UniWiki:Manual of Style

This page is a part of the UniWiki's Manual of Style. It is a general guideline intended to harmonize article style across the UniWiki, though it is best treated with common sense, and exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this page should be approved by the Wiki Manager. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

Template:Work in Progress The UniWiki Manual of Style (abbreviated as UMoS or simply MoS) is the style manual for all UniWiki articles. This primary page of the guideline covers certain topics (e.g., punctuation) in detail and summarizes the key points of other topics. The detail pages, which are cross-referenced here and linked by this page's menu or listed at UniWiki:Manual of Style/Contents, provide specific guidance on those topics. If any contradiction arises, this page has precedence over all detail pages of the guideline and the Simplified Manual of Style.

Much of this manual has been adapted from Wikipedia's Manual of Style. While care has been taken to adapt as many relevant sections as possible, any topics not covered here can most likely be found there, and interested editors are encouraged to refer to both the UMoS and Wikipedia's MoS for the most comprehensive instruction.

Further, this page and any UniWiki pages linked here serve only as a style manual. For all other guidelines, such as categorization and editing, the UniWiki defers to those guidelines set forth by Wikipedia, both because it has set a standard of excellence that UniWiki seeks to emulate, and because to develop UniWiki-specific guidelines of a similar caliber would be an unrealistic goal, given the relatively small number of Wiki Curators.

In particular, the UniWiki can be considered to operate under the following guidelines used by Wikipedia:

• Behavioral guidelines
• Relevant section of the content guidelines
• Editing guidelines
• Naming conventions (where applicable)

Links to relevant sections of the above can be found throughout this manual.

The UniWiki Manual of Style presents the UniWiki's house style. The goal is to make using the UniWiki easier and more intuitive by promoting clarity and cohesion, while helping editors write articles with consistent and precise language, layout, and formatting. Plain English works best. Avoid ambiguity and vague or unnecessarily complex wording. Any new content added to the body of this page should directly address a style issue that has occurred in a significant number of instances.

Style and formatting should be consistent within an article, though not necessarily throughout the UniWiki. Where more than one style is acceptable, editors should not change an article from one of those styles to another without a good reason. Edit warring over optional styles is unacceptable. If discussion cannot determine which style to use in an article, defer to the style used by the first major contributor. If a style or similar debate becomes intractable, refer the issue to the Wiki Manager, the Director of Communications, or, as a last resort, the Director of Operations.

Discuss style issues on the UMoS talk page.

Article titles, headings, and sections

Article titles

When choosing an article's title, refer to the article titles policy. A title should be a recognizable name or description of the topic that is natural, sufficiently precise, concise, and consistent with the titles of related articles. If these criteria are in conflict, they should be balanced against one another.

For guidance on formatting titles, see the Article title format section of the policy. Note the following:

• Capitalize the title's initial letter (except in rare cases where the first letter is purposely lowercase), but otherwise follow sentence case, not title case; e.g., Funding of EVE University projects, not Funding of EVE University Projects. This does not apply where title case would be expected were the title to occur in ordinary prose. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization) for more details.
• Do not use A, An, or The as the first word (Economy of the Caldari State, not The economy of the Caldari State), unless it is an inseparable part of a name (The Kalevala Expanse) or it is part of the title of a work (The Seven Events of the Apocalypse, The Scope).
• Titles should normally be nouns or noun phrases: Early life, not In early life.
• The final character should not be a punctuation mark unless it is part of a name (Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!) or an abbreviation (Inverness City F.C.), or a closing round bracket or quotation mark is required (Kronos (ship)).

The guidance contained elsewhere in the UMoS, particularly § Punctuation (below) applies to all parts of an article, including the title.

Section organization

Main article: UniWiki:Manual of Style/Layout

An article should begin with an introductory lead section, which should not contain section headings (see UniWiki:Manual of Style/Lead section). The remainder of the article may be divided into sections, each with a section heading (see below) that can be nested in a hierarchy.

