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This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style.

It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

Shortcuts

The Manual of Style is a style guide that aims to make the encyclopedia easy to read. One way of presenting information is often as good as another, but consistency is useful in making the encyclopedia easier to write and read. The project will probably achieve greater cohesion if the guidelines are followed.

The Manual of Style does not claim to be the last word on Wikipedia style—everything here should be applied with thought, not robotically. These are not rigid laws, but principles that editors have found to work well in most circumstances. Thus, you are encouraged to follow these guidelines with flexibility. If a rule keeps you from writing an informative, useful encyclopedia, ignore it.

Which style to use

If this page does not specify which usage is preferred:

use other reliable resources, such as the style guides listed below;
discuss your problems or propose style guidance on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style;
simply look around—research the edit-history pages of worthy articles to see how editors have put them together.

Examples of authoritative style guides are: The Chicago Manual of Style and Fowler’s Modern English Usage. Chicago provides an online guide, the Chicago Manual of Style Online. Style guides available at no cost are the Mayfield Electronic Handbook of Technical & Scientific Writing and the CMS Crib Sheet.

Disputes over style issues

In June 2005, the Arbitration Committee ruled that, when either of two styles is acceptable, it is inappropriate for an editor to change from one style to another unless there is a substantial reason to do so. For example, it is acceptable to change from American to British spelling if the article concerns a British topic, and vice versa. Revert warring over optional styles is unacceptable. Editors should ensure that articles are internally consistent. If an article has been stable in a given style, it is not converted without a style-independent reason. Where in doubt, editors defer to the style used by the first major contributor. See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jguk.

National varieties of English below provides an example.

Article titles

If possible, the article’s topic 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 (German: Wien [viːn], 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—like Effects of Hurricane Isabel in Delaware or 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 lowercase (for example, “Rules and regulations”, not “Rules and Regulations”);
special characters—such as the slash (/), plus sign (+), curly braces ({}) and square braces ([])—are avoided, and the word “and” is spelled out in place of an ampersand (&), unless the ampersand is part of a formal name;
links are avoided 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, and the) are typically avoided, and never occur first;
pronouns are avoided; and
the wording is 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== .
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, googling wikipedia “section management” will probably yield links to the current section.

Capital letters

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.

Against common belief, aardvarks are Not the same as anteaters.
Against common belief, aardvarks are NOT the same as anteaters.
Against common belief, aardvarks are not the same as anteaters.

Titles

When used as titles (that is, followed by a name), items such as president, king and emperor start with a capital letter: President Nixon, not president Nixon. The formal name of an office is treated as a proper noun: “Hirohito was Emperor of Japan” and “Louis XVI was King of France” (where King of France is a title). Royal titles are capitalized: Her Majesty and His Highness; exceptions may apply for particular offices.
When used generically, such items are in lower case: “De Gaulle was the French president” and “Louis XVI was the French king”. Similarly, “Three prime ministers attended the conference”, but “The British Prime Minister is Gordon Brown”. (A rule of thumb is this: when the modifier is the specific article the, we use Prime Minister; when the non-specific a applies, we use prime minister).
For the use of titles and honorifics in biographical articles, see Honorific prefixes.

Religions, deities, philosophies, doctrines, and their adherents

Religions and their followers, and the related adjectives, start with a capital letter. The Latter Day Saint movement has particular capitalization and naming conventions.
Deities start with a capital letter: God, Allah, Freya, the Lord, the Supreme Being and the Messiah (articles such as the are not capitalized). The same is true when referring to major religious figures, such as Muhammad, by terms such as the Prophet. Transcendent ideas in the Platonic sense start with a capital letter, as in Good and Truth. Pronouns referring to deities, or nouns (other than names) referring to a material or abstract representation of a deity, human or otherwise, do not begin with a capital letter. Thus, while it is correct to say “He prayed to Wotan”, since Wotan in this case is a proper name, “He prayed to the God Wotan” should be “He prayed to the god Wotan”. Thus, the following sentence is correct: “It was thought that he prayed to God, but it turned out that he prayed to one of the Norse gods.”
Mythical creatures such as elves, fairies, nymphs and genies do not start with a capital letter. There are exceptions in some works of fantasy, such as those of JRR Tolkien, where initial capitals are used to indicate that the mythical creatures are regarded as ethnicities or races.
Philosophies, theories and doctrines do not begin with a capital letter, unless the name derives from a proper noun: lowercase republican refers to a system of political thought; uppercase Republican refers to a specific Republican Party (because each party name is a proper noun).

