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A guide to best practices when it comes to formatting citations. The contents of this page have neither been endorsed nor vetted by the community, and are not to be taken as guidelines or policies.

Order of parameters

Cite web, news, and magazine

For consistency, all citations using {{Cite web}}, {{Cite news}}, or {{Cite magazine}} should follow the same parameter order, as illustrated below. This is adapted from the order used by the ProveIt gadget when normalizing {{Cite web}} citations.

Most commonly used parameters in horizontal format

For most sources: <ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |date= |title= |url= |url-status= |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date= |website=}}</ref> Additional parameters: <ref>{{Cite web |last1= |first1= |author-link1= |last2= |first2= |author-link2= |date= |title= |trans-title= |url= |url-access= |url-status= |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date= |website= |publisher= |issn= |language= |quote=}}</ref>

Other templates

Other citation templates should follow a similar order, as illustrated below:

Most commonly used parameters in horizontal format

For {{Cite journal}}: <ref>{{Cite journal |last= |first= |author-link= |date= |title= |url= |url-access= |url-status=live |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date= |journal= |volume= |issue= |doi= |arxiv=}}</ref> For {{Cite arXiv}}: <ref>{{Cite arXiv |last= |first= |author-link= |date= |title= |class= |eprint=}}</ref> For {{Cite press release}}: <ref>{{Cite press release |date= |title= |url= |url-status= |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date= |publisher= |via=}}</ref> For {{Cite tweet}}: <ref>{{Cite tweet |last= |first= |author-link= |user= |date= |title= |number= |url-status= |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date=}}</ref> For {{Cite Instagram}}: <ref>{{Cite Instagram |last= |first= |author-link= |user= |date= |title= |postid= |location= |url-status= |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date=}}</ref> For {{Cite AV media}}: <ref>{{Cite AV media |last= |first= |author-link= |date= |title= |url= |url-access= |type= |url-status= |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date= |via=}}</ref> For {{Cite episode}}: <ref>{{Cite episode |last= |first= |author-link= |date= |title= |url= |url-access= |series= |series-link= |season= |number= |episode-link= |time= |network= |quote=}}</ref> For {{Cite book}}: <ref>{{Cite book |last= |first= |author-link= |date= |title= |url= |url-status= |archive-url= |archive-date= |publisher= |page= |isbn=}}</ref> For {{Cite podcast}}: <ref>{{Cite podcast |last= |first= |author-link= |date= |title= |url= |url-access= |url-status= |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date= |website= |publisher= |via= |time=}}</ref>

Choosing a template

For the vast majority of news articles and webpages online, {{Cite web}} will be the go-to template for citing them.

As established by an RfC in 2022, online articles published by newspapers (such as The New York Times and The Washington Post) and news agencies (such as CNN and the BBC) should use {{Cite news}}, while online articles published by magazines (such as Time and Vanity Fair) should use {{Cite magazine}}. An easy way to determine whether a publication is considered a newspaper or magazine is by looking at the first sentence of its Wikipedia article.

If a source is covered by a specific-source template such as one listed above, those should be used instead of {{Cite web}}.

Parameters

Authors

If there is one credited author, use |last= |first=. If the author has a Wikipedia article, append the string with |author-link=

If there is more than one credited author, use |last1= |first1= |last2= |first2= and so forth. If the author(s) have Wikipedia articles, append each string with |author-link1=, |author-link2=, and so forth.

If there is no credited author, use |author=<!-- Byline --> instead of |last= |first=. If there is no byline, omit the string outright.

Date

For articles written in American English, use the month–day–year (MDY) format for |date=; for articles written in British English, use the day–month–year (DMY) format for |date=. The date should be spelled out in words and in full, not numerically or abbreviated.

The publication date should use the time zone in which the publication is based in — for example, Pacific Time (PT) or Eastern Time (ET) for American publications. Sometimes, a source displays a publication date and time that has been adjusted to match your time zone. If you are not located in the time zone of the publication, check to see if the date is noted in the source's URL. If not, you may have to manually convert time zones. If no time is given, you're out of luck; just go with the date you see and hope for the best.

