Template:Cite web/doc

This template is used to cite online sources in Wikipedia articles. Cite news can also be used when citing a news source; for general information about citations in Wikipedia articles, see Cite sources. A general discussion of the use of templates for adding citations to Wikipedia articles is available at Citation templates.

Usage
Note: None of the parameters should be capitalised, in order to avoid the article being tagged as having a broken citation. For example, use "url", "title", etc.—not "URL", "Title", etc.

Common forms with authors in any format
Citations within a page should use consistent formats. However, there is no consensus about which format is best. The following examples are for citations where one or more authors are listed in a single authors parameter, using any format. Also shown below are two separate date formats that are commonly used in Wikipedia:


 * Day Month Year:
 * Month Day, Year:

Common forms with last1, first1; last2, first2
The examples hereafter will suffice for up to two authors each with first and last names; for more, just create more parameters in a similar style:


 * Day Month Year:
 * Month Day, Year:

All parameters
When copying all parameters in either the vertical or horizontal layouts, delete those which are not needed.


 * All parameters, horizontal layout:


 * All parameters, vertical layout:

Required parameters

 * url: URL of online item. Start the URL with the communications protocol, e.g. http://.
 * title: Title of online item. This title will appear as the citation itself, hyperlinked to the URL. Certain characters must be replaced with their HTML numeric reference to be used in the title. The character "[" must be replaced with "&amp;#91;", "]" with "&amp;#93;", and "&#124;" (vertical bar) with "&amp;#124;".

