Template:Citation style
 | This article has an unclear citation style. (May 2026) |
 | 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. |
 | 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=May 2026}}
When to use
This template should be used only on articles that have sources.
It may be used with {{More citations needed}} 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. In that case, use {{Parenthetical referencing}}.
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 tosectionto indicate that the template applies to just the section where it is placed. By default, the template is placed at the top 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:May 2026. 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
TemplateData for Citation style
Use this cleanup template to indicate that an article has an unclear citation style.
| 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.
| Line | suggested |
| Reason | reason details | The reason why the article has an unclear citation style
| String | optional |
| Affected area | 1 | Text to replace the word "article", usually "section"
| String | optional |
| Make template small | small | Enter "left" here to make the template box small and aligned to the left.
| Line | optional |
Tracking categories
- Category:All articles needing references cleanup (4,940)
- Category:All articles covered by WikiProject Wikify (20,769)
Redirects
- {{Citationstyle}}
- {{Citation-style}}
- {{Cleanup-citation}}
- {{Cleanup-references}}
- {{Cleanup-refs}}
- {{Ref-cleanup}}
- {{Reference style}}
- {{Reference-style}}
- {{Refstyle}}