Template:Cite book/doc

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This template is used to cite sources in Wikipedia. It is specifically for books. When citing an article in a compilation or anthology, {{cite journal}} or {{cite encyclopedia}} work better. If the book is being referenced via a web page, then unless it is a page that reproduces the book (or sections of it), {{Cite web}} should be used instead.

Usage

All parameter names must be in lowercase.

Copy a blank version to use. Remember to use the "|" (pipe) character between each parameter. Please delete any unused parameters to avoid clutter in the edit window.

Full version (copy and paste text below and delete parameters you do not need)
{{cite book |last1= |first1= |authorlink1= |last2= |first2= |authorlink2= |coauthors= |editor1-first= |editor1-last= |editor1-link= |others= |title= |trans_title= |url= |archiveurl= |archivedate= |format= |accessdate= |type= |edition= |series= |volume= |date= |year= |month= |origyear= |publisher= |location= |language= |isbn= |oclc= |doi= |id= |page= |pages= |at= |trans_chapter= |chapter= |chapterurl= |quote= |ref= |bibcode= |laysummary= |laydate= |separator= |postscript= |lastauthoramp=}}
Most commonly used parameters (use this and you will not have to delete as much)
{{cite book |title= |last= |first= |authorlink= |coauthors= |year= |publisher= |location= |isbn= |page= |pages= |accessdate=November 22, 2024 |url=}}
Vertical list Prerequisites * Brief instructions 
{{cite book
| last          = 
| first         = 
| authormask    = 
| authorlink    = 
| coauthors     = 
| firstn        = 
| lastn         = 
| authorn-link  = 
| editor        = 
| editorn-last  = 
| editorn-first = 
| editor-link   = 
| editorn-link  = 
| others        = 
| title         = 
| trans_title   = 
| url           = 
| archiveurl    = 
| archivedate   = 
| format        = 
| accessdate    = 
| type          = 
| edition       = 
| series        = 
| volume        = 
| date          = 
| origyear      = 
| year          = 
| month         = 
| publisher     = 
| location      = 
| language      = 
| isbn          = 
| oclc          = 
| lccn          = 
| doi           = 
| bibcode       = 
| id            = 
| page          = 
| pages         = 
| nopp          = 
| at            = 
| chapter       = 
| trans_chapter = 
| chapterurl    = 
| quote         = 
| ref           = 
| laysummary    = 
| laydate       = 
| separator     = 
| postscript    = 
| lastauthoramp = 
}}
 


last

last
last
lastn

lastn



editor or editor-last
editorn-last





archiveurl
url
url





year or date

year

publisher









page or pages



chapter



laysummary


coauthors or >1 lastn



(no wikilink)
(no wikilink)


alternative to first2, last2 ... first9, last9
(no wikilink). n = 1 through 9
(no wikilink). n = 1 through 9
n = 1 through 9

n = 1 through 4
n = 1 through 4

n = 1 through 4



insert URL of online version of the book or an extract, if available








†preferred (no wikilink)

alternative to date




always include ISBN if one has been assigned







hides automatic 'p' or 'pp'.
alternative to page/pages when those are used with nopp
‡(no wikilink). Synonymous with "contribution".

† This is the preferred parameter with its alternates listed below.

‡ If |chapterurl= is provided then |chapter= cannot have wikilinks.

Examples

Title

{{cite book |title=Mysterious book}}

  • Script error

Year and title

{{cite book |title=Mysterious book |year=1901}}

  • Script error

Basic usage

{{cite book |first=Joe |last=Bloggs |authorlink=Joe Bloggs |year=1974 |title=Book of Bloggs}}

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Basic usage with url

{{cite book |last=Bloggs |first=Joe |authorlink=Joe Bloggs |year=1974 |title=Book of Bloggs |edition=1st |url=http://en.wikipedia.org/ |accessdate=February 17, 2006}}

  • Script error

Citing a chapter in a book with different authors for different chapters and an editor

{{cite book |last=Bloggs |first=Fred |editor-first=John |editor-last=Doe |title=Big Compilation Book With Many Chapters and distinct chapter authors |publisher=Book Publishers |date=January 1, 2001 |pages=100–110 |chapter=Chapter 2: The History Of The Bloggs Family |isbn=1234567890}}

