<cite>: The Citation element

The HTML Citation element (<cite>) is used to describe a reference to a cited creative work, and must include either the title or author or the URL of that work. The reference may be in an abbreviated form according to context-appropriate conventions related to citation metadata.

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Attributes

This element only includes the global attributes.

Usage notes

In the context of the <cite> element, a creative work that might be cited could be, for example, one of the following:

It's worth noting that the W3C specification says that a reference to a creative work, as included within a <cite> element, may include the name of the work’s author. However, the WHATWG specification for <cite> says the opposite: that a person’s name must never be included, under any circumstances.

To include a reference to the source of quoted material which is contained within a <blockquote> or <q> element, use the cite attribute on the element.

Typically, browsers style the contents of a <cite> element in italics by default. To avoid this, apply the CSS font-style property to the <cite> element.

Example

<p>More information can be found in <cite>[ISO-0000]</cite>.</p>

The HTML above outputs:

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

• The element <blockquote> for long quotations.
• The element <q> for inline quotations.