The lead should be a concise summary. Newly added information does not always qualify as important enough for the lead; it should be placed in the most appropriate section or sections (see Lead section).

If there are at least four section headings in the article, a navigable table of contents is generated automatically and displayed between the lead section and the first heading.

If the topic of a section is also covered in more detail in a dedicated article, show this by inserting {{main|Article name}} directly under the section heading (see also Summary style).

As explained in more detail in UniWiki:Manual of Style/Layout § Standard appendices and footers, optional appendix and footer sections containing the following lists may appear after the body of the article in the following order:

• internal links to related UniWiki articles (section heading "See also");
• notes and references (section heading "Notes" or "References", or a separate section for each; see Citing sources);
• relevant books, articles, or other publications that have not been used as sources (section heading "Further reading");
• relevant websites that have not been used as sources and do not appear in the earlier appendices (added as part of "Further reading" or in a separate section headed "External links");
• internal links organized into navigational boxes (sometimes placed at the top in the form of sidebars);
• Categories.

Other article elements include disambiguation hatnotes (normally placed at the very top of the article) and infoboxes (usually placed before the lead section).

Section headings

See also: UniWiki:Manual of Style/Accessibility#Headings and UniWiki:Manual of Style/Layout#Order of article elements

Use equal signs to mark the enclosed text as a section heading: =Title= for a primary section; ==Title== for the next level (a subsection); and so on to the lowest-level subsection, with =====Title=====. Spaces between the equal signs and the heading text are optional, and will not affect the way the heading is displayed. The heading must be typed on a separate line. Include one blank line above the heading, and optionally one blank line below it, for readability in the edit window (but not two or more consecutive blank lines, which will add unnecessary visible space in the rendered page). There is no need to include a blank line between a heading and sub-heading.

The provisions in § Article titles generally apply to section headings as well (for example, headings are in sentence case, not title case). The following points apply specifically to section headings:

• Headings should not refer redundantly to the subject of the article, or to higher-level headings, unless doing so is shorter or clearer. (Early life is preferable to His early life when his refers to the subject of the article; headings can be assumed to be about the subject unless otherwise indicated.)
• Section and subsection headings should preferably be unique within a page; otherwise section links may lead to the wrong place, and automatic edit summaries can be ambiguous.
• Citations should not be placed within or on the same line as section and subsection headings.
• Avoid starting headings with numbers (other than years), because this can be confusing for readers with the "Auto-number headings" preference selected.

Before changing a section heading, consider whether you might be breaking existing links to that section.

When placing an invisible comment on the same line as the heading, do not do this outside the == == markup:

==Evolutionary implications==<!--This comment disrupts editing-->

<!--This comment disrupts display as well as editing-->==Evolutionary implications==

Several of the above provisions are also applicable to table headers, including sentence case and redundancy. Table headers are often useful places for citations (e.g., the source of all the data in a column), and many do begin with or are numbers. Table headers do not automatically generate link anchors. (For more information see UniWiki:Manual of Style/Tables § Captions and headers.)

Retaining existing styles

For some elements of style, there is more than one format that is acceptable. In general, editors should not change articles between acceptable formats unless there is some substantial reason for the change (unrelated to the choice of style or the preference of the editor), and edit-warring between optional styles is unacceptable.

Examples of topic-specific versions of this guideline include:

• Varieties of English
• Date formats
• Era styles
• Variations of citation style (where applicable)

National varieties of English

See also: UniWiki:Manual of Style/Spelling

The UniWiki prefers no major national variety of the language over any other. These varieties (e.g., American English, British English, etc.) differ in many ways, including vocabulary (elevator vs. lift), spelling (center vs. centre), date formatting ("April 13" vs. "13 April"), and occasionally grammar (see § Plurals, below). The following subsections describe how to determine the appropriate variety for an article. (The accepted style of punctuation is covered in § Punctuation, below.)