Calendar items

Months, days and holidays start with a capital letter: June, Monday, the Fourth of July (when referring to the U.S. Independence Day, otherwise July 4 or 4 July).
Seasons, in almost all instances, are lowercase: “this summer was very hot”; “the winter solstice occurs about December 22”; “I’ve got spring fever”. When personified, season names may function as proper nouns, where they should be capitalized: “I think Spring is showing her colors”; “Old Man Winter”.
Dates are normally followed by a comma: “In 2001, Bob got married”; “On April 10, I will be having a party”, but not when they are used to modify other terms: “The 1993 edition has several errors”.

Animals, plants, and other organisms

Scientific names for genera and species are italicized, with a capital initial letter for the genus but no capital for the species. For example, the tulip tree is Liriodendron tulipifera, and humans are Homo sapiens. Taxonomic groups higher than genus are generally roman, with an initial capital; for example, gulls are in the family Laridae, and we are in the family Hominidae.
Common (vernacular) names have been a hotly debated topic, and it is unresolved whether the common names of all species start with a capital. As a matter of truce, both styles are acceptable (except for proper names). Where used in an article title, a redirect from the alternative form is created.

Some WikiProjects have reached consensus on capitalization. For example, Wikipedia:WikiProject_Birds capitalizes all bird species' common names, following the official lists of formal species names set by regional academic associations, and accepted by virtually all ornithologists, authors of field guides, and other professionals.

Celestial bodies

Sun, earth, and moon are proper nouns in an astronomical context, but not elsewhere: thus, “The Sun is a main sequence star, with a spectral class of G2”; but “The sun was peeking over the mountain top”. These terms are proper nouns only when they refer to specific celestial bodies (our Sun, Earth and Moon): so “The Moon orbits the Earth”, but “Pluto’s moon Charon”.
Other planets and stars are proper nouns and start with a capital letter: “The planet Mars can be seen tonight in the constellation Gemini, near the star Pollux.” Where a name has multiple words, it is treated like other proper nouns where each leading letter is capitalized: “Alpha Centauri” and not “Alpha centauri”.

Directions and regions

Directions such as north are not proper nouns and are therefore lowercase. The same is true for their related forms: someone might call a road that leads north a northern road, compared with the Great North Road. Composite directions may or may not be hyphenated (northeast and north-east, Southeast Asia and South-east Asia).
Regions that are proper nouns, including widely known expressions such as Southern California, start with a capital letter. Follow the same convention for related forms: a person from the Southern United States is a Southerner. Regions of uncertain proper-noun status are assumed not to have attained it.

Institutions

Proper names of institutions (for example, the University of Sydney, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, George Brown College) are proper nouns and require capitalization. Where a title starts with the, it typically starts with lowercase t when the title occurs in the middle of a sentence (“a degree from the University of Sydney”); usage on the webpage of the institution may confirm whether this is the case.
Generic words for institutions (university, college, hospital, high school) require no capitalization:
(generic): The University offers programs in arts and sciences.
(generic): The university offers …
(title): The University of Ottawa offers …

Acronyms and abbreviations

Initial spelling out

Readers are not necessarily familiar with particular acronyms, such as NASA (pronounced as a word) or initialisms, such as PBS (pronounced by spelling it out). The standard practice is to spell out the item on its first occurrence, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. For example, “The New Democratic Party (NDP) won the 1990 Ontario election with a significant majority. However, the NDP quickly became unpopular with the voters.” Initial capitals are not used in a spelled out item just because capitals are used in the abbreviation.

The new Digital Light Processing (DLP) technology
The new digital light processing (DLP) technology
(title): produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Within parentheses: If a term is already in parentheses, use a comma and or to indicate the acronym; for example, “They first debated the issue in 1992 (at a convention of the New Democratic Party, or NDP).”
Plural forms: Acronyms and initialisms are pluralized by adding -s or -es. For example, “They produced three CD-ROMs in the first year”.
Periods and spaces: Many periods and spaces that were traditionally required have now dropped out of usage. For example, PhD is preferred to Ph.D. and Ph. D.. Periods are retained in abbreviations that cannot otherwise be clearly identified.
HTML elements: The software that Wikipedia runs on does not support HTML abbreviation elements (<acronym> or <abbr>), so these tags are not to be inserted into the source. (See Mediazilla:671.)

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. The titles of articles, chapters 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.; What are we to make of that?; What are we to make of that? [The question mark applies to the whole sentence, not just to that.]; 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.; The opera [[''Turandot'']] is his best.; The opera ''[[Turandot]]'' is his best.

Foreign terms

Foreign words are used sparingly.

No common usage in English: Wikipedia prefers italics for phrases in other languages and for isolated foreign words that do not yet have common usage in English.
Common usage in English: Loan words and phrases that have common usage in English—praetor, Gestapo, samurai, esprit de corps—do not require italicization. A rule of thumb is: do not italicize words that appear in an English language dictionary.
Spelling and transliteration: For terms in common usage, anglicized spellings are used, or native spellings if they use the Latin alphabet; diacritics are optional. Where native spellings in non-Latin scripts (such as Greek and Cyrillic) are given, they appear in parentheses, and are not italicized, even where this is technically feasible.

