Template:Cite paper is permanently protected from editing because it is a heavily used or highly visible template. Substantial changes should first be proposed and discussed here on this page. If the proposal is uncontroversial or has been discussed and is supported by consensus, editors may use {{edit protected}} to notify an administrator to make the requested edit. Any contributor may edit the template's sandbox. This template does not have a testcases subpage. You can create the testcases subpage here.
Citing a paper, not a book
This template seems tuned to books, not journal articles. A journal article has a title/author/year, but also a journal title and volume/issue/page# info. If I stuff it all into the title field, then italics and other styling info makes a mess of it. Am I using the wrong template (is "cite paper" something of a misnomer)? DMacks22:41, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hold on guys. {{cite book}} is for books, and {{cite journal}} is for papers published in academic journals. This template is for other kinds of "papers", for example a thesis, or an essay or paper that has been separately published (including papers on arXiv). See WP:CITET for a complete list of citation templates.--Srleffler00:54, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Since not every thesis is published, can a field be included for the school and department which granted the dissertation? I am not so tricky with css to make the changes myself. Intangible03:29, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Need "pages" parameter
{{editprotected}}
To reinforce Ghent's point above, this template sorely needs a parameter to cite specific pages. (I'd favor the {{cite book}} single "pages" parameter that requires inclusion of the "p." or other text, which is more flexible than the cumbersome "page"/"pages" method.) Citations are supposed to be specific, so that editors can verify that the source actually supports the article text. It is unreasonable to expect people to read an entire paper just to find a quote or check a specific fact. If the citation is general, one can always leave out the pages parameter. ~ Jeff Q(talk)14:50, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Just do it. You could whip-up the new template code under your user space and if there are no objections save it on the template. Conformance with cite book is good. Don't add "p." or "pp." whatever to the template. This should be on the call side for flexibility. See also Template_talk:Cite_web#Pages_parameter. --Ligulem15:30, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
i don't know what the disposition of this long past request, but i'd like to resurrect the request. referencing a multi-paged document without a specific page or page-range is not really very useful. --emerson719:44, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I get the impression from the "Citing a paper, not a book" discussion above that we are assuming this template will be used only for school papers by single authors, up to and including theses. However, there are many kinds of papers used as reliable source material in Wikipedia that are neither academic papers nor are published in books or journals. Here's an example, currently used for Bullshit! and possibly other articles talking about the scientific evidence for global warming:
* {{cite paper
| author = Robert T. Watson et al
| title = Climate Change 2001: Synthesis Report: Summary for Policymakers
| publisher = Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
| date = [[29 September]] [[2001]]
| url = http://www.ipcc.ch/pub/un/syreng/spm.pdf
| format = PDF
| pages = p. 5
| accessdate = 2006-10-18
}}
I see at least three problems with using the current {{cite paper}} for this source:
There are no provisions made for multiple authors.
There is no "pages" parameter or equivalent, which prevents the display of a specific location for the source data (see "Need "pages" parameter" above).
The title is both quoted and italicized, which is not following Wikipedia's style guidelines. Short print works (short stories, articles, etc.) are quoted; long ones (books, plays, etc.) are italicized — never both. (I'm not sure where papers fall, but I suspect they are quoted, even when they are long.)
I tried to find a different template that could be used in a pinch, but the closest I found were {{cite journal}} and {{cite conference}}, both of which assume the cited work is contained with a larger work whose title must be included. The only real solution is to make a template for "papers" cover not only academic but also scientific, business, governmental, and other individually published papers.
