. Primarily intended for use with bibliographies or bibliography styles where multiple works by a single author are listed sequentially such as shortened footnotes. Do not use in a list generated by {{reflist}}, <references /> or similar as there is no control of the order in which references are displayed. Mask parameters can take an enumerator in the name of the parameter (e.g. |authorn-mask=) to apply the mask to a specific name.

• display-authors:
• display-contributors:
• display-editors:
• display-interviewers:
• display-subjects:
• display-translators:

  Controls the number of author (or other kind of contributor) names that are displayed. By default, all authors are displayed. To change the displayed number of names, set the parameter to the desired number. For example, |display-authors=2 will display only the first two authors in a citation (and not affect the display of the other kinds of contributors). |display-authors=0 is a special case suppressing the display of all authors including the et al. |display-authors=etal displays all authors in the list followed by et al. Aliases: none.

• postscript: Controls the closing punctuation for a citation; defaults to a period (.); for no terminating punctuation, specify |postscript=none – leaving |postscript= empty is the same as omitting it, but is ambiguous. Additional text, or templates that render more than a single terminating punctuation character, will generate a maintenance message. |postscript= is ignored if quote is defined.

et al.

et al. is the abbreviation of the Latin et alii ('and others'). It is used to complete a list of authors of a published work, where the complete list is considered overly long. The abbreviation is widely used in English, thus it is not italicized per MOS:FOREIGN.

Accept-this-as-written markup

There are occasions where Module:Citation/CS1 emits error or maintenance messages because of, or makes changes to, the values assigned to a select set of parameters. Special markup can be used to enforce that a value will nonetheless be accepted as written. The markup for this is ((value)), i.e., wrap the entire parameter value in two sets of parentheses. Parameters that support this markup are:

Parameters that support accept-this-as-written markup

Parameter	Notes
|authorn=	The various name parameters (including their enumerated variants) are checked for extra comma and semicolon separator characters, which may indicate that the parameter is holding more than one name. If so, the list of names should be split up over multiple n-enumerated parameters. Corporate names, however, are sometimes comma-separated lists of names as well and so are erroneously flagged as a multiple-name error; markup can be used to indicate this. Legitimate names may be caught by the generic-name test. This markup can prevent legitimate names from being flagged as generic.
|contributorn=
|editorn=
|interviewern=
|subjectn=
|translatorn=
|doi=	Identifiers are checked for validity to the extent possible. In rare cases, identifiers actually used in published works deviate from the checked standard format but are nonetheless valid. If the problem is down to a mere typographical error in a third-party source, correct the identifier instead of overriding the error message.
|eissn=
|isbn=
|issn=
|sbn=
|issue=	Spaces are inserted between commas and succeeding characters in comma-separated lists of issues, a hyphen is converted to an ndash in issue ranges, etc. A hyphenated issue number and an issue range cannot be distinguished, nor can a four-or-more-digit number with a thousands-separator from a comma-separated list of two or more issues. Markup can be applied to the entry as a whole or to individual list entries.
|number=
|volume=	Spaces are inserted between commas and succeeding characters in comma-separated lists of volumes, a hyphen is converted to an ndash in volume ranges, etc. A hyphenated volume and an volume range cannot be distinguished, nor can a four-or-more-digit volume with a thousands-separator from a comma-separated list of two or more volumes. Markup can be applied to the entry as a whole or to individual list entries.
|pages=	Spaces are inserted between commas and succeeding characters in comma-separated lists of pages, a hyphen is converted to an ndash in page ranges, etc. A hyphenated page number and a page range cannot be distinguished, nor can a four-or-more-digit number with a thousands-separator from a comma-separated list of two or more pages. Markup can be applied to the entry as a whole or to individual list entries; does not apply to |page=, |p=, or |quote-page=. (This special markup is also supported by the plural page parameters |pages=, |pp= and |quote-pages= (as well as other aliases) of the {{r}}, {{rp}} and {{ran}} citation templates. The family of {{sfn}}- and {{harv}}-style templates supports it as well in conjunction with |pages= and |pp=.)
|pp=
|quote-pages=
|title=	Trailing dots (periods) are normally removed from the value assigned to |title= as being redundant. There are cases where trailing dots are not redundant but are part of the title proper so should be retained. The parameter may also accept a number of special keywords (none, etc.) taking precedence over free text input to specify a title; if a value also matching a keyword is meant as actual title text, markup can be used to indicate this.
|title-link=	The parameter may also accept a number of special keywords (none, doi, pmc) taking precedence over free text input to specify a link target; if a value also matching a keyword is meant as actual link target, markup can be used to indicate this.
|vauthors=	Markup to suppress error messages and automatic Vancouver reformatting of allowed corporate names.
|veditors=

Printing

When viewing the page, CS1 templates render the URL to the title to create a link; when printing, the URL is printed. External link icons are not printed.

