This template, a wrapper for {{Citation}}, returns a formatted citation from statements stored on a Wikidata item (referred to by its Q identifier or QID) describing a citable source such as a scholarly article.

You can read about the template in:

Mike Peel; Andy Mabbett (14 January 2021). "Automatically maintained citations with Wikidata and Cite Q". Diff. Wikidata Q104831003.

Note: While Wikipedia does not regard Wikidata as a reliable source, citations using Cite Q are not citing Wikidata; they cite the individual work stated, using metadata about that work, which is held on Wikidata for convenience.

For example, Wikidata item Biodiversity assessment of the fishes of Saba Bank atoll, Netherlands Antilles (Q15625490) is a scholarly item. To cite this as a source:

{{Cite Q|Q15625490}} →

Jeffrey T. Williams; Kent E. Carpenter; James L. Van Tassell; Paul Hoetjes; Wes Toller; Peter Etnoyer; Michael Smith (21 May 2010). "Biodiversity Assessment of the Fishes of Saba Bank Atoll, Netherlands Antilles". PLOS One. 5 (5). Bibcode:2010PLoSO...510676W. doi:10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0010676. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 2873961. PMID 20505760. Wikidata Q15625490.

An example of an article using this template for all of its references is South Pole Telescope; an example using Harvard style citations is Suffix automaton.

By default, if there are more than eight author names, the template displays three, followed by "et al". This can be changed using |display-authors=; setting that parameter to all displays them all. The same applies to multiple editors – see the test-case pages.

Citations of papers which have been retracted (retracted by (P5824)) will appear in Category:Cite Q - cites a retracted work.

Citations of papers which have been replaced (replaced by (P1366)) will appear in Category:Cite Q - cites a replaced work.

You can also use {{Cite Q bulleted}} if you want to have a bullet returned before the citation (useful for automatic lists)

• |1= = Wikidata QID for the article

Additionally, any named parameter used in {{citation}} may be entered and will overwrite the value in Wikidata. Using such parameters, with a value of unset, will suppress display of data from Wikidata.

<ref name="">{{Cite Q|Q00000000}}</ref>

For ease of use, you may wish to name your references to reflect the cited work, for example:

<ref name="Williams-2010">{{Cite Q|Q15625490}}</ref>

This section lists where each of the template's supported parameters gets its data.

{{Cite Q|Q15625490}}

Jeffrey T. Williams; Kent E. Carpenter; James L. Van Tassell; Paul Hoetjes; Wes Toller; Peter Etnoyer; Michael Smith (21 May 2010). "Biodiversity Assessment of the Fishes of Saba Bank Atoll, Netherlands Antilles". PLOS One. 5 (5). Bibcode:2010PLoSO...510676W. doi:10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0010676. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 2873961. PMID 20505760. Wikidata Q15625490.

{{Cite Q|Q15625490|page=42}}

Jeffrey T. Williams; Kent E. Carpenter; James L. Van Tassell; Paul Hoetjes; Wes Toller; Peter Etnoyer; Michael Smith (21 May 2010). "Biodiversity Assessment of the Fishes of Saba Bank Atoll, Netherlands Antilles". PLOS One. 5 (5): 42. Bibcode:2010PLoSO...510676W. doi:10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0010676. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 2873961. PMID 20505760. Wikidata Q15625490.

{{Cite Q|Q15625490|access-date=18 May 2017}}

Jeffrey T. Williams; Kent E. Carpenter; James L. Van Tassell; Paul Hoetjes; Wes Toller; Peter Etnoyer; Michael Smith (21 May 2010). "Biodiversity Assessment of the Fishes of Saba Bank Atoll, Netherlands Antilles". PLOS One. 5 (5). Bibcode:2010PLoSO...510676W. doi:10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0010676. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 2873961. PMID 20505760. Wikidata Q15625490. Retrieved 18 May 2017.

{{Cite Q|Q15625490|quote=lorem ipsum}}

Jeffrey T. Williams; Kent E. Carpenter; James L. Van Tassell; Paul Hoetjes; Wes Toller; Peter Etnoyer; Michael Smith (21 May 2010). "Biodiversity Assessment of the Fishes of Saba Bank Atoll, Netherlands Antilles". PLOS One. 5 (5). Bibcode:2010PLoSO...510676W. doi:10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0010676. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 2873961. PMID 20505760. Wikidata Q15625490. lorem ipsum

{{Cite Q|Q25766745}}

Andy Mabbett (2010), Chris Charlesworth (ed.), Pink Floyd: The Music and the Mystery, Omnibus Press, OCLC 762731304, OL 16228023W, Wikidata Q25766745

