Template:Summarize/sandbox

This section should include a summary of or be summarized in another article. See Wikipedia:Summary style for information on how to incorporate it into this article's main text, or the main text of another article.

This is the template sandbox page for Template:Summarize (diff).
See also the companion subpage for test cases.

Template documentation[view] [edit] [history] [purge]

This template is intended for articles which should be (but are not) summarized in another article (usually a 'parent' article; i.e. they are a subarticle of the 'parent'). That other article may omit that aspect of the topic entirely or only have it in a 'see also' section. They may also be given a section that consists only of {{main}}, without any actual summary being provided (i.e. just the link). Using this template raises awareness of the problem on both the specific and general level. Note that some material may not be summarized because authors feel that doing so would not improve the quality of the article, e.g. popular culture sections.

Usage notes

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For an article which should have a summary of it added to another article, use the |to (a.k.a. |at, a.k.a. |in) parameter and give the title of the other article if you know it:

{{summarize|to|Barack Obama}}

produces:

This article should be summarized in Barack Obama and a link provided from there to here using the {{Main}} template. See guidance in Wikipedia:Summary style.

{{summarize|from|Barack Obama|section=y}}

produces:

This section should include a summary of Barack Obama. See Wikipedia:Summary style for information on how to incorporate it into this article's main text.

An optional |date= parameter can be added, to date the notice. Add "|date=" to the template with the date of the template's application

{{summarize|to|Barack Obama|date=September 2025}}

produces:

This article should be summarized in Barack Obama and a link provided from there to here using the {{Main}} template. See guidance in Wikipedia:Summary style. (September 2025)

An optional |brevity=y parameter can be added, that will insert a request that the summary be brief. This can be used to request that regular editors of a major article summarize it (or a section of it, with |section=y), in brief, at another article that you specify:

{{summarize|to|Barack Obama|brevity=y}}

produces:

This article should be briefly summarized in Barack Obama and a link provided from there to here using the {{Main}} template. See guidance in Wikipedia:Summary style.

This parameter is mutually exclusive of |better=.

This feature can also be used to flag an existing summary as too long:

{{summarize|from|Barack Obama|section=y|brevity=y}}

produces

This section should include only a brief summary of Barack Obama. See Wikipedia:Summary style for information on how to properly incorporate it into this article's main text.

This usage (section-specific, and tagged for brevity), which is also provided by the shortcut template {{Summary too long}}, will categorize the articles in Category:Articles containing overly long summaries, a hidden cleanup category; to suppress this categorization, use |nocat=y.

An optional |better=y parameter can be added, that will insert a request that the summary be more complete. This can be used to request that regular editors of a major article summarize a subtopical article (especially after a WP:SPLIT better in the main article, per WP:SUMMARY style; this is usually used in a particular section, with the |section=y parameter:

{{summarize|from|Barack Obama|better=y|section=y}}

produces:

This section should include a better summary of Barack Obama. See Wikipedia:Summary style for information on how to properly incorporate it into this article's main text.

This parameter is mutually exclusive of |brevity=. As with the brevity parameter, this one can also be used with |to=, not just |from=:

{{summarize|to|List of presidents of the United States#Barack Obama|better=y}}

produces:

This article should be better summarized in List of presidents of the United States#Barack Obama and a link provided from there to here using the {{Main}} template. See guidance in Wikipedia:Summary style.

Notes

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The to/from and article title parameters are optional, but it is highly recommend that you fill them out so that people know why the template is there.
If the page name you provide in the article title parameter does not exist, the template will display without the article name (it will still make sense, but vaguely suggest only "another article".