Quotations

Minimal change: Wherever it is reasonable to do so, the style that was used in the original text is preserved. Where there is a good reason not to preserve the original style, the changes are supported by the insertion of an editorial explanation, usually within in square brackets.
Attribution: The author of a quote of a full sentence or more is named; this is done in the main text and not in a footnote. An exception is that attribution is unnecessary for well-known quotations (e.g., from Shakespeare) and those from the subject of the article or section.
Quotations within quotations: An exception to the previous rule is when a quotation encloses a quotation: here, Wikipedia’s style is used, starting with double-quotes outermost and working inward, alternate single-quotes with double-quotes. For example, the following quotation: “She disputed his statement that ‘Voltaire never said “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” ’ ”. Adjacent quote marks, as at the end of this example, are separated by a non-breaking space ( ).
Linking: Unless there is a good reason to do so, Wikipedia avoids linking from within quotes, which may clutter the quotation, violate the principle of leaving quotations unchanged, and mislead or confuse the reader.
Block quotations: A long quote (more than four lines) is formatted as a block quotation, which Wikimedia’s software will indent from both margins. Block quotes are not enclosed in quotation marks.

Punctuation

Shortcut

[[:|WP:PUNC]]

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 quotations).

Arthur said that the situation is “deplorable”. (When a sentence fragment is quoted, the period [full stop] is outside.)
Arthur said, “The situation is deplorable.” (The period is part of the quoted text.)
Martha asked, “Are you coming?” (When quoting a question, the question mark is inside because the quoted text itself was a question.)
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:

“Jabberwocky” is a nonsense poem by Lewis Carroll.

Block quotes: We use quotation marks or block quotes to distinguish quotations from other text. In the very rare case of a multiparagraph quotation that is not block-quoted, double quotes are placed at the start of each paragraph, but at the end of only the last paragraph.
Look of quotation marks and apostrophes: There are two options when considering the look of the quotation marks (that is, the glyph):

Typographic: “text”, ‘text’, foo’s
Typewriter: "text", 'text', foo's

When quotation marks or apostrophes appear in article titles, there is a redirect to the same title using the other glyph.
Other matters

An entire quotation is not italicized solely because it is a quotation.
The sentence-initial letter of a quote may be lowered if the quote starts in the middle of a sentence. Where this occurs, “[i]t is unnecessary to indicate this change with square brackets”.
Wikipedia does not use grave or acute accents or backticks (`text´) as quotation marks or apostrophes.
If a word or phrase appears in an article in singlequotes, such as 'abcd', Wikipedia's search facility will find that word or phrase only if the search string is also within single quotes. Avoiding this complication is an additional reason to use double quotes, for which the difficulty does not arise.
The choice of style for the quotation marks (see last heading) affects searching in an article using the local browser's facility. For example, searching in an article for "this with its quotes" will fail to find “this with its quotes”. The same applies to the style chosen for apostrophe (’ or ').

Brackets

A bracketed phrase is enclosed by the punctuation of a sentence (as shown here). (But one or more sentences wholly inside brackets have their punctuation inside the brackets.) These rules apply to square “[ ]” as well as round “( )” brackets (parentheses). There should never be a space next to the brackets on the inside, except as in the preceding sentence. There should be a space before an opening bracket, except in certain rare cases involving editorial interpolation and the like, when it is preceded by:

an opening quotation mark

He rose to address the meeting: “(Ahem...) Ladies and gentlemen, welcome!”

another opening bracket (see below)

Several companies ([ten omitted for brevity] GMH, Ford, and Mazda) resisted.

an ellipsis not followed by a space, or an unspaced em dash

Well…(how could I continue?).

a portion of a word, or a hyphen, etc., where the brackets enclose only a part of a word

We went on the Inter[continental].

There should be a space after a closing bracket, except where another punctuation mark (other than an apostrophe or a hyphen) follows, and except in cases similar to those listed for opening brackets.

If sets of brackets must be nested, use the contrasting type (normally square brackets appear within round brackets [parentheses]). Or reduce clutter by appropriate use of commas, semicolons, colons, em dashes, or spaced en dashes, rather than brackets.

Avoid adjacent sets of brackets—either put the parenthetic phrases in one set separated by commas, or rewrite the sentence. For example, this sentence:

Nikifor Grigoriev (c. 1885–1919) (also known as Matviy Hryhoriyiv) was a Ukrainian insurgent leader.

would be better written as either of these:

Nikifor Grigoriev (c. 1885–1919), also known as Matviy Hryhoriyiv, was a Ukrainian insurgent leader.
Nikifor Grigoriev (c. 1885–1919) was a Ukrainian insurgent leader. He was also known as Matviy Hryhoriyiv.

