Template:Quote/doc/boilerplate

General usage of block quotations in articles

WP:Manual of Style § Block quotations calls for formatting block quotations using the {{Quote}} template (or the underlying <blockquote> HTML element).

• Block-quotation markup of any kind is used only for substantial material (multiple sentences, or a very long sentence). Short quotations are given inline with the rest of the material. see WP:Manual of Style#Quotations for more information.
• Quotations work best when concise and highly relevant, and preceded by context establishing who is being quoted.
• Wikipedia does not use pull quotes – magazine-style highlighting of quotations at the start or end of a section, as a hint (teaser) of forthcoming content or to emphasize a particular section.
• Avoid undue emphasis: Typical block quotations in mainspace (articles) use normal block-quotation markup as described above. Several templates provide alternative formatting options, but usually are not appropriate in articles, where they look like pull quotes and result in undue emphasis on a particular party's statement. However, they can be effective on essay pages, wikiproject pages, and user pages.
  • {{Quote frame}} provides a bordered quote with a faint background shade, defaulting to the article width, but resizable and usable as a left or right sidebar. {{Quote box}} also does this, and is likely to merge into the former. This style can be appropriate for document excerpts in an article (serving a function similar to an illustration but with textual content for analysis in the article). When used around an individual or organizational quotation, it usually results in undue emphasis.
  • {{Cquote}} provides a borderless quote with decorative quotation marks, spanning the article width; {{Rquote}} is a resizable variant usable as a sidebar (and it may also get merged). A reasonable use in mainspace is around famous quotations that are the subjects of their own sections. Using this style in articles for general block quotations usually also results in undue emphasis.
  • There are several other variants for specialized layout situations, mostly for the user and project namespaces.
  • Inappropriate use of decorative, emphasizing quotation templates in articles should be converted to {{Quote}}. This may require creating a proper introduction for the quotation, to merge it into the article flow, as misuses of these templates tend to be isolated non sequitur pull quotes.
• Attribution and citations: In articles, attribution is almost always in the introductory line before the quotation, which is also where the reference citation goes (it it is not part of the quoted material). The templates' attribution parameters are typically only of use in a sidebar or (outside of mainspace) in a pull quote. A common mistake is to attribute and cite in the intro sentence, then do it again in the template, just to try to use more template parameters. If the attribution parameters are used, then the reference citation goes at the end of them.
• Follow copyright policy; block quotation templates are not for excerpting excessive amounts of text from sources.
• Block quotations are only for quoted material. To indent non-quotations, see {{Block indent}}.

Template documentation

This is shared documentation verbiage transcluded into the /doc pages of Template:Quote and everything in Category:Enhanced quote templates.

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