Elements not included

Not all factually accurate pieces of information about a source are used in a Citation Style 1 citation. Examples of information not included:

• The total number of pages in a cited source
• The name of the library that provided access to an electronic copy of a cited source
• The name of the library that owns a physical copy of a cited work
• The library record or shelf location of a physical copy of a cited work

Tools

Main page: Help:Citation tools

CS1 templates may be inserted manually or by use of tools:

• Citoid, a tool built into Visual Editor that attempts to build a full citation based on a URL. See user guide.
• RefToolbar is part of the editing tool bar. Version 2.0 does not yet support all templates supported by version 1.0.
• ProveIt provides a graphical interface for editing, adding, and citing references. It may be enabled per the documentation.
• Reflinks Adds references to templates while updating/filling-in title/dates/publisher/accessdates etc.
• reFill open source version of Reflinks
• Zotero can export citations in Wikipedia-ready format.
• Citer – generates shortened footnote or named reference for a given Google Books URL, ISBN, or DOI. Also supports some major news websites.

Error checking scripts:

• User:Svick/HarvErrors is a script that may be enabled to display errors when using Shortened footnotes or parenthetical referencing. It does not warn when a long citation has been added but not a short one (using {{sfn}} or {{harvnb}}).
• User:Trappist the monk/HarvErrors is very similar, but also contains additional warnings for potential issues.
• User:BrandonXLF/CitationStyleMarker highlights inconsistent (CS1 vs CS2) citation styles used in the same article. Only works with templated citations.

Reliability scripts:

• User:Headbomb/unreliable color codes URLs and DOIs in gray/red/pink/yellow depending on their broad reliability

TemplateData

This section documents interactions between WP:TemplateData and tools that use that data to edit Wikipedia such as VisualEditor and bots. Before making changes to the TemplateData be aware of these interactions.

User:InternetArchiveBot

• If an argument is set to "required" the argument will be added to all templates edited by IABot. This including adding empty arguments. For example, when |website= is "required" IABot makes the following edit: .

Common issues

Shortcut

• Help:CS1PROBS

|access-date= does not show.

If |url= is not supplied, then |access-date= does not show; by design.

The bare URL shows before the title.

If the |title= field includes a newline or an invalid character then the link will be malformed; see Web links.

The title appears in red.

If URL is supplied, then the title cannot be wikilinked.

The URL is not linked and shows in brackets.

The URL must include the URI scheme in order for MediaWiki to recognize it as a link. For example: www.example.org/ vs. http://www.example.org/.

A field is truncated.

A pipe (|) in the value will truncate it. Use {{!}} instead.

The template markup shows.

Double open brackets [[ are used in a field without closing double brackets ]].

The author shows in brackets with an external link icon.

The use of an URL in |author-link= will break the link; this field is for the name of the Wikipedia article about the author, not a website.

Multiple author or editor names are defined and one or more does not show

The parameters must be used in sequence, i.e. if |last= or |last1= is not defined, then |last2= will not show. By design.

|page=, |pages= or |at= do not show.

These parameters are mutually exclusive, and only one will show; by design.

See also

• Help:Citation Style 2
• Help:CS1 errors
• Help:Citation merging (bundling)

Notes

1. The number of authors that can be listed in the citation and displayed when published is unlimited.
2. If the English Wikipedia does not have an article about the author, but an article is available in another language entity of Wikipedia or if a Wikidata node for this author exists already, you can prefix the link using that Wikipedia's language prefix (similar to :en: for the English Wikipedia) in order to create an interwiki link. The prefix for Wikidata nodes is :d: (or :wikidata:) to be followed by the Q<id> number of the corresponding entry. (Similar, Wikisource uses :s: (or :wikisource:), Wiktionary :wikt: (or :wiktionary:) and Commons :c: (or :commons:), followed by the corresponding article name.) Alternatively, if a suitable custom interwiki prefix is defined for another authority control repository, this can be used as well. For example, to link to an author's VIAF entry (with code <id>), :VIAF:<id> can be used, even if this would resolve to an independent external site. In the absence of a local article such links can help to at least establish a connection to a particular author and, if an article gets created in the English Wikipedia as well in the future, these links can be fixed up by bots to point to the local article instead.
3. "Some numbered series have gone on so long that, as with certain long-lived journals, numbering has started over again, preceded by n.s. (new series), 2nd ser. (second series), or some similar notation, usually enclosed in commas. (A change of publisher may also be the occasion for a change in series designation.) Books in the old series may be identified by o.s., 1st ser., or whatever complements the notation for the new series."^[1]

   For instance the journal Physical Review, was numbered volumes 1–35 from 1893 to 1912 (the first series). From 1913 to 1969, the volume numbering restarted at 1 and went up to 188 (the second series). In 1970, Physical Review split into different parts, Physical Review A, Physical Review B, Physical Review C, and Physical Review D, where volumes again restarted at 1 (the third series). Since there are two publications identified as Physical Review, Volume 1, there is a need to distinguish which is which by use of |series=First Series or |series=Second Series. While Physical Review A is in the third series of the Physical Review media franchise, it is the first series of the publication known as Physical Review A. Since there is no confusion about what Physical Review A, Volume 1 could be referring to, there is no need to clarify to which numbering series the journal belong.

   In particular, note that the |series= parameter is not to be used to distinguish the different parts of a media franchise, like Physical Review A, Acta Crystallographica Section A, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B.

References

1. University of Chicago (2017). The Chicago Manual of Style (17th ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 14.126. ISBN 978-0226104201.