I'd appreciate it if someone could address these problems, so that specific sources, like the one above, will display properly and fully. Thank you. ~ Jeff Q(talk)15:22, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I can't comment much on what cite paper is supposed to be used for. It was made by Bookofjude. I Haven't seen him much around here anymore (last contrib was on July 27 2006). Why don't you whip-up a proposal for new code of the template? --Ligulem15:37, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Would it be better to make more specialized templates to replace this one? {{cite dissertation}}, {{cite report}}, etc? I'm only asking because that is the way OpenURLs are divided up. They have a separate thing for dissertations and then a report is considered a genre of book. — Omegatron04:38, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Other version
Could a version without the paragraphs be added? Here is what I mean:
{{cite paper | author = | title = | version = | publisher = | date = | url = | format = | accessdate = }}
I do not know how to add it with this type of template without messing things up. I hate it when people put the extended versions of the citation templates in articles because they are so unwieldy (although the other versions are too when they are filled out). Thanks, Kjkolb05:09, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Would it be possible to add a field like "id =" in Cite book or Cite Cite journal? While many theses and other papers are not published with ISBN, they may have other standard identifiers, such as an {{OCLC}} number. older ≠ wiser14:17, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
While the accessdate is linked, the date isn't. Is there any specific reason for this? Logically, both dates should be linked.Beagel05:24, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, this template should have new fields for specifying the specific section of the paper and the quoted text, like other citation templates. Namely, the fields section, sectionurl, and quote, analogous to the fields chapter, chapterurl and quote of template {{cite book}}. Thanks! —surueña20:10, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That is, to add the following code between the date and the title:
Finally, it is also a good idea to replace the {{/doc}} template with the standarized {{Documentation}}. Thanks again. —surueña 12:40, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
I'll look at this tomorrow or Friday. Don't want to make a mistake on something widely used on so many pages. So, I will need to try these changes on a "sandbox" page to make sure it all works okay. --Aude (talk) 02:34, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Done
Can someone who knows how please take functionality from {{cite book}} and add it here to make this template accept multiple authors? This deficiency was noted above, more than a year ago, but nothing seems to have come of it. Picaroon(t)23:04, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Would an administrator please make the following change to implement this request: Replace lines 14-15:
I'm using it in Millennium Challenge Account, footnote 32, Author=Horace Dawson. I looked at your code in Ibn Said, and the difference is that I'm also using the field "authorlink". When I removed the "authorlink" field from the citation as a test, the coauthors are listed, but I'd like to have the first author wikilinked. appears to be another bug.--Ccson03:36, 2 January 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.34.212.145 (talk) [reply]
{{editprotected}}
I made a 1-line mistake in placement of the coauthors handling, with the result that coauthors= only works without authorlink=. Would an admin please change:
Works; however, it will only print the first eight names listed, the remaining coauthors are not printed. I guess there has to be some limit, maybe just add a comment to inform editors of the limitation.--Ccson (talk) 21:23, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Nope. For example:
{{cite paper |first=Horace |last=Dawson |coauthors=[[Edward Brooke]], [[Henry Ponder]], Vinton R. Anderson, Bobby W. Austin, [[Ron Dellums]], [[Kenton Keith]], Huel D. Perkins, [[Charles Rangel]], [[Cornel West]], Clathan McClain Ross |title=The Centenary Report Of The Alpha Phi Alpha World Policy Council |publisher=Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity |date=July 2006 |format=PDF |url=http://www.alpha-phi-alpha.org/Resources/ImageFile/File/image/WPC06-WEB.pdf |accessdate=2008-01-01}}
Oops! This was the verye example. I reviewed the citation and I had a '|' after the eight name which obviously made it seem like the names after were part of another field. thanks.--Ccson (talk) 17:18, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Doc upgrade
Done{{editprotected}}
Would an administrator please make the following changes to implement the newer {{Documentation}} template:
Done{{editprotected}}
Would an administrator please make the following change to improve the error message for a missing title and to add articles with missing title parameters to Category:Articles with broken citations. This is consistent with the current behavior of {{cite web}} and {{cite news}}.
Replace:
|Error on call to [[Template:cite paper]]: Parameter '''title''' must be specified
with
|You must specify '''''title = ''''' when using {{[[Template:cite paper|cite paper]]}}.