Serial commas

The serial comma (also known as the Oxford comma or Harvard comma) is a comma used immediately before a conjunction in a list of three or more items. The phrase “ham, chips, and eggs” is written with a serial comma, but “ham, chips and eggs” is not. Sometimes omitting the comma can lead to an ambiguous sentence, as in this example: “The author would like to thank her parents, Sinéad O’Connor and President Bush.” Sometimes including the comma can also lead to an ambiguous sentence, as in: “The author would like to thank her mother, Sinéad O’Connor, and President Bush” which may be a list of either two or three people. In such cases, there are three options for avoiding ambiguity:

A choice can be made whether to use or omit the comma after the penultimate item in such a way as to avoid ambiguity.
The sentence can be recast to avoid listing the items in an ambiguous manner.
The items in the list can be presented using a formatted list.

If the presence of the final serial comma does not affect ambiguity of the sentence (as in most cases), there is no Wikipedia consensus on whether it should be used.

Some style authorities support a mandatory final serial comma. These include Fowler’s Modern English Usage (Brit.), the Chicago Manual of Style (Amer.), and Strunk and White’s Elements of Style (Amer.). Others recommend avoiding it where possible; these include The Times (Brit.), The New York Times (Amer.) and The Economist (Brit.). See serial comma for further authorities and discussion.

Proponents of the serial comma, such as The Elements of Style, cite its disambiguating function and consistency as reasons for its use. Opponents consider it extraneous in situations where it does not explicitly resolve ambiguity. Many non-journalistic style guides recommend its use, while many newspaper style guides discourage its use; Wikipedia, by having no consensus, allows either style and therefore enables the avoidance of ambiguity.

By convention, the names of railroads and railways do not employ the serial comma (for example, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad). This is also the standard for law firms and similar corporate entities (for example, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom).

Colons

Colons (:) should not have spaces before them:

He attempted it in two years: 1941 and 1943
He attempted it in two years : 1941 and 1943

Colons should have complete sentences before them:

He attempted it in two years: 1941 and 1943
The years he attempted it included: 1941 and 1943

Dashes

The hyphen (-) is used to form compound words. The en dash (–) is used to specify numeric ranges, such as “open 9–5”. The em dash (—) can be used, without spaces, to link clauses of a sentence—like this one—as can the spaced en dash ( – ). Other dashes, notably the double-hyphen (--), should be avoided.^{[dubious – discuss]}

Spaces after the end of a sentence

There are no guidelines on whether to use one space after the end of a sentence, or two (French spacing), but the issue is not important, because the difference is visible only in edit boxes and not in the final display.

Contractions

In general, formal writing is preferred in articles. Therefore, the use of contractions, such as don’t, can’t, won’t, would’ve and they’d, is avoided unless they occur in a quotation.

Slashes

Avoid joining two words by a slash, as it suggests that the two are related, but does not specify how. It is often also unclear how the construct would be read aloud. There is almost always a better choice than a slash. Where possible, spell things out to avoid uncertainties.

An example: “The parent/instructor must be present at all times.” Must both be present? (Then write and say “the parent and the instructor”.) Must at least one be present? (Then write and say “the parent or the instructor”.) Is it intended that the same person is both parent and instructor? (Then use an en dash, or perhaps a hyphen: “the parent–instructor”.)

In circumstances involving a distinction or disjunction, the en dash is usually preferable to the slash, e.g., “the novel–novella distinction”.

However the slash does have some legitimate uses:

to separate run-in lines of poetry (“To be or not to be: that is the question: / Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”);
to show pronunciations (“ribald is pronounced /ri-bəld/”);
to separate the numerator and denominator in a fraction (“7⁄8”).

“And/or”

The construct and/or is considered awkward. In general, where it is important to mark an inclusive or, use “x or y, or both”, rather than “x and/or y”. For an exclusive or, use “either x or y”, and optionally add “but not both”, if it is necessary to stress the exclusivity.

Where there are more than two possibilities presented, from which some combination is to be selected, it is even less desirable to use and/or. With two possibilities, at least the intention is clear; but with more than two it may not be determinate (see The Cambridge Guide to English Usage, 2004, p. 38). Instead of “x, y, and/or z”, use an appropriate alternative: “one or more of x, y, and z”; “some or all of x, y, and z”; etc.

Ellipses

An ellipsis is a series of three dots (periods) indicating omitted text. The precomposed ellipsis character (…, …) may be used: it displays three dots. To prevent the ellipsis from wrapping to the beginning of a line, regardless of where the line breaks of the reader’s browser fall, enter a non-breaking space before it ( …). Many style-guides recommend that a space be inserted either side of the ellipsis, except where the first portion of text itself ends with a period; in this case, four dots rather than three typically follow the last word, without an intervening space.