Consistency within articles

See also Wikipedia:Consistency for additional policies and guidelines on consistency.

While the UniWiki does not favor any national variety of English, within a given article the conventions of one particular variety should be followed when possible. The exceptions are:

• quotations, titles of works (books, films, etc.): Quote these as given in the source.
• proper names: Use the subject's own spelling e.g., joint project of the Caldari State and the Jovian Directorate;
• URLs: Changing the spelling of part of an external link's URL will almost always break the link.

Capital letters

Main article: UniWiki:Manual of Style/Capital letters

UniWiki article titles and section headings use sentence case, not title case; see Wikipedia:Article titles and § Section headings (above). For capitalization of list items, see § Bulleted and numbered lists. Other points concerning capitalization are summarized below; full information can be found at UniWiki:Manual of Style/Capital letters.

Do not use capitals for emphasis

Use italics, not capitals, to denote emphasis.

Incorrect: It is not only a LITTLE learning that is dangerous.

Correct: It is not only a little learning that is dangerous.

Capitalization of "The"

Main article: UniWiki:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Capitalization of "The"

Generally, do not capitalize the in the middle of a sentence: an article about the Amarr Empire (not about The Amarr Empire). However there are some conventional exceptions, including most titles of artistic works: Damella Macaper wrote The Seven Events of the Apocalypse (but Heideran VII wrote the Pax Amarria), and warp gates in The Kalevala Expanse.

Titles of people

Main article: UniWiki:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Titles of people

• In generic use, apply lower case to words such as president, king, and emperor (Souro Foiritan was a Gallentean president; Jamyl Sarum was an Amarrian empress; Three directors attended the conference).
• Directly juxtaposed with the person's name, such words begin with a capital letter (Empress Catiz, not empress Catiz). Standard or commonly used names of an office are treated as proper names (Maleatu Shakor is Matari Sanmatar; Jamyl Sarum was Empress of the Amarrian Empire; Jacus Roden is President of the Gallente Federation). Royal styles are capitalized (Her Majesty; His Grace); exceptions may apply for particular offices.
• For the use of titles and honorifics in biographical articles, see UniWiki:Manual of Style/Biographies § Honorific prefixes.

Religions, deities, philosophies, doctrines

Main article: UniWiki:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Religions, deities, philosophies, doctrines and their adherents

• Religions, sects, and churches and their followers (in noun or adjective form) start with a capital letter. Generally, "the" is not capitalized before such names (the Order of St. Tetrimon, not The Order of St. Tetrimon).
• Pronouns for figures of veneration or worship are not capitalized, even if capitalized in a religion's scriptures.
• Spiritual or religious events are capitalized only when referring to specific incidents or periods (the Reclaiming and the Moral Reform; but a series of battles and moral reforms).

Calendar items

Main article: UniWiki:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Calendar items

• Months, days of the week, and holidays start with a capital letter (June, Monday; the Fourth of July refers only to the US Independence Day — otherwise July 4 or 4 July).
• Seasons are in lower case (her last summer; the winter solstice; spring fever), except in personifications or in proper names for periods or events (Summer of Rage; Winter 2016).

Celestial bodies

Main article: UniWiki:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Celestial bodies

See also: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (astronomical objects)

• The words sun, earth, and moon do not take capitals in general use (The sun was peeking over the mountain top; The tribal people of Matar thought of the whole earth as their home). They are capitalized when the entity is personified (Sol Invictus ("Unconquered Sun") was the Roman sun god) or when used as the name of a specific body in a scientific or astronomical context (The Moon orbits the Earth; but Kileakum is a moon of Eclipticum).
• Names of planets, moons, asteroids, comets, stars, constellations, and galaxies are proper names, and therefore capitalized (The planet Zorast sometimes eclipses the star Amarr, as seen from the surface of Oris; {{}}; The Andromeda Galaxy is a spiral galaxy). The first letter of every word in such a name is capitalized (Old Man Star and not Old man star; New Eden, not New eden).
• Words such as comet and galaxy should be capitalized where they form part of an object's proper name (New Eden Cluster).