{{Cite Q|Q25766745 |chapter=The Final Cut}} (with chapter specified)

Andy Mabbett (2010), "The Final Cut", in Chris Charlesworth (ed.), Pink Floyd: The Music and the Mystery, Omnibus Press, OCLC 762731304, OL 16228023W, Wikidata Q25766745

{{Cite Q|Q25766745 |pages=48-52}} (with pages)

Andy Mabbett (2010), Chris Charlesworth (ed.), Pink Floyd: The Music and the Mystery, Omnibus Press, pp. 48–52, OCLC 762731304, OL 16228023W, Wikidata Q25766745

{{Cite Q|Q15625490|access-date=18 May 2017}}

Jeffrey T. Williams; Kent E. Carpenter; James L. Van Tassell; Paul Hoetjes; Wes Toller; Peter Etnoyer; Michael Smith (21 May 2010). "Biodiversity Assessment of the Fishes of Saba Bank Atoll, Netherlands Antilles". PLOS One. 5 (5). Bibcode:2010PLoSO...510676W. doi:10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0010676. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 2873961. PMID 20505760. Wikidata Q15625490. Retrieved 18 May 2017.

{{Cite Q|Q25766745|mode=cs1}}

Andy Mabbett (2010). Chris Charlesworth (ed.). Pink Floyd: The Music and the Mystery. Omnibus Press. OCLC 762731304. OL 16228023W. Wikidata Q25766745.

{{Cite Q|Q25766745|mode=cs2}}

Andy Mabbett (2010), Chris Charlesworth (ed.), Pink Floyd: The Music and the Mystery, Omnibus Press, OCLC 762731304, OL 16228023W, Wikidata Q25766745

{{Cite Q|Q25766745|author-mask=1}}

— (2010), Chris Charlesworth (ed.), Pink Floyd: The Music and the Mystery, Omnibus Press, OCLC 762731304, OL 16228023W, Wikidata Q25766745

{{Cite Q|Q25766745|editor=unset}}

Andy Mabbett (2010), Pink Floyd: The Music and the Mystery, Omnibus Press, OCLC 762731304, OL 16228023W, Wikidata Q25766745

For an example of a bibliography, updated periodically by Listeriabot, see User:Mike Peel/publications.

For additional examples, see testcases and testcases/many names.

The template used with a single parameter, the Q-number of the article on Wikidata, will produce a citation using the default display parameters from Template:Citation and the styling of the author and editor names as they are stored on Wikidata. This is rarely the same as required by the citation formatting in any given article. The guidance at WP:CITEVAR requires that editors match the formatting of citations that they add to that of the article where it is added. At present, {{Cite Q}} does not know what style the formatting in an article requires (although it is possible that common styles could be marked or recognised automatically as is done for date formatting).

The result is that editors using {{Cite Q}} must take care to preview their edits and ensure that the formatting rendered matches that of the rest of the article. The commonest formatting issues are:

1. Order of first and last names of authors and editors:

   A typical output might be:

   • {{Cite Q |Q15625490}} →
   • Jeffrey T. Williams; Kent E. Carpenter; James L. Van Tassell; Paul Hoetjes; Wes Toller; Peter Etnoyer; Michael Smith (21 May 2010). "Biodiversity Assessment of the Fishes of Saba Bank Atoll, Netherlands Antilles". PLOS One. 5 (5). Bibcode:2010PLoSO...510676W. doi:10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0010676. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 2873961. PMID 20505760. Wikidata Q15625490.

   If that were used in an article that used "Last, First" format for author names, then the editor would have to find a way to format the Cite Q author names correctly. The best option, which will apply to all articles using Cite Q with a given ID, is to modify the Wikidata property for each author and editor, adding "object named as" with the author's name in "Last, First" format. See d:Q45922947#P98 for an example.

   Editors can also supply those author names manually in the desired format within the Cite Q template. It's often worth previewing the citation in expanded form to show what is being passed to the actual citation template:

   • {{Cite Q |Q15625490 |expand=yes}} →
   • {{Cite journal |author-link1=Jeffrey T. Williams |author-link2=Kent E. Carpenter |author1=Jeffrey T. Williams |author2=Kent E. Carpenter |author3=James L. Van Tassell |author4=Paul Hoetjes |author5=Wes Toller |author6=Peter Etnoyer |author7=Michael Smith |bibcode=2010PLoSO...510676W |doi=10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0010676 |id=[[WDQ (identifier)|Wikidata]] [[:d:Q15625490|Q15625490]] |issn=1932-6203 |issue=5 |journal=[[PLOS One|PLOS One]] |language=en |pmc=2873961 |pmid=20505760 |publication-date=21 May 2010 |title=Biodiversity Assessment of the Fishes of Saba Bank Atoll, Netherlands Antilles |url=http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/20505760 |volume=5}}

