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Research dossier · General Reference

Cover date

Date shown on a periodical

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 10, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

The cover date of a periodical publication is the date displayed on the cover, which is not necessarily the true date of publication ; later cover dates are common in magazine and comic book publishing. More unusually, Le Monde is a daily newspaper published the afternoon before its cover date. For some publications, the cover date may not be found on the cover, but rather on an inside jacket or on an interior page.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Cover date” as date shown on a periodical. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Cover, date and Date.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current 74-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Cover, date and Date providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Cover date”, the useful work is to connect “date shown on a periodical” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 10, 2026.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Cover date”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Cover date primary sources, Cover date archive and Cover research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Cover date”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Cover date” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.