  • Script error

Citing a chapter in a book with two joint authors and an editor

{{cite book |last1=Bloggs |first1=Joe |last2=Egg |first2=Fred |first3=John (ed.) |last3=Doe |title=Big Book With Many Chapters and two co-authors |publisher=Book Publishers |date=January 1, 2001 |origyear=1st. Pub. 1986 |pages=100–110 |chapter=Chapter 6: Getting There |chapterurl=http://en.wikipedia.org/ |isbn=1234567890 |lastauthoramp=y}}

  • Script error

Three authors, title with a piped wikilink, edition

{{cite book |last1=Bloggs |first1=Joe |authorlink=Joe Bloggs |first2=John |last2=Smith |first3=Jim |last3=Smythe |title=[[A Thousand Acres |1000 Acres]] |edition=2nd}}

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Complex usage showing effect of using volume parameter and lastauthoramp parameter

Without volume and lastauthoramp parameters:

{{cite book |first1=Major-General I.S.O. |last1=Playfair |authorlink1=Ian Stanley Ord Playfair |first2=Commander G.M.S |last2=Stitt |first3=Brigadier C.J.C. |last3=Molony |first4=Air Vice-Marshal S.E. |last4=Toomer |editor-first=J.R.M |editor-last=Butler |series=History of the Second World War, United Kingdom Military Series |title=Mediterranean and Middle East. Volume I: The Early Successes Against Italy (to May 1941) |publisher=Naval & Military Press |location=Uckfield, UK |year=2007 |origyear=1st. pub. [[HMSO]]:1954 |isbn=1-845740-65-3}}

  • Script error
With volume and last authoramp parameters:

{{cite book |first1=Major-General I.S.O. |last1=Playfair |authorlink1=Ian Stanley Ord Playfair |first2=Commander G.M.S |last2=Stitt |first3=Brigadier C.J.C. |last3=Molony |first4=Air Vice-Marshall S.E. |last4=Toomer |editor-first=J.R.M |editor-last=Butler |series=History of the Second World War, United Kingdom Military Series |title=Mediterranean and Middle East |volume=Volume I: The Early Successes Against Italy (to May 1941) |publisher=Naval & Military Press |location=Uckfield, UK |year=2007 |origyear=1st. pub. [[HMSO]]:1954 |isbn=1-845740-65-3 |lastauthoramp=y}}

  • Script error

Date without day, wikilinked title and publisher, id, pages, location

{{cite book |last=Cordell |first=Bruce R. |coauthors=Jeff Grubb, David Noonan |year=2001 |month=September |title=[[Manual of the Planes]] |publisher=[[Wizards of the Coast]] |location=Timbuktu |isbn=0-7869-1850-8 |pages= 134–137}}

  • Script error

Other language

{{cite book |last=Bloggs |first=Jean |year=1974 |title=Livre de Bloggs |edition=1st |language=French |trans_title=Book of Bloggs |url=http://en.wikipedia.org/ |accessdate=February 17, 2006}}

  • Script error

Using a DOI

{{cite book |last=Mumford |first=David |authorlink=David Mumford |year=1999 |title=The Red Book of Varieties and Schemes: Includes the Michigan Lectures (1974) on Curves and Their Jacobians |edition=2nd |publisher=[[Springer-Verlag]] |doi=10.1007/b62130 |isbn=354063293X}}

