Help:Style Manual

The Style Manual is a guide that aims to make the RomanceWiki easier to read and edit. Because one way of presenting information is often just as good as another, choosing a consistent style promotes professionalism, simplicity and greater cohesion in our articles.

Article Titles

Initial Capitals

Article pages on RomanceWiki and book pages specifically should be initial cap style like this

[[Pride And Prejudice]]

This is different from the style used on Wikipedia, and different from what is known as "title case" (which might be Pride and Prejudice). This makes it easier to find and link to other pages. All the words are initial capitalized.

Spaces

When an author's name includes initials followed by a period or abbreviation followed by a period, there is no consistent style about whether to include a space after the period. If possible you should follow the way the author's name appears in print. If you don't know, include a space after the period. For example, the name

Cheryl St. John - best guess v. Cheryl St.John - preferred by the author

C. J. Barry - best guess v. CJ Barry on her web site

A redirect page can always be created to direct someone searching for a name in one style to the author's preferred style.

Author - Same Name

If there is more than one author with the same name (see Help:Authors With Same Name), the syntax should be the full name, space, dash, space, number (the number depending on how many authors with that same title already are listed here), like this

[[Kathryn Blair - 1]]

Books - Same Title

If there is more than one book with the same title (see Help:Same Title Multiple Authors), the syntax should be

[[Obsession - Monica Burns]]

Ampersands

If there is an ampersand (&) in the title, it is better to spell it out as and because some browsers have trouble finding page titles with the ampersand.

Using Article Titles

Same Page

For book pages there is no need to repeat the title of the book in the body of the page. Generally follow Help:Book Template for the format of the book pages. The headings for author, publisher, year, etc. make it easier to identify the important information about the books.

For author pages and other articles, the title is the subject of the first sentence of the article, for example, “Jane Austen is an author...” instead of “This article is about …”. The title of the article can be surrounded by triple apostrophes ( ''' ) or enclosed with double brackets ([[Title]]) and this will make the title appear in boldface.

The first (and only the first) appearance of the title is in boldface. It is a good idea to include any abbreviation for the title the first time it appears in the article.

This example illustrates the use of boldface in the Romance Writers of America article:

Romance Writers of America (RWA) was founded in Houston, Texas, in 1980 by 37 charter members.

Links

When you refer to another article, the title should be enclosed in double brackets like this

[[Jane Austen]]

This makes these references into links (Jane Austen) to that relevant page, such as to the publisher, genre, other authors and books, and leads the reader to other articles that might be of interest to them.

If the page within the double brackets does not yet exist, it will show up as a red link, for example, Emma. This is okay. You can go ahead a leave the red link in place. You can use that link to create the article, or for someone in the future to create that article.

To link to a particular section in an article, add a "#" and the section heading like this

[[Resources#Publications]]

This will make a link (Resources#Publications) that will take you to the publications part of the Resources page. To make the link pretty, see piped links below.

Book Titles Italicized

Book titles are generally italicized within an article or in lists:

''[[Pride And Prejudice]]'' results in Pride And Prejudice.

Note: Italics are create by using double apostrophes ( '' ) not quotation marks, or using the capital "I" button above the edit frame.

Novella titles are not italicized, but are within quote marks - "Novella."

The title of an anthology of novellas is italicized - Bad Boys Ahoy!.

Italic Book Links

Although the book title is within italic double apostrophes, the apostrophes must be outside the double brackets, or the link will not work; however, internal italicization can be used in piped links (next section).

Incorrect:	The book [[''Pride And Prejudice'']] is her best.
Correct:	The book ''[[Pride And Prejudice]]'' is her best.
Correct:	The book [[Pride And Prejudice|''Pride & Prejudice'']] was her best.

Pipes

The | ("pipe") allows you to change the way linked text is displayed in an article regardless of the actual name of the page to which you are linking.

To make a book with an ampersand in the title appear correctly on another article page, use the | ("pipe")

[[Pride And Prejudice|''Pride & Prejudice'']]

then only Pride & Prejudice will show up in the article.

Another example of this is when you have a book page with the author's name in the title: [[Obsession - Monica Burns]].

When you link to that page from another article, use the pipe

[[Obsession - Monica Burns|''Obsession'']]

and it will show up as Obsession.

Sections And Headings

Headings and subheadings break an article into sections and provide an overview in the table of contents. This allow readers to navigate through the text more easily, and is particularly appropriate for breaking up longer articles. Help:Book Template and Help:Author Template suggest certain standard headings for the articles.

Markup

Unspaced multiple equal signs are the style markup for headings (also called section titles). Because the headings are already bold, you don't need to use the triple apostrophes ( ''' ).

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

==Sections and headings==

Note: This heading is also created by choosing the large capital "A" button above the edit box.

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

===Markup===

Wording

Headings and subheadings should be:

• Initially capitalized - all words in the section heading
• Kept short - more than 10 words may defeat the purpose
• Without articles (a, an, the) and pronouns (you, they) if possible; and
• Unique - the wording is, where possible, not identical to that of any other heading or subheading in the article.

Section Management

• Because you can link to directly to the headings and subheadings on a particular page (see Links, above), only change the headings after careful consideration, because this will break any section links to them from the same and other articles.
• If you refer to a section without linking, you can italicize the section name; for example, you are now reading the section on Section management.

Capital letters

The general style at RomanceWiki is for titles to be in initial capitals as explained above Initial Capitals.

Titles of articles, books, etc., should not in in all capitals. 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. 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 you have 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. Don't italicize the period, question mark, etc.

Italicized links

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

Incorrect:	The book [[''Pride And Prejudice'']] is her best.
Correct:	The book ''[[Pride And Prejudice]]'' is her best.
Correct:	The book [[Pride And Prejudice|''Pride & Prejudice'']] was her best.

Categories

Categories should also be in initial cap style like this

[[Category:Adding Content To The Romance Wiki]]

On RomanceWiki we place the categories at the top of the page, even though when the page is saved the categories show up at the bottom of the page.

Note: Check Special:Categories for a list of categories that have already been created.