{{#if: {{NAMESPACE}}|| [[Category:Articles with broken citations]]}}
the symbol for a PDF file is not shown in the citation when the format=PDF is chosen. The symbol is shown for other templates such as cite web and cite journal.--Ccson (talk) 13:58, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The PDF icon is an automatic effect of the Wikipedia environment, not an effect of the template. Can you point to an example that isn't working as you expect? RossPatterson (talk) 01:16, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps it's my browser because it's as I described above. I see "(PDF)" for both references but only the second one has the familiar Adobe triangle symbol.--Ccson (talk) 05:19, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I use Opera and the Monobook WP skin, and the Adobe Acrobat icon is clearly present between 'Policy Council' and '" (PDF)'. It works in some browsers and not in others - search WP for "acrobat icon pdf mediawiki" and read the threads if you want to see the history. RossPatterson (talk) 23:26, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Also, can you review the "Multiple authors" section above for a continuing problem where I have listed the test case when the template does not list multiple authors?--Ccson (talk) 05:31, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Where would it go? The code you suggested wouldn't match the formatting of {{cite book}}. I don't disagree with the idea at all, but I think a complete implementation needs to be written first, so people can comment on it. And I think it needs to match the other cite * templates. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:58, 31 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
sorry...bad formatting. i've made the necessary corrections. with regard to location, it should follow established conventions, in this case i suppose after the publisher field. --emerson716:26, 31 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
cite book uses {{#if: {{{language|}}} | (in {{{language}}})}} before the publisher field. Does some other citation template put the language after the publisher? — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:43, 31 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
hmmm...there does seem to be some inconsistencies throughout the wiki-templates. the {{cite web}} series places language 'after' publisher, and displays the language without the 'in'. i really don't have a preference, so as stated earlier, it should follow the applicable established conventions. --emerson719:21, 1 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
{{editprotected}}
The pages parameter needs to be updated to have a '.' and space after it. The page parameter currently runs on into the publisher parameter. See Template_talk:Cite_paper#Need to broaden beyond academic papers section for an example of this. The example currently shows "p. 5Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change." Note that the '5' is part of "Intergovernmental". This could be done by adding a period and space (. (. ampersand pound 32 ;)) at the end of the pages section before the start of the publisher section. --Littleman_TAMU(talk)18:17, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Done the problem was actually that the |publisher= parameter had its full stop and space after it, while all the other parameters had the punctuation before. Happy‑melon18:14, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieval dates for online versions of old printed sources, again
Consensus: We have a consensus that access dates for online copies of offline sources, while helpful as a comment in the source, should be hidden from the reader. Could somebody who is competent to adapt the citation templates please do so? The idea is to keep the access date as a template parameter but remove the code that displays it. Thanks, --EnOreg (talk) 09:21, 5 June 2008 (UTC){{editprotected}}
All it takes is to comment out these two lines:[reply]
}}{{#if: {{{accessdate|}}}
| Retrieved on [[{{{accessdate}}}]].
I agree; I've wrapped the "retrieved on..." in a CSS class (reference-accessdate), so it can be hidden either in personal or sitewide css. I will do the same for the other templates with this editprotected request. Happy‑melon17:48, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The format date tag in the example doesn't match the description of what's required
In the examples on the main page for cite paper, the help says the date field should be an unlinked ISO 8601 date (I've checked and this works correctly), yet the examples of the template use 'date=1968' etc. Clearly, this is misleading. Could the examples be updated to use a correctly-formatted date? Thanks Rjwilmsi23:55, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
{{cite paper|author=[[Preserved Smith]]|title=Luther's Table Talk: a critical study|version=PhD thesis|publisher=Columbia University|date=1907}}
which formats to the following:
Preserved Smith (1907). "Luther's Table Talk: a critical study". PhD thesis. Columbia University. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