  • Script error

Using authormask parameter

{{cite book |first1=Major-General I.S.O. |last1=Playfair |authorlink1=Ian Stanley Ord Playfair |last2=Stitt |first2=Commander G.M.S |last3=Molony |first3=Brigadier C.J.C. |last4=Toomer |first4=Air Vice-Marshall S.E. |editor-last=Butler |editor-first=J.R.M |editor-link=James Ramsay Montagu Butler |series=History of the Second World War, United Kingdom Military Series |title=Mediterranean and Middle East Volume I: The Early Successes Against Italy (to May 1941) |publisher=Naval & Military Press |location=Uckfield, UK |year=2004 |origyear=1st. pub. [[HMSO]]:1954 |isbn=1-845740-65-3 |lastauthoramp=y}}
{{cite book |first1=Major-General I.S.O. |last1=Playfair |authorlink1=Ian Stanley Ord Playfair |last2=Flynn |first2=Captain F.C. (R.N.) |last3=Molony |first3=Brigadier C.J.C. |last4=Toomer |first4=Air Vice-Marshall S.E. |editor-last=Butler |editor-first=J.R.M |editor-link=James Ramsay Montagu Butler |series=History of the Second World War, United Kingdom Military Series |title=The Mediterranean and Middle East, Volume II: The Germans come to the help of their Ally (1941) |publisher=Naval & Military Press |location=Uckfield, UK |year=2004 |origyear=1st. pub. [[HMSO]]:1956 |isbn=1-845740-66-1 |lastauthoramp=y |authormask=2}}
{{cite book |first1=Major-General I.S.O. |last1=Playfair |authorlink1=Ian Stanley Ord Playfair |last2=Flynn |first2=Captain F.C. (R.N.) |last3=Molony |first3=Brigadier C.J.C. |last4=Gleave |first4=Group Captain T.P. |editor-last=Butler |editor-first=Sir James |editor-link=James Ramsay Montagu Butler |series=History of the Second World War, United Kingdom Military Series |title=The Mediterranean and Middle East, Volume III: British Fortunes reach their Lowest Ebb (September 1941 to September 1942) |publisher=Naval & Military Press |location=Uckfield, UK |year=2004 |origyear=1st. pub. [[HMSO]]:1960 |isbn=1-845740-67-X |lastauthoramp=y |authormask=2}}
Script error
Script error
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Parameters

Syntax

Nested parameters rely on their parent parameters:

  • parent
  • OR: parent2—may be used instead of parent
    • child—may be used with parent (and is ignored if parent is not used)
    • OR: child2—may be used instead of child (and is ignored if parent2 is not used)
Where aliases are listed, only one of the parameters may be defined; if aliased parameters are defined, then only one will show.

This template embeds COinS metadata in the HTML output, allowing reference management software to retrieve bibliographic metadata; see Wikipedia:COinS.

  • Be careful using templates within the citation template, as many will add a lot of extraneous HTML or CSS that will be rendered in the meta-data.
    • Known templates that should not be used: {{smallcaps}}.

By default, sets of fields are terminated with a period (.); this can be an issue when the last field in an abbreviation or initial with a period, as two periods then display. The only solution is to not include the last period in the value for the set of fields.

Description

Authors

  • last: Surname of author. Do not wikilink—use authorlink instead. Where the surname is usually written first—as in Chinese—or for corporate authors, simply use last to include the same format as the source.
    • first: Given or first names of author, including title(s); for example: Firstname Middlename or Firstname M. or Dr. Firstname M., Sr. Do not wikilink—use authorlink instead.
    • OR: for multiple authors, use first1, last1 through first9, last9 for up to nine authors. By default, if nine authors are defined, then only eight will show and "et al." will show in place of the last author.
  • authorlink: Title of existing Wikipedia article about the author—not the author's website; do not wikilink.
  • OR: for multiple authors, use authorlink1 through authorlink9.
Aliases: last, last1, author, authors; last1, author1 through last9, author9.
  • others: To record other contributors to the work, such as "Illustrated by Smith" or "Trans. Smith".
When using Shortened footnotes or Parenthetical referencing styles with templates, do not use multiple names in one parameter else the anchor will not match the inline link.

Title

  • title: Title of source. Can be wikilinked to an existing Wikipedia article or url may be used to add an external link, but not both. Displayed in italics.
    • trans_title: English translation of the title if the source cited is in a foreign language. Displayed in square brackets after title; if url is defined, then trans_title is included in the link. Use of the language parameter is recommended.
Titles containing certain characters will display and link incorrectly unless those characters are encoded.
newline [ ] |
space [ ] |
  • type: Provides additional information about the media type of the source; format in sentence case. Displays in parentheses following the title. Examples: Thesis, Booklet, CD liner, Press release.
  • chapter: The title of the source. May be wikilinked or may use chapter-url, but not both. Displayed in quotes.
    • trans_chapter: English translation of the title if the source cited is in a foreign language. Displayed in square brackets after the chapter field; if chapter-url is defined, then trans_title is included in the link. Use of the language parameter is recommended.
  • language: The language the source is written in, if not English. Displays in parentheses with "in" before the language name. Use the full language name; do not use icons or templates.

