Help:Citation Style 2
 | 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. |
Citation Style 2 (CS2) is a style applied to citations on Wikipedia. It is used by default in the general purpose citation template {{Citation}}, and available as an option in many other templates. The commonly-used citation templates have two style modes.[1] These modes change how the citation is punctuated when it's rendered. CS2 primarily uses the comma as a separator, and it does not have a punctuation mark at the end of the citation. Citation Style 1 (CS1) uses the full stop as a separator and for terminal punctuation.[2] For example:
- CS2
- Carroll, Lewis (1866), Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, London: Macmillan
- CS1
- Carroll, Lewis (1866). Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. London: Macmillan.
When you use any template, please consider reviewing its documentation. You can find it at the template's page in the template namespace by searching for Template: plus the name of the template; for example, to find the documentation for {{Citation}}, enter Template:Citation in the Search box.
Style
[edit]- With author
- Elk, Anne (November 16, 1972), Anne Elk's Theory on Brontosauruses, Monty Python's Flying Circus
- Without author
- Anne Elk's Theory on Brontosauruses, Monty Python's Flying Circus, November 16, 1972
Citation Style 2 differs from Citation Style 1 in these specific style characteristics:
- uses a comma to separate individual elements of a rendered citation (CS1 is a fullstop)
- terminal punctuation is omitted from the rendered citation unless overridden by
|postscript=(CS1 is a fullstop)
Apply CS2 to a single citation
[edit]By default, the {{Citation}} template uses CS2 formatting. To apply CS2 formatting to other citation templates, add |mode=cs2 to the template's parameters. For example, {{cite web}} uses CS1 formatting, but {{cite web |mode=cs2}} uses CS2 formatting.
Apply CS2 to all citations in an article
[edit]Add {{cs1 config |mode=cs2}} to the article, preferably near the top of the page,[3] to apply CS2 formatting to all citations on a page using Module:Citation/CS1.
Citation template
[edit]The general purpose {{Citation}} template uses CS2 by default. It determines the citation type by examining which parameters are used. As with other citation templates, it can be used either in a footnote (between <ref>...</ref> tags) or in a section that lists sources. For example:
{{Citation
| last = Turner | first = Orsamus | title = History of the pioneer settlement of Phelps and Gorham's purchase, and Morris' reserve | publisher = William Alling | place = Rochester, New York | year = 1851 | ol = 7120924W }} |
Turner, Orsamus (1851), History of the pioneer settlement of Phelps and Gorham's purchase, and Morris' reserve, Rochester, New York: William Alling, OL 7120924W |
Notes
[edit]- ^ This covers all templates that directly invoke Module:Citation/CS1, including the general purpose CS2 template {{Citation}}. It also includes the Citation Style 1 (CS1) templates {{cite web}}, {{cite news}}, {{cite book}}, {{cite journal}}, {{cite magazine}}, and templates that are wrappers for these templates like {{cite CE1913}}, {{cite Google Maps}}, {{cite tweet}}, or {{cite ADB}}. There are some templates with "cite xxx" names, like {{cite patent}}, that are technically unrelated, do not invoke Module:Citation/CS1, and cannot use the CS2 style mode.
- ^ There are various benefits to using a template, most notably that doing so produces a consistent look. You are not required to use CS2 or any other citation template. As of October 2016[update], Wikipedia:Citing sources § Variation in citation methods (WP:CITEVAR) states:
Editors should not attempt to change an article's established citation style merely on the grounds of personal preference, to make it match other articles, or without first seeking consensus for the change.
- ^ See MOS:ORDER.
Tools
[edit]- User:Trappist the monk/HarvErrors is a script that may be enabled to display errors when using shortened footnotes. (See Help:Shortened footnotes for details on links and anchors.)
- User:Nardog/RefRenamer will replace the names that the VisualEditor auto-generates for named references (":0") with names using the parameters from the citation template ("Smith-2015").
- Wikipedia:ProveIt is a gadget that offers a visual interface for editing and generating citation templates.
- User:Mesidast/Tidy citations.js normalizes spacing in all citations on a given page.
- User:Lingzhi2/reviewsourcecheck-sb.js is a script that will note which citations on a given page are inconsistent.