Note the two periods after "PhD thesis", so it looks like this: "PhD thesis. ." Also, no period after "Columbia University". Can this be fixed? Thanks. Eubulides (talk) 02:06, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The publisher= and id= parameters are mis-processed. Everything else in the template ends an item with a closing period (if any), but these two begin with closing periods for the previous items without noting if they were specfied or not. Your citation gets its two periods by not having a pages= parameter, which is displayed just before publisher=. The code:
In addition, although it doesn't cause this problem, there's a mistake in the version= parameter - it ends with a trailing  , where everything else starts with a leading one. The code:
I don't see it in the docs, does this template support "archiveurl" and "archivedate" to update inactive links? Perhaps I'm totally misinterpreting "archive", but compare to {{Cite news}}. The citation instance I've hacked in an archive link for is at [1]. Thanks! Franamax (talk) 01:09, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Cite template standardisation
Cite web option for editor-set date styles
See Template talk:Cite web#Working version and final discussion re proposed new parameter of datestyle. As a default it leaves date/accessdate/archive date as wikified dates as is the current case. However if specified it would show unlinked but formated dates as "=dmy" 23 October 2007 as "=mdy" October 23, 2007 or as "=ymd" 2007 October 23. Given ideally cite templates should be consistant, should such a proposal be implemented here too ? Please discuss at the above link. David RubenTalk19:45, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think it would be more intuitive to add in an actual doi=parameter like {{cite journal}} instead of being forced to use id={{doi:10.xxxx}}|. The code seems to be able to be copied directly from {{cite journal}} placed right after the id section. Without this change the User:DOI bot will have to be fixed as it replaced the kludgy id format with doi= expecting it to work. See [2] for a "bad" edit.
{{#if:{{{doi|}}}
|. [[Digital object identifier|doi]]:{{#if: {{{doi_brokendate|}}}
| {{#tag:nowiki|{{{doi}}}}} (inactive [[{{{doi_brokendate|}}}]]) {{#ifeq: {{NAMESPACE}} | {{ns:0}} | [[Category:Pages with DOIs broken since {{#time: Y | {{{doi_brokendate|}}} }}]] }}
| <span class="neverexpand">[http://dx.doi.org/{{urlencode:{{{doi}}}}} {{#tag:nowiki|{{{doi}}}}}]</span>
}}
}}
If I use this template without specifying an author, there is an extra dot at the begining (presumably after the empty author field). Can someone correct this? Svick (talk) 22:52, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Odd formatting
In Marc lachance, I tried using this template to cite a doctoral dissertation.
{{cite paper | last=Davidson | first=Michael McKenney | title=An Annotated Database of 102 Selected Published Works for Trombone Requiring Multiphonics | version=D.M.A. dissertation | pages=8 | publisher=University of Cincinnati | date=August 2005 | url=http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/send-pdf.cgi?ucin1123258603 | format=PDF | accessdate=2008-11-04}} displayed as:
This looks unusual particularly in the formatting of the page and institution as "8 University of Cincinnati". Does anyone have suggestions as to how this could be reformatted? Furthermore, is this template really intended for citation of academic theses and dissertations in the first place? If so, the documentation should reflect that better. --Metropolitan90(talk)01:15, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Cite journal can handle papers without journal parameters. It already has all the parameters of Cite Paper, and more. To produce a consistent output, please replace the source of this template with
Disabling the edit request, as this would indeed remove a parameter, and I do not see evidence of consensus to remove the parameter. Pagrashtak20:53, 14 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I should admit you are right (I undid the change). This template should probably be redirected to cite journal when it supports necessary parameters. Ruslik (talk) 07:55, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This habit of playing with the code and ignoring the documentation is crap! First off, what does the version parameter mean? It is not properly documented. Perpetuating a parameter without knowing what it means is wrong. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 17:38, 14 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This issue has been raised a few times before but I couldn't see an answer anywhere (apologies if I missed something). Per a question raised at a FAC page, this template assigns both italics and quotes to the titles automatically. As with songs and album names, or short stories and novels, normally you'd either use quote marks (for short works) or italics (for longer ones) but not both. What was the rationale for applying both here? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:09, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Looking forward to an answer to this question (which I raised at the above-mentioned FAC). Per WP:MOSTITLE, titles of papers should generally be displayed in quote marks only; italics might be proper for the title of the occasional very long paper, but I see no case for using both. Maralia (talk) 23:50, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]