Examples: in the middle of your sentence … or after your comma, … or before one…, or at the end of your sentence…. In your question…? Or even your exclamation…!

Note that square brackets indicate editorial replacements as well as editorial insertions. For example, suppose that a source says, “X contains Y. Under certain circumstances, X may contain Z as well.” Then it is correct to quote this work as saying “X contains Y [and sometimes] Z” (without ellipsis).

Question marks and exclamation marks

Question and exclamation marks are never preceded by a space.
The exclamation mark is used with restraint: it is an expression of surprise or emotion that unsuited to a scholarly or encyclopedic register.
Clusters of question marks, exclamation marks, or a combination of them (such as the interrobang) are inappropriate in Wikipedia articles.
For the use of these marks in association with quotation marks, see the relevant section above.

Pronunciation

Pronunciation in Wikipedia is indicated using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For ease of understanding, fairly broad IPA transcriptions are usually used.

Scientific style

For units of measure, use SI units as the main units in science articles, unless there are compelling historical or pragmatic reasons not to do so (for example, Hubble’s constant should be quoted in its most common unit of (km/s)/Mpc rather than its SI unit of s⁻¹). For other articles, Imperial, U.S. customary, or metric units may be used as the main units of measurement. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Units of measurement for further guidance. The Wikipedia rule for commas and periods in numbers is, for example 12,345,678.901—contrary to Continental style.
In articles about chemicals and chemistry, use the style of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) for chemical names wherever possible except in article titles, where the common name should be used if different followed by mention of the IUPAC name. For general information see systematic name, and for organic compounds in particular see IUPAC nomenclature.
In periodic table groups, use the IUPAC names (these use Arabic numerals, not Roman numerals or letters).
For mathematics and mathematical formulae, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics.

Simple tabulation

Lines that in the editing window start with blank spaces are displayed boxed and in a fixed-width font, for simple tabulation. A line that contains only a blank space inserts a blank line into the table.

For a complete guide to more complex tables see Meta:Help:Table.

Usage and spelling

Usage

Possessives of singular nouns ending in s should generally maintain the additional s after the apostrophe. However, if a form without an s after the apostrophe is much more common for a particular word or phrase, follow that form, such as with “Achilles’ heel” and “Jesus’ tears”.
Abbreviations of Latin terms like i.e., e.g., or n.b., or use of the Latin terms in full, such as “nota bene”, or “vide infra”, should be left as the original author wrote them. However, articles intended for a general audience will be more widely understood if English terms such as “that is”, “for example”, or “note” are used instead.
Use an unambiguous word or phrase in preference to an ambiguous one. For example, use “other meaning” rather than “alternate meaning” or “alternative meaning”, since alternate means only “alternating” to a British-English speaker, and alternative suggests “nontraditional” or “out-of-the-mainstream” to an American-English speaker.

Avoid first-person pronouns and one

Wikipedia articles must not be based on one person’s opinions or experiences. Thus, I can never be used except when it appears in a quotation. For similar reasons, avoid the use of we and one. A sentence such as “We should note that some critics have argued in favor of the proposal” sounds more personal than encyclopedic.

Nevertheless, it is sometimes appropriate to use we or one when referring to an experience that anyone, any reader, would be expected to have, such as general perceptual experiences. For example, although it might be best to write, “When most people open their eyes, they see something”, it is still legitimate to write, “When we open our eyes, we see something”, and it is certainly better than using the passive voice: “When the eyes are opened, something is seen.”

It is also acceptable to use we in mathematical derivations; for example: “To normalize the wavefunction, we need to find the value of the arbitrary constant A.”

Avoid second-person pronouns

Use of the second person (you), which is often ambiguous and contrary to the tone of an encyclopedia, is discouraged. Instead, refer to the subject of the sentence, for example:

When a player moves past “Go”, that player collects $200.
Players passing “Go” collect $200.
$200 is collected when one passes “Go”.
When you move past “Go”, you collect $200.

This guideline does not apply to quoted text, which should be quoted exactly.

The guideline also does not apply to the Wikipedia namespace, where you refers to the writers to whom articles in the namespace are addressed.

National varieties of English

Shortcut

[[:|WP:ENGVAR]]

The English Wikipedia has no general preference for a major national variety of the language; none is more “correct” than the others, and users are asked to take into account that the differences between the varieties are superficial. Cultural clashes over spelling and grammar are avoided by using four simple guidelines.

Consistency within articles

Each article consistently uses the same variety of English throughout; for example, center and centre are not used in the same article. The exceptions are:

quotations (the original variety is retained);
titles (the original spelling is used, for example United States Department of Defense and Australian Defence Force); and
explicit comparisons of varieties of English.