Date

  • date: Full date of source being referenced; in same format as other dates in the article; do not wikilink. Displayed after the authors and enclosed in parentheses; if there is no author, then displayed after publisher.
  • OR: year: Year of source being referenced.
    • month: Name of the month of publication. If you also have the day, use date instead; do not wikilink.
    • origyear: Original publication year; displayed after the date or year. For clarity, please supply specifics; example: |origyear=First published 1859 or |origyear=Composed 1904.

Publisher

  • publisher: Name of publisher; may be wikilinked if relevant. Not normally included for periodicals. Corporate designations such as "Ltd", "Inc" or "GmbH" are not usually included. Displays after title; if work is defined, then publisher and location are enclosed in parentheses.
  • location: Geographical place of publication; generally not wikilinked; omit when the name of the work includes the location (examples: The Boston Globe, The Times of India). Displays preceding publisher.
  • publication-date: Date of publication when different from the date the work was written. Displays only if year or date 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.

Edition, series, volume

  • edition: When the publication has more than one edition; for example: "2nd", "Revised" etc. Displays " ed." after this field, so |edition=2nd produces "2nd ed." Does not display if a periodical field is defined.
  • series or version: When the source is part of a series, such as a book series or a journal where the issue numbering has restarted.
  • volume: For one publication published in several volumes. Displayed in bold after the title and series fields; if bolding is not desired, then include the volume information in the title field.

In-source locations

  • page: Page in the source that supports the content. Displays preceded with <syntaxhighlight lang="text" enclose="none">​p.​</syntaxhighlight> unless |nopp=y.
  • OR: pages: Pages in the source that supports the content; separate page ranges with an en dash (–); separate non-sequential pages with a comma (,); do not use to indicate the total number of pages in the source. Displays preceded with <syntaxhighlight lang="text" enclose="none">​pp.​</syntaxhighlight> unless |nopp=y.
    • nopp: Set to y to suppress the <syntaxhighlight lang="text" enclose="none">​p.​</syntaxhighlight> or <syntaxhighlight lang="text" enclose="none">​pp.​</syntaxhighlight> notations where this is inappropriate; for example, where |page=Front cover.
  • OR: at: For sources where a page number is inappropriate or insufficient. Overridden by |page= or |pages=.
Examples: page (p.) or pages (pp.); section (sec.), column (col.), paragraph (para.); track; hours, minutes and seconds; act, scene, canto, book, part, folio, stanza, back cover, liner notes, indicia, colophon, dust jacket, verse.

URL

  • url: URL of an online location where the text of the publication can be found. Cannot be used if title is wikilinked. If applicable, the link may point to the specific page(s) referenced. Do not link to any commercial booksellers such as Amazon.com; see WP:PAGELINKS.
    • accessdate: Full date when URL was accessed; use the same format as other dates in the article; do not wikilink.
    • archiveurl: The URL of an archived copy of a web page, if or in case the url becomes unavailable. Typically used to refer to services like WebCite and the Internet Archive; requires archivedate.
      • archivedate: Date when the item was archived; use the same format as other dates in the article; do not wikilink.
      • deadurl: To change the order with the title retaining the original link and the archive linked at the end, set |deadurl=no.
    • template doc demo: The archive parameters have error checking to ensure that all the required parameters are included, else {{citation error}} is invoked. On errors, main, help and template pages are placed into Category:Articles with incorrect citation syntax. Set |template doc demo=true to disable categorization; mainly used for documentation where the error is demonstrated.
  • format: Format of the work referred to by url; examples: PDF, DOC, XLS; HTML is implied and should not be specified; displayed in parentheses after title.
URLs must begin with a supported URI scheme: http:// and https:// will be supported by all browsers; irc://, ircs://, ftp://, news:, mailto: and gopher:// will require a plugin 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 they will display and link incorrectly. Those characters need to be percent-encoded. For example, a space must be replaced by %20. To encode the URL, replace these characters:
sp " ' < > [ ] | }
 %20  %22  %27  %3c  %3e  %5b  %5d  %7c  %7d
Single apostrophes do not need to be encoded; but unencoded multiples will be parsed as italic or bold markup. Single curly closing braces also do not need to be encoded; but an unencoded pair will be parsed as the double closing braces for the template transclusion.

