Help:Style Manual

The Manual of Style is a style guide that aims to make the encyclopedia easier to read. One way of presenting information is often just as good as another, but consistency promotes professionalism, simplicity and greater cohesion in Wikipedia articles. An overriding principle is that style and formatting should be applied consistently throughout an article, unless there is a good reason to do otherwise, except in direct quotations, where the original text is generally preserved.

If this page does not specify a preferred usage, consult other reliable guides, such as those listed below, or discuss your issues on the talk page of this manual. The Chicago Manual of Style and Fowler’s Modern English Usage are examples of well-known style guides. Chicago provides an online guide, The Chicago Manual of Style Online. The Guardian Styleguide, the Mayfield Electronic Handbook of Technical & Scientific Writing and the CMS Crib Sheet are among online style guides that are accessible gratis.

Article titles

If possible, the article’s title is the subject of the first sentence of the article, for example, “This Manual of Style is a style guide” instead of “This style guide is known as …”. If the article title is an important term, it appears as early as possible. The first (and only the first) appearance of the title is in boldface, including its abbreviation in parentheses, if given. Equivalent names may follow, and may or may not be in boldface. Highlighted items are not linked, and boldface is not used subsequently in the first paragraph.

This example illustrates the use of boldface in the Vienna article:

Vienna (Template:Lang-de Template:IPA, see also its other names) is the capital of Austria and one of that country’s nine states.

The normal rules for italics are followed in choosing whether to put part or all of the title in italics:

Tattoo You is an album by The Rolling Stones, released in 1981.

If the topic of an article has no name, and the title is simply descriptive—such as Electrical characteristics of a dynamic loudspeaker—the title does not need to appear verbatim in the main text; if it does, it is not in boldface:

A dynamic loudspeaker driver’s chief electrical characteristics can be shown as a curve, representing the …

How to edit a page gives advice on making items bold, italic, or both.

Sections and headings

Markup

Unspaced multiple equal signs are the style markup for headings (also called section titles). The triple apostrophes ( ''' ) that make words appear in boldface are not used in headings.

The heading for the section you are now reading was created with double equal signs:

==Sections and headings==

The heading for the current subsection was created with triple equal signs:

===Markup===

Wording

In headings and subheadings:

• only the first letter of the first word, and the first letter of proper nouns are capitalized; all other letters are in lower case (for example, “Rules and regulations”, not “Rules and Regulations”);
• special characters such as the slash (/), plus sign (+), curly brackets ({ }) and square brackets ([ ]) are avoided, and the ampersand (&) is spelled out as and unless it is part of a formal name;
• links are never used, in favor of linking the first occurrence of the item in the section text;
• the wording tends to be short (more than 10 words may defeat the purpose);
• articles (a, an, the) and pronouns (you, they) are typically avoided unless part of a formal name; and
• the wording is, where possible, not identical to that of any other heading or subheading in the article.

Section management

• Headings and subheadings provide an overview in the table of contents and allow readers to navigate through the text more easily. Subheadings are particularly appropriate for breaking up longer sections.
• Headings and subheadings are changed only after careful consideration, because this will break any section links to them from the same and other articles.
• If you link to a section, leave an editor’s note to remind others that the title is linked. List the names of the linking articles, so that if the title is altered, others can fix the links more easily. For example: ==Evolutionary implications==<!-- This section is linked from [[Richard Dawkins]] and [[Daniel Dennett]] --> .
• If you refer to a section without linking, italicize the section name; for example, you are now reading the section on Section management.
• If you link to a section, italicize the section name only if it otherwise requires italics (for example, if it is the title of a book). Linking a term provides sufficient indication that you are using a term as a term, which is what you would otherwise use italics for.
• If you change a section title, try to locate and fix broken links; for example, searching for wikipedia “section management” will probably yield links to the current section.

Capital letters

Template:Main There are differences between the major varieties of English in the use of capitals (uppercase letters). Where this is an issue, the rules of the cultural and linguistic context apply. As for spelling, consistency is maintained within an article.

Capitals are not used for emphasis. Where wording cannot provide the emphasis, italics are used.

Incorrect:	Contrary to common belief, aardvarks are Not the same as anteaters.
Incorrect:	Contrary to common belief, aardvarks are NOT the same as anteaters.
Correct:	Contrary to common belief, aardvarks are not the same as anteaters.

Italics

Emphasis

Italics are used sparingly to emphasize words in sentences (bolding is normally not used at all for this purpose). Generally, the more highlighting in an article, the less the effect of each instance.

Titles

Italics are used for the titles of works of literature and art such as books, paintings and musical albums. The titles of articles, chapters, songs and other short works are not italicized but are enclosed in double quotation marks.

Words as words

Italics are used when citing a word or letter (see use–mention distinction). For example, “The term panning is derived from panorama, a word coined in 1787.” “The most commonly used letter in English is e.”

Quotations in italics

An entire quotation is not italicized solely because it is a quotation.

Italics within quotations

Italics are used within quotations if they are in the source material, or to add emphasis; if the latter, an editorial note “[emphasis added]” appears at the end of the quotation. For example: “Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince: And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.” [emphasis added]

If the source uses italics for emphasis, and it is desirable to stress that Wikipedia has not added the italics, the editorial note “[emphasis in original]” appears after the quote.

Effect on nearby punctuation

Italicization is restricted to what should properly be affected by italics, and not the surrounding punctuation.

Incorrect:	What are we to make of that?
Correct:	What are we to make of that?
		(The question mark applies to the whole sentence, not just to that.)
Correct:	Four of Patrick White’s most famous novels are A Fringe of Leaves, The Aunt’s Story, Voss and The Tree of Man.
		(The commas and and are not italicized.)

Italicized links

The italic markup must be outside the link markup, or the link will not work; however, internal italicization can be used in piped links.

Incorrect:	The opera [[''Turandot'']] is his best.
Correct:	The opera ''[[Turandot]]'' is his best.
Correct:	The [[USS Adder (SS-3)|USS ''Adder'' (SS-3)]] was a submarine.

Quotation marks

Double or single

We use “double quotes”, and ‘single quotes’ for quotations within quotations.

Inside or outside

Punctuation marks are placed inside the quote marks only if the sense of the punctuation is part of the quotation (this system is referred to as logical quotation).

Correct:	Arthur said that the situation is “deplorable”.
		(When a sentence fragment is quoted, the period is outside.)
Correct:	Arthur said, “The situation is deplorable.”
		(The period is part of the quoted text.)
Incorrect:	Martha asked, “Are you coming”?
		(When quoting a question, the question mark is inside because the quoted text itself was a question.)
Correct:	Did Martha say, “Come with me”?
		(The very quote is being questioned, so here, the question mark is correctly outside; the period is omitted.)

Article openings

When the title of an article appearing in the lead paragraph requires quotation marks (for example, the title of a song or poem), the quotation marks should not be in boldface, as they are not part of the title:

Correct:

“Jabberwocky” is a nonsense poem by Lewis Carroll.

Wikipedia:Manual of Style