Help:Citation Style 2

Citation Style 2 (CS2) is a method of referencing Wikipedia articles using the {{Citation}} template. The use of a template produces a consistent look.

The use of CS2 or of templates is not compulsory, per WP:CITEVAR:

Citations within each Wikipedia article should follow a consistent style. Editors may choose any style they want. The English Wikipedia does not have a house style, so it need not match what is done in other articles.

How the templates work

CS2 templates present a citation generally as:

• With author:

author (date), title, publisher, identifiers

• Without author:

title, publisher, date, identifiers

For example:

• Elk, Anne (November 16, 1972), Anne Elk's Theory on Brontosauruses, Monty Python's Flying Circus
• Anne Elk's Theory on Brontosauruses, Monty Python's Flying Circus, November 16, 1972

Dates

Dates are generally included by three parameters:

• date: Full date of publication edition being referenced, in the same format as other dates in citations in the same article. Must not be wikilinked.
• OR: year: Year of publication edition being referenced
  • month: Name of the month of publication. If you also have the day, use date instead. Must not be wikilinked.
  • origyear: Original publication year, for display alongside the date or year. For clarity, please supply specifics, for instance origyear=First published 1859 or origyear=Composed 1904. This parameter only displays if there is a value for year or date.

Dates formats per WP:DATESNO:

• Do not wikilink
• Use month before day or day before month styles and use them consistently throughout the article
• Access and archive dates in references should be in either the publication date format, or YYYY-MM-DD

Anchors

Shortened footnotes and parenthetical referencing may create links that will jump to an anchor created by the CS2 template. Anchors are always created but may be modified by use of |ref=. The standard is formatted as CITEREFauthorslastnameyear. For example:

Elk, Anne (November 16, 1972), Anne Elk's Theory on Brontosauruses {{citation}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Creates an anchor named CITEREFElk1972.

• |ref=ID: Creates a custom anchor defined by ID. This is useful where the author and/or date is unknown.

Tools

Error checking:

• User:Ucucha/HarvErrors is a script that may be enabled to display errors when using Shortened footnotes or parenthetical referencing.