Template:Citation style

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This template is used on approximately 4,400 pages and changes may be widely noticed. Test changes in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. Consider discussing changes on the talk page before implementing them.

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Any breaking changes to this template, including moving it or nominating it for deletion, must be communicated in advance to Twinkle's users and maintainers at Wikipedia talk:Twinkle. The standard installation of Twinkle relies on this template. Thank you.

A maintenance template which may be used on article pages to indicate an article in need of citation or referencing cleanup.

Usage

{{Citation style|reason=specify reason|date=January 2025}}

When to use

This template should be used only on articles that have sources.

It may be used with {{Refimprove}} or other check references templates. This template should not be used with stubs.

The most common correct use of this template is to identify an article that uses more than one major citation style (e.g., half the citations use ref tags, and half are parenthetical citations).

Do not place this template on articles containing all parenthetical citations, a previously acceptable citation style that is now deprecated per WP:PARREF.

Wikipedia's guidelines generally prohibit editors from changing from one acceptable form of inline citations to another without consensus, especially for reasons of personal preference or to make one article match the style in another article.

This template may be removed by anyone who fixes the problems with confusing citation styles.

Parameters

All parameters are optional:

|1=section – set to section to indicate that the template applies to just the section where it is placed. By default, the template is placed at the to and applies to the entire article. Any word may be used, e.g., |1=paragraph, |1=table, and so on.

|reason= may be used to provide more details on some of the aspects that should be addressed for the given article. Alias: |details=.

|date= – add Month, year; for example: January 2025. This helps auto-categorization of the article into a subcategory of Category:Wikipedia references cleanup. A bot will add it, if you forget.

|small=left – add this to reduce the banner to a small, flush-left box. Other values (such as 'no', 'yes', 'right') are invalid, and will not work as expected.

Categorization

This template will categorise tagged articles into Category:Wikipedia references cleanup and Category:Articles covered by WikiProject Wikify.

This template is a self-reference.

This template should not be substituted.

TemplateData

This is the TemplateData for this template used by TemplateWizard, VisualEditor and other tools. See a monthly parameter usage report for Template:Citation style in articles based on its TemplateData.

TemplateData for Citation style

Use this cleanup template to indicate that an article has an unclear citation style.

Template parameters[Edit template data]
This template prefers inline formatting of parameters.
Parameter		Description	Type	Status
Month and year	`date`	The month and year that the template was placed (in full). "{{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}" inserts the current month and year automatically. Example January 2013 Auto value `{{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}`	Line	suggested
Reason	`reason` `details`	The reason why the article has an unclear citation style Example it uses multiple citation styles	String	optional
Affected area	`1`	Text to replace the word "article", usually "section" Example section Auto value `section`	String	optional
Make template small	`small`	Enter "left" here to make the template box small and aligned to the left. Example left Auto value `left`	Line	optional

Tracking categories

Category:All articles needing references cleanup (4,629)
Category:All articles covered by WikiProject Wikify (26,174)

v t e Citation and verifiability article maintenance templates
Sourcing	{{Circular}} {{Better sources needed}} {{Dubious}} {{Excessive citations}} {{Further reading cleanup}} {{More citations needed}} {{More citations needed section}} {{More footnotes needed}} {{No footnotes}} {{No reliable sources}} {{No significant coverage}} {{One source}} {{One source section}} {{Only primary sources}} {{NRIS only}} {{Primary sources}} {{Primary sources section}} {{Religious text primary}} {{Self-published}} {{Self-reference cleanup}} {{Self-sourcing examples}} {{Refexample section}} {{Sources exist}} {{Text-source}} {{Third-party}} {{Unreferenced}} {{Unreferenced section}} {{Unreferenced category}} {{Unreliable sources}} {{Unreliable sources section}} {{User-generated}}
BLP-specific	{{BLP unreferenced}} {{BLP unreferenced section}} {{BLP primary sources}} {{BLP self-published}} {{BLP sources}} {{BLP sources section}} {{BLP IMDb-only refimprove}} {{BLP IMDb refimprove}} {{BLP no footnotes}} {{BLP more footnotes needed}} {{BLP one source}}
Topic specific	{{Localist}} {{Media IMDb refimprove}} {{More medical citations needed}} {{More science citations needed}} {{Neologism}} {{Science review}} {{Unreferenced law}} {{Unreferenced-law section}} {{Unreferenced medical section}}
Dispute-related	{{Cite check}} {{Cite check section}} {{Content}} {{Disputed}} {{Dispute about}} {{Disputed section}} {{Disputed chem}} {{Disputed list}} {{Disputed map}} {{Expert needed}} {{Hoax}} {{Original research}} {{Original research section}} {{Speculation}} {{Speculation section}} {{Synthesis}} {{Verifiability}} {{Verify sources}}
Citation improvements	{{Citation style}} {{Citations broken}} {{Cleanup bare URLs}} {{Format footnotes}} {{Full citations needed}} {{Ibid}} {{Page numbers improve}} {{Page numbers needed}} {{Shallow references}}
General advice	Citing sources Reliable sources Maintenance template removal Citation needed Find sources Combining sources Referencing styles