Strong ties to a region

An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular national region uses the appropriate variety of English for that country. For example:

American Civil War—(American English)
Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings—(British English)
Uluru (Ayers Rock)—(Australian English)
Montreal—(Canadian English)

Retaining the existing variety

If an article has evolved using predominantly one variety, the whole article should conform to that variety, unless there are strong reasons for changing it (see below). In the early stages of writing an article, the variety chosen by the first contributor is used, unless there are strong reasons for changing it. Where an article shows no signs of which variety it is written in, the first person to make an edit that disambiguates the variety—for example, by adding a word of distinctively British or US spelling—is equivalent to the "first contributor" in these terms.

Opportunities for commonality

Wikipedia tries to find words that are common to all varieties of English.

In choosing words or expressions, especially for article titles, there may be value in making choices that avoid varying spellings, where possible. In extreme cases of conflicting names, a common substitute (such as fixed-wing aircraft) is favored over national varieties (fixed-wing aeroplanes, BrEng, and fixed-wing airplanes, AmEng).
If a variable spelling appears in an article name, redirect pages are made to accommodate the other variants, as with Artefact and Artifact.

Articles such as English plural and American and British English differences provide information on the differences between the major varieties of the language.

Big, little, long, short

Try to use accurate measurements whenever possible. Use specific information.


The wallaby is small.	The average male wallaby is 1.6 metres from head to tail.
Prochlorococcus marinus is a tiny cyanobacterium.	The cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus marinus is 0.5 to 0.8 micrometres across.
The large herd of dugong stretched a long way down the coast.	The dugong swam down the coast in a herd five kilometres long and 300 metres wide.

Images

Some general guidelines which should be followed in the absence of a compelling reason not to:

Start the article with a right-aligned image.
When using multiple images in the same article, they can be staggered right-and-left (Example: Timpani).
Avoid sandwiching text between two images facing each other.
Generally, right-alignment is preferred to left- or center-alignment. (Example: Race).
- Exception: Portraits with the head looking to the reader’s right should be left-aligned (looking into the text of the article) when this does not interfere with navigation or other elements. In such cases it may be appropriate to move the Table of Contents to the right by using {{TOCright}}. Since faces are not perfectly symmetrical it is generally inadvisable to use photo editing software to reverse a right-facing portrait image; however, some editors employ this controversial technique when it does not alter obvious non-symmetrical features (such as Mikhail Gorbachev’s birthmark) or make included text in the image unreadable.
If there are too many images in a given article, consider using a gallery.
Do not place left-aligned images directly below second-level (===) headings, as this disconnects the heading from the text it precedes. For example, do not use:

=== Section 1b ===
[[Image:Image relating to section 1b.jpg|frame|left|]]
First paragraph of section 1b.

Instead, either right-align the image, remove it, or move it to another relevant location. If the image acts as a bridge from the previous section, you can place it at the end of that section:

[[Image:Image relating to section 1a and section 1b.jpg|frame|left|]]
=== Section 1b ===
First paragraph of section 1b.

Use {{Commons}} to link to more images on Commons, wherever possible.
Use captions to explain the relevance of the image to the article.
Specifying the size of a thumb image is not recommended: without specifying a size the width will be what readers have specified in their user preferences, with a default of 180px (which applies for most readers). However, the image subject or image properties may call for a specific image width to enhance the readability or layout of an article. Cases where specific image width are considered appropriate include:
- On images with extreme aspect ratios
- When using detailed maps, diagrams or charts
- When a small region of an image is considered relevant, but the image would lose its coherence when cropped to that region
- On a lead image that captures the essence of the article.

Bear in mind that some users need to configure their systems to display large text. Forced large thumbnails can leave little width for text, making reading difficult.

The current image markup language is:

[[Image:picture.jpg|thumb|right|Insert caption here]]

Captions

Appropriate use

Photos and other graphics always have captions, unless they are “self-captioning” (such as in reproductions of album or book covers) or when they are unambiguous depictions of the subject of the article (for example, in a biography article, a caption is not mandatory for a portrait of the subject pictured alone, but might contain the name of the subject and additional information relevant to the image the image).

Formatting

Captions always start with a capital letter. Most captions are not complete sentences, but merely an extended nominal group, which should not finish with a period. Complete sentences in captions always end in a period. Captions are not italicized, except for words that are normally italicized. Captions are succinct; more information on the file can be included in the image or media description page.

Bulleted lists

Do not use bullets if the passage reads easily using plain paragraphs or indented paragraphs. If every paragraph in a section is bulleted, it is likely that none should be bulleted.