Title

The source's title in its original language should be used in |date=. If there is no title on the webpage itself, use the title shown on the browser tab header while omitting the publication name.

Per MOS:CONFORMTITLE, source titles should be adjusted to comply with Wikipedia's Manual of Style. In particular, quotation marks should be replaced by italics for title of works, while hyphens should be replaced by en dashes where appropriate. Do not correct misspellings; use {{as written|wo|rd [''sic'']}} instead — the {{sic}} template is not suitable in this case either.

If the source is not in English, append the string with |trans-title=. Google Translate may be used to obtain an English translation of the title, but be sure to correct any obvious gramatical errors.

URL

For |url=, use HTTPS instead of HTTP, unless the webpage does not support HTTPS and would otherwise be rendered inaccessible.

If the source has a soft paywall, append the string with |url-access=limited. If the source has a hard paywall, append the string with |url-access=subscription. If the source requires the creation of a free account in order to access it, append the string with |url-access=registration. A list of commonly used sources with soft and hard paywalls can be found here.

Archive

It is good practice to always enclose an archived copy of the source, even if it is a live link. However, if the source is constantly changing by the minute (such as Rotten Tomatoes), or if the webpage is essentially inaccessible when viewed as an archived copy (such as a streaming service), it would not be helpful to enclose an archive. Append {{cbignore}} to the end of the citation template to prevent bots from attempting to add an archive in the future.

If the source is live, use |url-status=live. If the source cannot be accessed, use |url-status=dead. If the source can technically be accessed, but the content being cited can no longer be found, use |url-status=deviated. If the source's domain has changed owners, use |url-status=usurped.

Copy-and-paste the earliest working archived copy of the source from the Wayback Machine onto |archive-url=. For Bloomberg News, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and The Times articles, it is possible but exceedingly difficult to find a working archived copy on the Wayback Machine; if none can be found, use archive.today instead, but only as a last resort.

For |archive-date=, use the same formatting used in |date=. The date displayed on the Wayback Machine, which is set to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), should be used instead of a local time zone.

Access date

For |archive-date=, use the same formatting used in |date=. The time zone used should be set to UTC, which is the time zone used on Wikipedia and thus reflected in the page history. If an access date is missing and needs to be added retroactively, WikiBlame may be used to locate the date the text was added; if not, use the current date.

Work

In general, the generic |work= should be avoided.

• For {{Cite web}}, use |website= if the publication is normally italicized (such as Business Insider and Deadline Hollywood) and |publisher= if the publication is not normally italicized (such as Bloomberg News and Yahoo! News).
• For {{Cite news}}, use |newspaper= for newspapers (such as The New York Times and The Washington Post); use |publisher= for both news agencies (such as CNN and the BBC) and wire agencies (such as Reuters and the Associated Press). Do not use |agency=.
• For {{Cite magazine}}, use |magazine=.

A list of commonly used sources that should not be italicized and should thus use |publisher= can be found here. If the publication is not a news organization but rather a company or organization, use |publisher= by default. If the publication "lives" on a parent website (such as Total Film–GamesRadar+ and io9–Gizmodo), the authorial publication should use |website= in conjunction with the parent publication using |publisher=.

Citation bot may sometimes behave irrationally and attempt to make a bad change to this parameter. When this occurs, append {{cbignore}} to the end of the citation template to prevent it from continuing to do so.

Other optional parameters

If the publication is a newspaper whose ISSN is widely used, include the ISSN in |issn=. A list of commonly used sources with ISSNs can be found here.

If the source is not in English and |trans-title= was used above, the foreign language of the source should be noted in |lang= in abbreviated form. See WP:LANGCODE for a list of supported language codes.

If the claim is potentially or evidently controversial, it may be beneficial to include a quoted portion of the relevant text in |quote=. However, this will not work if the multiple passages of the same reference is being used on the article.

At the end of the template, append {{cbignore}} to prevent bots from modifying the reference. Alternatively and more aggressively, {{bots}} may be placed near the top of the article to prevent bots from modifying all references on the article. If the source is a lengthy PDF, append {{rp}} to the end of the template to indicate the page number being cited.