Anchor

Identifiers

  • id: A unique identifier, used where none of the specialized identifiers are applicable; wikilink or use a template as applicable.

Quote

  • quote: Relevant text quoted from the source; enclosed in quotes. When supplied, the citation terminator (a period by default) is suppressed, so the quote needs to include terminating punctuation.

Editors

  • editor-last: Surname of editor. Do not wikilink—use editor-link instead. Where the surname is usually written first—as in Chinese—or for corporate authors, simply use editor-last to include the same format as the source.
    • editor-first: Given or first names of editor, including title(s); example: Firstname Middlename or Firstname M. or Dr. Firstname M., Sr. Do not wikilink—use editor-link instead.
    • OR: for multiple editors, use editor1-first, editor1-last through editor4-first, editor4-last for up to four editors.
  • editor-link: Title of existing Wikipedia article about the editor—not the editor's website; do not wikilink.
  • OR: for multiple editors, use editor1-link through editor4-link.
Display:
If authors: Authors are first, followed by the included work, then "In" and the editors, then the main work.
If no authors: Editors appear before the included work; a single editor is followed by "ed."; multiple editors are followed by "eds."; more than three editors will be followed by "et al., eds."

Laysummary

  • laysummary: URL link to a non-technical summary or review of the source; the URL title is set to "Lay summary".
    • laysource: Name of the source of the laysummary. Displays in italics and preceded by an endash.
    • laydate: Date of the summary. Displays in parentheses.

Display options

  • author-mask: Replaces the name of the first author with a strike-through dash (—) author-mask em in length. If |author-mask=1 then the dash will be one em in length and so on. Set author-mask to a text value to display a word instead:– for example, 'with'. You must still include the values for all authors for metadata purposes. Primarily intended for use in bibliographies for some styles where multiple works by a single author are listed. Do not use in a list generated by {{reflist}}, <references /> or similar as there is no control as to the order that references will display.
  • author-name-separator: Changes the separator between last and first names; defaults to a comma and space (, ); if the parameter is present, but blank, no separator punctuation will be used; a space must be encoded as &#32; do not use an asterisk (*), colon (:) or hash (#) as they will be interpreted as wikimarkup.
  • author-separator: Changes the separator between authors; defaults to a semicolon and space (; ); if the parameter is present, but blank, no separator punctuation will be used; a space must be encoded as &#32; do not use an asterisk (*), colon (:) or hash (#) as they will be interpreted as wikimarkup.
  • display-authors: By default, the number of authors displayed is limited to 8; if 9 are provided, the ninth is displayed as "et al." This parameter allows display of fewer authors before the "et al."; example: |display-authors=2; if there are 8 or fewer authors, then "et al." may be suppressed by setting |display-authors=9.
  • lastauthoramp: When set to any value, changes the separator to use between the last two names in lists of authors to an ampersand (&); defaults to a semicolon and space (; ), else |author-separator= if set.
  • postscript: The closing punctuation for the citation; defaults to a period (.); if the parameter is present, but blank, no terminating punctuation will be used. Ignored if |quote= is specified.
  • separator: The punctuation used to separate lists of authors, editors, etc. Defaults to a period (.); if the parameter is present, but blank, no separator punctuation will be used; do not use an asterisk (*), colon (:) or hash (#) as they will be interpreted as wikimarkup.

Testing

See Template:cite book/regression tests.

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This template produces COinS metadata; see COinS in Wikipedia for background information.

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