Do not mix grammatical styles in a list—either use all complete sentences or use all sentence fragments. Begin each item with a capital letter, even if it is a sentence fragment.

When using complete sentences, provide a period at the end of each.

When using sentence fragments, do not provide a period at the end.

Numbered lists

All the rules for bulleted lists apply also to numbered lists.

Use numbered rather than bulleted lists only if you will be referring back to items by number, or the sequence of the items is critical (for example, you are explaining step 1, step 2, etc. of a multi-step process).

Identity

This is perhaps an area where Wikipedians’ flexibility and plurality are an asset, and where we would not want all pages to look exactly alike. Wikipedia’s neutral point of view and no original research policies always take precedence. However, here are some nonbinding guidelines that may help:

Where known, use terminology that subjects use for themselves (self-identification). This can mean using the term an individual uses for himself or herself, or using the term a group most widely uses for itself. This includes referring to transgender individuals according to the names and pronouns they use to identify themselves.
Use specific terminology: People from Ethiopia (a country in Africa) should be described as Ethiopian, not African.
Do not assume that any one term is the most inclusive or accurate.
If possible, terms used to describe people should be given in such a way that they qualify other nouns. Thus, black people, not blacks; gay people, not gays; and so forth.
Also note: The term Arab refers to people and things of ethnic Arab origin. The term Arabic refers to the Arabic language or writing system (and related concepts). For example, “Not all Arab people write or converse in Arabic, but nearly all are familiar with Arabic numerals.”
In a direct quotation, use the original text, even if the originator does not conform with the above guidelines.

Wikilinks

Make only links relevant to the context. It is not useful and can be very distracting to mark all possible words as hyperlinks. Links should add to the user’s experience; they should not detract from it by making the article harder to read. A high density of links can draw attention away from the high-value links that you would like your readers to follow up. Redundant links clutter up the page and make future maintenance harder. A link is the equivalent of a footnote in a print medium. Imagine if every second word in an encyclopedia article were followed by “(see:)”. Hence, the links should not be so numerous as to make the article harder to read. However, that all depends.

Check links after they are wikified to make sure they direct to the correct concept; many dictionary words lead to disambiguation pages and not to complete articles on a concept. If an anchor into a targeted page (the label after a pound sign (#) in a URL) is available, is likely to remain stable, and gets the reader to the relevant area significantly faster, then use it.

When wikilinks are rendered as URLs by the MediaWiki software, the initial character becomes capitalized and spaces are replaced by underscores. When including wikilinks in an article, there is no need to use capitalization or underscores, since the software produces them automatically. This feature makes it possible to avoid a piped link in many cases. The correct form in English orthography can be used as a straight link. Wikilinks that begin sentences or are proper nouns should be capitalized as normal.

Likewise, the use of piped links can be avoided in many cases when adding a grammatical suffix to a wikilink that is not part of an article title, by placing the suffix outside of the brackets. The suffix will still appear as part of the link, but will not be included in the link’s target when actually clicked. For example, the markup [[transformer]]s appears in the article text as transformers but links to the article named Transformer.

Miscellaneous notes

Keep markup simple

Use the simplest markup to display information in a useful and comprehensible way. Markup may appear differently in different browsers. Use HTML and CSS markup sparingly and only with good reason. Minimizing markup in entries allows easier editing.

In particular, do not use the CSS float or line-height properties because they break rendering on some browsers when large fonts are used.

Formatting issues

Formatting issues such as font size, blank space and color are issues for the Wikipedia site-wide style sheet and should not be dealt with in articles except in special cases. If you absolutely must specify a font size, use a relative size, that is, font-size: 80%; not an absolute size, for example, font-size: 8pt. It is also almost never a good idea to use other style changes, such as font family or color.

Typically, the usage of custom font styles will

reduce consistency—the text will no longer look uniform with typical text;
reduce usability—it will likely be impossible for people with custom stylesheets (for accessibility reasons, for example) to override it, and it might clash with a different skin as well as bother people with color blindness; and
increase arguments—there is the possibility of other Wikipedians disagreeing with choice of font style and starting a debate about it for aesthetic purposes.

For such reasons, it is typically not good practice to apply inline CSS for font attributes in articles.

Color coding

Using color alone to convey information (color coding) should not be done. This is not accessible to people with color blindness (especially monochromacy), on black-and-white printouts, on older monitors with fewer colors, on monochrome displays (PDAs, cell phones), and so on.

If it is necessary to use colors, try to choose colors that are unambiguous (such as orange and violet) when viewed by a person with red-green color blindness (the most common type). In general, this means that shades of red and green should not both be used as color codes in the same image. Viewing the page with Vischeck can help with deciding if the colors should be altered.

It is certainly desirable to use color as an aid for those who can see it, but the information should still be accessible without it.

