Template:Dictionary of National Biography
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
 | This template is used on approximately 9,600 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. |
 | This template uses Lua: |
Quick explanation (aide-mémoire)
The template can be placed in different locations and depending on the what it is required the parameters can be mixed and matched:
| Location | Parameters | Example | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| ==References== | {{DNB|wstitle=DNB name}} |  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Abbadie, Jacques". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. |
DNB name is the name of the article on Wikisource. All DNB articles are available there. |
| ==References== | {{DNB|wstitle=|first=|last=|authorlink=|volume=|page=}} | This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Firth, Charles Harding (1896). "Reynolds, John (d.1657)". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 48. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 47. |
some additional information: first and last names of the author of the article, link to the author's page on WP, the volume and page [number]. |
| inline citation | {{DNB|inline=1|wstitle=DNB name}} | One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Abbadie, Jacques". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. |
inline=1. Alters the prescript from "This article..." to "One or more...". Suitable for noting that a paragraph is copied from DNB. |
| inline citation | {{DNB|prescript=|wstitle=DNB name}} | "Abbadie, Jacques". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. |
prescript=. Removes the prescript suitable for a citation where a paragraph is a summary of a paragraph from an DNB article and not a copy. title= for no copy on Wikisource. NB. {{Cite DNB}} is more appropriate for this task. |
| ==Further reading== | {{DNB|no-icon=1|prescript=|wstitle=DNB name}} | "Abbadie, Jacques". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. | no-icon=1 remove the lead icon, prescript= removes the prescript. NB. {{Cite DNB}} is more appropriate for this task. |
| ==External links== | {{DNB|no-icon=1|prescript=|wstitle=DNB name}} | "Abbadie, Jacques". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. | no-icon=1, remove the lead icon prescript= removes the prescript as the source is not used in the article. NB. {{Cite DNB}} is more appropriate for this task. |
Deprecated historical template usage
The DNB template predates the availability of the DNB articles at Wikisource and has evolved over time. In the past, editors used the "title=" and "url=" parameters to point to articles in non-Wikisource copies of the DNB, often scans of marginal quality. As of 2013, all DNB articles are available at Wikisource, so pointing non-Wikisource articles is deprecated: use wstitle instead to point to the Wikisource DNB article. If you encounter one of these older template instances, please convert it. If you feel that the pointer to a non-wikisource instance is better for some reason, please put a wiki comment next to the template to explain why and comment on the talk page at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dictionary of National Biography. Except for a very few anonymous articles, each article has an attributed author. Please use the information at Wikisource to fill in the "last=", "first=", and (when it exists) "authorlink=" parameters. The "volume=" and "page=" parameters are also easy to fill in, but are less critical.
Detailed notes
This template is wrapper around {{Cite DNB}}. In its default mode it attributes text to an article from the [Old] Dictionary of National Biography.
{{Cite DNB}} automatically sets some of the parameters before calling {{Cite encyclopedia}} for example "publisher = Smith, Elder & Co". Over and above the standard parameter passed into {{Cite encyclopedia}} there are some additional parameters and those are listed below in a separate table from the table of parameters passed into {{Cite encyclopedia}}.
Minimum is: {{DNB|wstitle=DNB article name}}[nb 1] Full set is:{{DNB|wstitle=|display=|prescript=|no-icon=|inline=|author=|last=|first=|authorlink=|coauthors=|title=|url=|accessdate=|volume=|page=|pages=|ref=|mode=|supplement=}}
| Parameter | Note |
|---|---|
| wstitle=name of the article on wikisource | Should always be present. Sets link to DNB article on wikisource. (unsets title and url if they are also set.) |
| inline=1 | Changes the default prescript from "This article" to "One or more of the preceding sentences". Useful for inline citations (see inline examples in the previous section). |
| no-icon=1 | Suppresses the lead icon (useful with {{Wikisource-inline}}). |
| section=name of a section in a DNB article on wikisource | Optional. Sometimes the subject of a biography may be appended to a more prominent family member. This parameter can be used as an addition to wstitle to link to such an appended biography. |
| display=text | Optional. It will display the text on the wikipedia page in place of content of the parameters wstitle= or title=. This can be useful when the name of the article on Wikisource does not match the original (eg for disambiguation purposes), or to allow the display on Wikipedia of an ndash for date ranges in place of the dash currently used on Wikisource |
| prescript=alternative prescript | prescript can either be set to an alternative string of text (in which case add to the end of the string as a separator from the first word of the citation); or if set with no string it will remove prescript string from in front of the citation. |
| Parameter | Set to | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| last= | author= or last= | Set the value of last= or not set. |
| first= | first= | Set to the value of first= or not set |
| authorlink= | authorlink= | Set to the value of authorlink= or not set |
| coauthors= | coauthors= | Do not use. each DNB article has a single author |
| editor= | Sidney Leslie [or Stephen Lee] | Not set, unless the volume parameter then the editor parameter is automatically set within the template. |
| encyclopedia= | Dictionary of National Biography | Automatically set within the template |
| title= | wstitle= or title= | Set to wstitle= if set, if not to title=, if not set then left blank. |
| url= | url= | Set to the value of url= unless wstitle= is set in which case it is not set. |
| accessdate= | accessdate= | Set to the value of accessdate= or not set |
| language= | en | Set by default within the wrapped template |
| edition= | Not set | |
| date= | Not set (see year) | |
| year= | Not set, or if the volume parameter is set, then set to the year that the volume was first published. Can be overwritten by explicitly setting year eg year=1900b | |
| month= | Not set | |
| publisher= | Smith, Elder & Co | automatically set within the template |
| volume= | volume= | Set to the value of volume= or not set |
| location= | London | Automatically set within the template |
| id= | Not set | |
| isbn= | Not set | |
| oclc= | Not set | |
| doi= | Not set | |
| page= | page= | Set to the value of page= or not set |
| pages= | pages= | Set to the value of pages= or not set |
| quote= | quote= | Set to the value of quote= or not set |
| ref= | Set to the value of ref= or set automatically within the template. This means that {{sfn}} and {{harvnb}} link to this template as intended. (If you need to ask don't worry about it) | |
| mode= | Not set. Sets element separator, default terminal punctuation, and certain capitalization according to the value provided (see {{cite encyclopedia}} for details) |
Hidden category
This template includes one of three hidden subcategories of category Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the Dictionary of National Biography.
- If
{{DNB|wstitle=name}}is used: Category:Articles incorporating DNB text with Wikisource reference is included. - otherwise Category:Articles incorporating DNB text without Wikisource reference is included.
- If an unnamed parameter is set then the article name is listed in Category:Articles incorporating DNB template with an unnamed parameter
The categories do not appear at the bottom of the article page, but the article is listed on the category page.
See also
Citation templates:
{{Cite DNB}}, main dictionary{{Cite DNBSupp}}, 1901 supplement{{Cite DNB12}}, 1912 supplement{{Cite DNBIE}}, Index and Epitome
Attribution templates:
{{DNB}}, main dictionary{{DNBSupp}}, 1901 supplement{{DNB12}}, 1912 supplement{{DNBIE}}, Index and Epitome
Poster templates for use in an article's external links section:
{{DNB poster}}, main dictionary{{DNBSupp poster}}, 1901 supplement{{DNB12 poster}}, 1912 supplement
Others:
Notes
- ↑ It will also work with no parameters, but that sets a category flagging that no article name has been given, as it is not much use to the reader to inform them that a Wikipedia article contains some text copied from somewhere in the 64-volumes of the Dictionary of National Biography!