   That would make the author names (and author-links) easily available for copy and paste, followed by tweaking into the desired format:

   • {{Cite Q |Q15625490 |author6=Etnoyer, Peter |author4=Hoetjes, Paul |author7=Smith, Michael |author5=Toller, Wes |author3=Van Tassell, James L. |author-link2=Kent E. Carpenter |author1=Williams, Jeffrey T. |author2=Carpenter, Kent E.}} →
   • Williams, Jeffrey T.; Carpenter, Kent E.; Van Tassell, James L.; Hoetjes, Paul; Toller, Wes; Etnoyer, Peter; Smith, Michael (21 May 2010). "Biodiversity Assessment of the Fishes of Saba Bank Atoll, Netherlands Antilles". PLOS One. 5 (5). Bibcode:2010PLoSO...510676W. doi:10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0010676. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 2873961. PMID 20505760. Wikidata Q15625490.
2. Punctuation:

   The separators between elements in the above citation is a comma, which is the default for a CS2-style format produced by {{Citation}}. Careful examination in a particular article will often show the separator punctuation to be a full stop (period). That may be selected by setting |mode=cs1:

   • {{Cite Q |Q15625490 |author6=Etnoyer, Peter |author4=Hoetjes, Paul |author7=Smith, Michael |author5=Toller, Wes |author3=Van Tassell, James L. |author-link2=Kent E. Carpenter |author1=Williams, Jeffrey T. |author2=Carpenter, Kent E. |mode=cs1}} →
   • Williams, Jeffrey T.; Carpenter, Kent E.; Van Tassell, James L.; Hoetjes, Paul; Toller, Wes; Etnoyer, Peter; Smith, Michael (21 May 2010). "Biodiversity Assessment of the Fishes of Saba Bank Atoll, Netherlands Antilles". PLOS One. 5 (5). Bibcode:2010PLoSO...510676W. doi:10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0010676. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 2873961. PMID 20505760. Wikidata Q15625490.
   • Sometimes, the article will have author names with initials, and those initials are terminated with a full stop (period). It may be necessary to manually add or remove the punctuation in the author names to match the style of the target article (note: this does not apply to author-links, which match the title of the author's article):
   • {{Cite Q |Q15625490 |author6=Etnoyer, Peter |author4=Hoetjes, Paul |author7=Smith, Michael |author5=Toller, Wes |author3=Van Tassell, James L. |author-link2=Kent E. Carpenter |author1=Williams, Jeffrey T. |author2=Carpenter, Kent E. |mode=cs1}} →
   • Williams, Jeffrey T.; Carpenter, Kent E.; Van Tassell, James L.; Hoetjes, Paul; Toller, Wes; Etnoyer, Peter; Smith, Michael (21 May 2010). "Biodiversity Assessment of the Fishes of Saba Bank Atoll, Netherlands Antilles". PLOS One. 5 (5). Bibcode:2010PLoSO...510676W. doi:10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0010676. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 2873961. PMID 20505760. Wikidata Q15625490.
3. Italicisation in titles:

   Titles drawn from Wikidata cannot contain formatting, so editors using {{Cite Q}} may have to add appropriate formatting.

   {{Citation}} will automatically apply italicisation to titles of books, etc. so that does not need to be added:

   • {{Cite Q |Q25766745}} →
   • Andy Mabbett (2010), Chris Charlesworth (ed.), Pink Floyd: The Music and the Mystery, Omnibus Press, OCLC 762731304, OL 16228023W, Wikidata Q25766745

   However, some titles require partial italicisation, and that has to be done manually when the whole title is not italicised, although that is rare. Titles of chapters may also need to be checked:

   • For example (from ISBN 978-0-521-32115-0): |chapter= ''Porphyra'' as food: cultivation and economic

Module:Wd can automatically cause this template to be invoked, e.g.,

{{Wikidata|references|raw|Q2978|P2046|P585=1987-05-25}}

Bavarian State Office for Statistics and Data, ed. (1991), Amtliches Ortsverzeichnis für Bayern (in German), Munich: Bavarian State Office for Statistics and Data, p. 242, Wikidata Q15707237

currently causes the following to be invoked:

{{Cite Q|Q15707237|pages=242}}

Bavarian State Office for Statistics and Data, ed. (1991), Amtliches Ortsverzeichnis für Bayern (in German), Munich: Bavarian State Office for Statistics and Data, p. 242, Wikidata Q15707237

because an area (P2046) statement on Regensburg (Q2978) is referenced to be stated in (P248) Amtliches Ortsverzeichnis für Bayern (1991) (Q15707237) with page(s) (P304) = 242.