Invisible comments

Invisible comments are used to communicate with other editors in the article body. These comments are only visible when editing the page. They are invisible to ordinary readers.

Normally if an editor wants to discuss issues with other potential editors, they will do it on the talk page. However, it sometimes makes more sense to put comments in the article body, because an editor would like to leave instructions to guide other editors when they edit this section, or leave reminders about specific issues (for example, do not change the section title since others have linked here).

To do so, enclose the text which you intend to be read only by editors within .

For example, the following:

Hello <!-- This is a comment. --> world.

is displayed as:

Hello world.

So the comment can be seen when viewing the wiki source (although not, incidentally, the HTML source).

Note: Comments may introduce unwanted whitespace when put in certain places, such as at the top of an article. Avoid placing comment fields in places where they might change the rendered result of the article.

Legibility

Consider the legibility of what you are writing. Make your entry easy to read on a screen. Make judicious use of devices such as bulleted lists and boldface. For more on this, see “How Users Read on the Web” by Jakob Nielsen.

External links

Links to websites outside of Wikipedia can be listed at the end of an article or embedded within the body of an article.

List of links

The standard format for a list of links is to have a header named == External links == followed by a bulleted list of links. External links should summarize the website’s contents, and indicate why the website is relevant to the article. For example:

*[http://www.aidsnews.org/ AIDS treatment news]

When wikified, the link will appear as:

AIDS treatment news

By adding the <span class="plainlinks"></span> attribute around the above link, the resulting hyperlink will look tidier:

AIDS treatment news

Embedded links

External links can be embedded in the body of an article to provide specific references. These links have no description other than an automatically generated number. For example:

Sample text [http://www.example.org].

When wikified, the link will appear as:

Sample text [1].

An embedded external link should be accompanied by a full citation in the article’s References section.

Footnotes

The References or Notes section can have a code which will copy your embedded link (with its external link, description, or quote), into the References or Notes section and make it a functioning link there. Do not use this code with an embedded link alone; use it only if you are adding a citation or description of the link. Here is a demonstration:

The embedded link format can look like this:

<ref name="test1">[http://www.example.org/ The name of your external link goes here.] Further explanation can go here.</ref>

It will produce this: ^[1]

In the “References” section the code can look like this:

<references />

It will produce this copy of the embedded link you have made above:

^ The name of your external link goes here. Further explanation can go here.

You may also use the template {{reflist}} which produces the same as above with smaller font size. For a two-column layout, use {{reflist|2}}.

Note: The code will place all properly formatted references on the page here.

@@ Line 112: / Line 112: @@
 *'''Scientific names''' for ''genera'' and ''species'' are italicized, with a capital initial letter for the genus but no capital for the species. For example, the tulip tree is ''Liriodendron tulipifera'', and humans are ''Homo sapiens''. Taxonomic groups higher than genus are generally roman, with an initial capital; for example, gulls are in the family Laridae, and we are in the family Hominidae.
-*'''Common (vernacular) names''' have been a  hotly debated topic, and it is unresolved whether the common names of species start with a capital. As a matter of truce, both styles are acceptable (except for proper names). Where used in an article title, a [[Wikipedia:Redirect|redirect]] from the alternative form is created.
+*'''Common (vernacular) names''' have been a  hotly debated topic, and it is unresolved whether the common names of all species start with a capital. As a matter of truce, both styles are acceptable (except for proper names). Where used in an article title, a [[Wikipedia:Redirect|redirect]] from the alternative form is created.
+Some WikiProjects have reached consensus on capitalization. For example, [[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Birds]] capitalizes all bird species' common names, following the official lists of formal species names set by regional academic associations, and accepted by virtually all ornithologists, authors of field guides, and other professionals.
 ===Celestial bodies===

Revision as of 06:37, 11 June 2007

Which style to use

Disputes over style issues

Article titles

Sections and headings

Markup

Wording

Section management

Capital letters

Titles

Religions, deities, philosophies, doctrines, and their adherents

Calendar items

Animals, plants, and other organisms

Celestial bodies

Directions and regions

Institutions

Acronyms and abbreviations

Italics

Foreign terms

Quotations

Punctuation

Quotation marks

Brackets

Serial commas

Colons

Dashes

Spaces after the end of a sentence

Contractions

Slashes

“And/or”

Ellipses

Question marks and exclamation marks

Pronunciation

Scientific style

Simple tabulation

Usage and spelling

Usage

Avoid first-person pronouns and one

Avoid second-person pronouns

National varieties of English

Big, little, long, short

Images

Captions

Bulleted lists

Numbered lists

Identity

Wikilinks

Miscellaneous notes

Keep markup simple

Formatting issues

Color coding

Invisible comments

Legibility

External links

List of links

Embedded links

Footnotes

Submanuals

See also