Optional parameters

 * author parameters
 * author Use if specific individuals (rather than large organizations) are named as writing the page.  Use the publisher field to report the organization that controls the website.
 * last works with first to produce
 * authorlink works either with author or with last & first to link to the appropriate Wikipedia article. Does not work with URLs.
 * last1, first1, ..., last9, first9 and optionally authorlink1, ..., authorlink9 for specifying more authors (note: last1, first1 and authorlink1 are synonyms for last, first and authorlink, so use either last1 or last, not both)
 * coauthors: alternative way of specifying additional authors (to be used in conjunction with parameter(s) above in order to be visible)
 * a date parameter
 * either date: Full date of publication. Should not be wikilinked.
 * or year and month: Year of publication, and Name of the month of publication. If you also have the day, use date instead. Should not be wikilinked.
 * format: Format, e.g. PDF. HTML implied if not specified.
 * work: In most cases this is the name of the website (as usually given in the logo/banner area of the site), otherwise the site's domain name. If the titled item being cited is part of some other larger work, such as a book, periodical or organizational sub-site (e.g., 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 that of the entire site. Do not italicize; the software will do so automatically.
 * publisher: The name of the entity that publishes (owns or controls) the website. Commonly, this is a government agency, educational institution, or business. For many websites, the author and publisher are the same, and only one needs to be included in the citation; prefer publisher for organizations, author (or first/last) for individuals. Please note that ; that is the work, except in cases where the business name is identical to the site name. For example, the corporation Walmart is the publisher of the website at walmart.com, which is the work; Amazon.com is the publisher of the website at amazon.com, which need not be specified as the work, as this would be redundant. For republished works, generally use the original publisher information (including location, date, etc., and it is often more appropriate to use cite book, cite news, etc. with a url parameter instead of ).
 * location: Geographical location of the publisher (or headquarters thereof).
 * a page parameter
 * either page: Page number if a multi-page web article and referencing a single page. "page=5" produces p. 5.
 * or pages: Page numbers if a multi-page web article and referencing more than one page. "pages=5–7" produces pp. 5–7. This is for listing the pages relevant to the citation, not a total number of pages.
 * or at: When the page prefix is unwanted. "at=Table 5" produces Table 5.
 * language: language of publication (do not specify "English" as this is the default).
 * trans_title: A translated title of the article, in case the original title is in a foreign language. Would normally be used in conjunction with the language parameter.
 * arxiv:
 * asin:
 * bibcode: The document's bibcode in the Astrophysics Data System, e.g., 1924MNRAS..84..308E
 * doi:A digital object identifier for the document, such as  10.1038/news070508-7 
 * Doilabel: If the doi contains some characters that must be escaped, use "doilabel" for the unescaped version. See doi: "id" is equivalent to "doi" and "label" is "doilabel"
 * doibroken: The date that a digital object identifier link was found to be broken.
 * isbn: International Standard Book Number such as 1-111-22222-9. Note that isbn, like all field names, must be in lowercase. The field must not be wikilinked as the template automatically creates a link. The template is insensitive to formatting so an ISBN number without dashes ("-") may be used (e.g. 1111222229), though ISBNs with correctly formatted dashes are preferred (see ISBN and ISBN). Please use the 13-digit ISBN where possible; this can normally be found beneath the barcode as a number beginning 978 or 979. For books with the older SBN system (9 digits), use this field but prefix the number with a zero; thus SBN 902888-45-5 should be entered as 0-902888-45-5. More information about this feature and its advantages is available at ISBN.
 * issn: The publication's International Standard Serial Number such as 1111-2220. The eight-figure ISSN may be split into two groups of four using a hyphen; but not an N-dash or a space.
 * jfm:
 * jstor: Makes a link to a JSTOR article or journal determined by a given parameter. The main purpose is to use as part of an  option in a cite journal reference.
 * lccn:
 * mr:
 * oclc: Online Computer Library Center ID number, such as 3185581. The field must not be wikilinked as the template automatically creates a link.
 * ol:
 * osti:
 * pmc: The document's PubMed Central article number (PMCID) for full-text free repository of an article, such as 246835
 * embargo: The date that an article will be freely accessible at PubMed central. After this date, the title will automatically link to the free full text at PubMed Central (and the parameter will be removed by a bot).
 * pmid: The document's PubMed Unique Identifier, such as 15128012
 * rfc:
 * ssrn:
 * zbl:
 * id: A unique identifier, used if none of the preceding are applicable. In this case, you need to specify the kind of identifier you are using, preferably with a template like ASIN or ISSN. (Use one of the more specialized parameters if possible; they are linked automatically. In other words, do not use ISBN 1-111-22222-9 anymore; use 1-111-22222-9. If the book has a SBN but not an ISBN, see isbn.)
 * archive parameters (if used, both parameters must be used together)
 * archiveurl: The URL of an archived copy of the page, if (or in case) the url becomes unavailable. Typically used to refer to services like WebCite and the Internet Archive.
 * archivedate: Date when the item was archived. Should not be wikilinked.
 * deadurl: Should be set to "yes"/"no" to indicate if the original link is dead or live. Setting no will change the main link to the original url.
 * accessdate: Full date when item was accessed. Should not be wikilinked. This should be given if the publication date is unknown; see Citation styles.
 * quote: Relevant quote from online item.
 * ref: ID for anchor. By default, no anchor is generated. The ordinary nonempty value ID generates an anchor with the given ; such a linkable reference can be made the target of wikilinks to full references, especially useful in short citations like shortened notes and parenthetical referencing. The special value harv generates an anchor suitable for the harv template; see anchors for Harvard referencing templates.
 * separator: The separator to use in lists of authors, editors, etc. Defaults to ".", but "," may be useful also. If the field is present, but blank, no separator will be used.
 * postscript: The closing punctuation for the citation. If specified, over-rides the default behaviour of terminating the citation with a full stop. If the field is present, but blank, no terminating punctuation will be used. This may be useful when generating an output consistent with other templates. It is preferred to manually adding ending punctuation, as the punctuation occurs within the &lt;cite&gt; tag, so will appear before any icons added by browser plugins. Ignored if quote is specified.

Duplicate periods
By default, cite web separates some fields with periods, so do not encode those fields ending with a period or a duplicate period will be added. Example: "publisher=Camelot, Inc" will correctly show as  but "publisher=Camelot, Inc." will incorrectly show as

Examples
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 * Some standard use cases

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 * Using format

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 * Foreign language and translated title

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 * Using authorlink

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 * Using coauthors

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 * No author

This abbreviated format should only be used when the editor cannot determine the publisher and author. →
 * No author, no publisher

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 * Using "archiveurl" and "archivedate" for webpages that have been archived

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 * Using "quote"