• Once robust the functionality should be merged into {{Citation}}
• Eventually, each signed-in reader should be able to set, under their "Preferences", the style in which they wish to see citations rendered. No more CiteVar wars!
• We should have a global template repository, so the code can be used by multiple wikis, without having to manually copy it after every update.

• Properties
  • More properties/ parameters to add
  • Parameters with no equivalent property?
• Internationalisation
• Check/resolve handling of redirected QID
• Order of precedence for rendering author names:
  1. object named as (P1932) qualifier on author (P50)
  2. subject named as (P1810) qualifier on author (P50)
  3. author name string (P2093)
  4. author (P50) label in English
  5. author (P50) label in any other language
  • Regardless of which of the above is used, link to the author biography article if available, via author (P50) (matched via series ordinal (P1545) if applicable)
• Add tracking categories for each parameter where the local value differs from the corresponding WD value so that either the WD entry can be updated/corrected or the local override can be corrected/removed
  • Other tracking categories?
• Links to sister projects: Wikisource, if a transcription project exists; Wikibooks; Wikiversity (esp. the WikiJournals there); perhaps more
  • Avoid <ref name="dicc">{{Cite Q|Q100160262}} {{cite wikisource|wslanguage=pt|wslink=Diccionario Bibliographico Brazileiro/Francisco Antonio de Almeida|title=Transcription}}</ref>!
  • Also add links to authors who have pages on Wikisource but not on Wikipedia. Related query: Authors on Wikisource but not other projects, who are linked to by an item which is a subclass of Q47461344 (written work)
• Link to Wikisource should take priority over all URL properties, but only if accompanied by document file on Wikimedia Commons (P996). If not, document file on Wikimedia Commons (P996) should take precedence over URLs.
• Where there is a Wikipedia article about the work cited, link the title to that, overriding the URL if necessary (example: d:Q25766745)
  • Ditto for editions of works
• At present a WD pages entry of "1" will result in |pages=1–1 (and metadata &rft.pages=1-1) rather than |page=1 (and metadata &rft.pages=1).
• Implement evaluation of generic keyword for all parameters to denote that a WD value should be accepted by framing its value in accept-this-as-written markup ((..)). See talk thread for possible keyword names.
• Check all parameter aliases when scanning for override parameters (at present some alias parameter names are ignored, possibly leading to inconsistent behaviour if they are set as well).
• Consider including a link to Special:EntityUsage, in the form, say, Other cites or with a small icon.
• Take possible template parameter usage as hint which parameter to use in the generated output. F.e. if the journal/magazine/newspaper parameter is used, the template should use the same in the output. The underlying template {citation} will switch the output format accordingly.
• Try to utilize given parameter values as filter for retrieved WD data. If an editor specifies |edition=2 or |volume=3, cite Q should select correlating data (f.e. page ranges, identifiers etc.) while retrieving data from WD (in cases where more than one entry is available for a particular parameter)
• When the author is cited as various authors (Q2818964), the label should start with an upper case letter
  • Quick and dirty workaround: {{ucfirst:{{Cite Q|xxxx}}
• Make this fix unnecessary.
• Add indication alongside citations of retracted/ replaced works
• Consider cases where citing a retracted/ replaced work is deliberate
• Make use of |archive-url=, |archive-date=, and consider how to use |url-status=
  • Partially implemented for the cases where archive URL (P1065) is a qualifier of full work available at URL (P953) and is a URL showing the date in a recognised format (per a regex)
• Use title in HTML (P6833), where present.
• Ability to cite chapters, per Template talk:Cite Q#Cite Q chapter broken
• Use something like literal translation (P2441) so that |trans-title= is used to provide the English translated title, if present, in addition to the non-English original title.

Feel free to tackle these; the core team working on Cite Q sees them as low priority, or too complex.

