Template:Citation/doc

The Citation template generates a citation for a book, periodical, contribution in a collective work, patent, or a web page. It determines the citation type by examining which parameters are used.

If invoked with the right parameters, this template produces output identical to that of the Cite templates, such as Cite book and Cite web. The default behavior sometimes differs from that of the Cite templates; for example, this template by default generates anchors for Harvard references whereas the Cite templates do not (although they can be made to do so), and this template by default uses commas to separate some fields that the Cite templates separate with periods (full stops).

The template should be inserted after punctuation, such as a period or comma.

All parameter names are lowercase.

Simple citation
This template gives the most commonly used attributes. You can copy the horizontal form or vertical form below and then add in extra attributes from the full list. Spacing and ordering is irrelevant.


 * last: The author's surname or last name. Don't use with author.
 * first: The author's first or given name(s).
 * year: Year of authorship or publication. Mandatory for use with links from Template:Harvard citation, unless date specifies both month and year.
 * title: Title of the work. Mandatory for web references.
 * publisher: The name of the publisher. Omit terms such as Publishers, Co., Inc., Ltd., etc., but retain the words Books or Press. Not normally included where the publication is a periodical which has its own Wikipedia article (e.g. Newsweek, Billboard).
 * publication-place (or place or location): The city of publication. If more than one town/city is listed on the title page, give the first one or the location of the publisher's head office. Omit when the publication is a periodical whose name specifies the location (e.g. The New York Times, The Times of India)
 * page: For use when one page is cited. Adds "p." before the page number. Do not use with pages.
 * url: A url of an online location where the item can be found. If the url includes double quotes, these must be encoded as "%22".

Full citation parameters
These can be used for all types of publication except patents. All are optional and indentation is used simply to group related items — these may be mutually exclusive where indicated. Some hyphenated names can also be placed without hyphens.

{| class="wikitable"