<cite>

The HTML <cite> element represents a reference to a creative work. It must include the title of a work or a URL reference, which may be in an abbreviated form according to the conventions used for the addition of citation metadata.

Content categories	Flow content, phrasing content, palpable content.
Permitted content	Phrasing content.
Tag omission	None, both the starting and ending tag are mandatory.
Permitted parents	Any element that accepts phrasing content.
Permitted ARIA roles	Any
DOM interface	HTMLElement Up to Gecko 1.9.2 (Firefox 4) inclusive, Firefox implements the HTMLSpanElement interface for this element.

Attributes

This element only includes the global attributes.

Usage notes

• A creative work may include a book, a paper, an essay, a poem, a score, a song, a script, a film, a TV show, a game, a sculpture, a painting, a theater production, a play, an opera, a musical, an exhibition, a legal case report, a computer program, a web site, a web page, a blog post or comment, a forum post or comment, a tweet, a written or oral statement, etc.
• The W3C spec states that a reference to a creative work may include the author's name, while WHATWG has declared that it may not include a person's name under any circumstances.
• Use the cite attribute on a <blockquote> or <q> element to reference an online resource for a source.
• To avoid the default italic style from being used for the <cite> element use the CSS font-style property.

Example

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

The HTML above outputs:

More information can be found in [ISO-0000].

Specifications

Specification	Status	Comment
WHATWG HTML Living Standard The definition of '<cite>' in that specification.	Living Standard
HTML5 The definition of '<cite>' in that specification.	Recommendation
HTML 4.01 Specification The definition of '<cite>' in that specification.	Recommendation

Browser compatibility

See also

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