• Resolve special case of newspaper articles
  • Is the following topic of "hint parameters" related to this?
• Author names (Western-style, at least) should display as "Last, First Middle" to match Wikipedia house style
  • How to deal with Tussenvoegsels etc.
    • In Romance languages, it should be, e.g., "Quental, Antero de" instead of "de Quental, Antero"
• Handle volume in a serial
  • Clarification needed: What is meant by this? |part=, or output format differences journal vs. magazine?
• Is there a Pxxxx code for book series editors to add them to the list of "normal" editors?
  • resolve at Wikidata first

• Multiple author names treated as one blob
• Linking author name(s)
• Title for a book uses {{ #invoke:WikidataIB |getLink |{{{1}}} }} and may be expensive
• Fix |ol= values
• Need to add manual date for newspaper articles/ website articles.
• Make publisher a link, where appropriate
• Improve handing of unexpected multiple values
  • e.g. Handle multiple DOIs
• Author name string (author name string (P2093)) values (e.g. on Q38000000)
• Pseudonymous author personas such as P. D. Q. Bach or Mark Twain
• Title not in English
• Handle volume, issue and page(s) as qualifiers of published in (P1433)
• Wider variety of examples/ test cases
• If language of work or name is set (and not the local language); pass that; if not but language of title is set (and not the local language), use that
• The url parameter should also pick up data from the properties full work available at URL (P953) and URL (P2699)
• Linking title to Wikipedia article, if any
• Fetch ISSN etc. from item about journal
• Move Wikidata link before |quote= (and after other IDs like |pmid=)
  • Also fixes postscript character issues in conjunction with |mode=cs1 and with |quote=
• Fix page evaluation code to accept comma- and semicolon-separated lists
• Use canonical parameter names when calling down to {citation} (f.e. |page= rather than |p=)
• Is there a Pxxxx code for SBNs (Standard Book Number to support |sbn= parameter?
  • Apparently not -> Add SBN property to WD. (Also add SICI and BICI properties corresponding with COinS &rft.sici and &rft.bici.)
• Is there a Pxxxx code for JFM (Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der Mathematik) to support |jfm= parameter?
  • zbMATH Open document ID (P894)? No, Zbl uses the same resolving link, but it is a different ID.
• Are there values of |others which are not illustrators? Possibly:
  • author of foreword (P2679)
  • signatory (P1891)
    • Fails for very high numbers
  • presenter (P371)
  • performer (P175)
• Add a tracking category for references with a replaced by (P1366) statement
• Add a tracking category for references with a retracted by (P5824) statement
• Render subtitle (P1680), following the title with a :
• Convert WikiData's edition number (e.g., 1) into the ordinal (1st) expected by {{citation}}.

• Improve date formatting options
  • This is done in {{Citation}}
• Fix unnecessary piping of author/editor and journal links if link and label are the same, f.e. [[Author|Author]] -> [[Author]], [[Journal|Journal]] -> [[Journal]] for improved reusability, cleaniness of output, reduced size of resulting page code, and to avoid potential future extra text errors thrown by the underlying {citation} template
  • See talk
• Fix invocation with |qid= instead of unnamed parameter. At present {{cite Q|qid=Q12345}} instead of {{cite Q|Q12345}} gives an error.
  • This is intended; please discuss on talk
  • Fix ready for test in template sandbox: {{cite Q/sandbox|qid=Q15625490}} gives Jeffrey T. Williams; Kent E. Carpenter; James L. Van Tassell; Paul Hoetjes; Wes Toller; Peter Etnoyer; Michael Smith (21 May 2010). "Biodiversity Assessment of the Fishes of Saba Bank Atoll, Netherlands Antilles". PLOS One. 5 (5). Bibcode:2010PLoSO...510676W. doi:10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0010676. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 2873961. PMID 20505760. Wikidata Q15625490.
• Replace the QID with a pen icon
  • The QID is valid metadata about the cited work.
• Consider case where author is given as et al. (Q311624)
  • If last author/editor is named "et al." (and variants), mute this entry and set display-authors/editors=etal instead before passing down to {citation}
    • Disputed; see Template talk:Citation#Et al
• Improve rendering when both author (P50) and author name string (P2093) are present.
  • Example: {{Cite Q|Q108740476}} → Manuela Lataianu (2002), The 1966 law concerning prohibition of abortion in Romania and its consequences: The fate of one generation (PDF), S2CID 51754999, Wikidata Q108740476
  • Current rendering of author name uses semicolon: “Camelia-Manuela Lățăianu; Manuela Lataianu”
  • Suggested improved rendering of author name: “Manuela Lataianu [= Camelia-Manuela Lățăianu]”
  • Such instances should be fixed on Wikidata, as done here

meta:WikiCite and d:Wikidata:WikiProject Source Metadata - goals of those projects include the management of citations across Wikimedia projects and better insight into research resources through Wikimedia projects.

Generate citations from Wikidata by passing the QID to this template

Template parameters[Edit template data]

Parameter		Description	Type	Status
QID	1	The Wikidata QID of the cited source	String	required
Author	author	Use for Last, First format Example Prymachenko, Maria	String	optional
Author Link	authorlink	Wikipedia article title, use with Author Example Maria Prymachenko	String	optional