Compass points

Main article: UniWiki:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Compass points

Do not capitalize directions such as north, nor their related forms (We took the northern road), except where they are parts of proper names (such as Great North Road, Great Western Drive or South Pole).

Capitalize names of regions if they have attained proper-name status, including informal conventional names (Southern California; the Western Desert), and derived terms for people (e.g., a Southerner as someone from the Southern United States). Do not capitalize descriptive names for regions that have not attained the status of proper names, such as southern Poland.

Composite directions may or may not be hyphenated, depending on the variety of English adopted in the article. Southeast Asia and northwest are more common in American English; but South-East Asia and north-west in British English. In cases such as north–south dialogue and east–west orientation, use an en dash; see § En dashes: other uses, below.

Institutions

Main article: UniWiki:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Institutions

Names of particular institutions are proper names and require capitals, but generic words for institutions (university, college, hospital, high school) do not. For example: The university offers programs in arts and sciences, but Template:This.

The word the at the start of a title is usually uncapitalized, but follow the institution's own usage (a degree from the University of Caille; but researchers at The Leisure Group).

Abbreviations

Main article: UniWiki:Manual of Style/Abbreviations

Abbreviations are shortened forms of words or phrases. In strict analysis, they are distinct from contractions, which use an apostrophe (e.g., won't, see § Contractions) and initialisms (including acronyms). An initialism is usually formed from some or all of the initial letters of words in a phrase. In some variations of English, an acronym is considered to be an initialism which is pronounced as a word (e.g., NATO), as distinct from the case where the initialism is said as a string of individual letters (e.g., US, for United States). Herein, general statements regarding abbreviations are inclusive of acronyms, and the term acronym applies collectively to initialisms, without distinction that an acronym is said as a word.

Write out both the full version and the abbreviation at first occurrence

• When an abbreviation is used in an article, give the expression in full at first, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses (round brackets). Thereafter the abbreviation can be used alone:

The Curatores Veritatis Alliance (CVA) has controlled the Providence region for many years ... CVA also maintains a large, publicly-available standings page.

If the full version is already in parentheses, use a comma and or to indicate the abbreviation.

They suffered heavy losses last November (due to a conflict with Pandemic Legion, or PL)

Make an exception for very common abbreviations; in most articles they require no expansion (EWAR, DNA, ECM).

• Do not apply initial capitals in a full version simply because capitals are used in the abbreviation.

Correct (not a proper name):	He used a microwarpdrives (MWD)
Incorrect:	He used a MicroWarpDrive (MWD)
Correct (a proper name):	That area of space is controlled by Circle of Two (CO2)

Plural and possessive forms

Like other nouns, acronyms are pluralized via addition of -s or -es: they produced three ABs; three different POSes were built. As always, use an apostrophe only when forming the possessive: the VNI's hull was failing, not He bought two MWD's.

Full stops and spaces

Abbreviations may or may not be closed with a period; a consistent style should be maintained within an article. Standard North American usage is to end all abbreviations with a period (Dr. Smith of 42 Drummond St.), but in standard British and Australian usage, no stop is used if the abbreviation ends in the last letter of the unabbreviated form (Dr Smith of 42 Drummond St). This is also common practice in scientific writing. Regardless of punctuation, words that are abbreviated to more than one letter are spaced (op. cit. not op.cit. or opcit). There are some exceptions: PhD for "Philosophiae Doctor"; BVetMed for "Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine".

Circa

See also: UniWiki:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers § Uncertain, incomplete, or approximate dates for examples.

To indicate approximately, the abbreviation c. (followed by a space and not italicized) is preferred over circa, ca., or approx.

Do not use unwarranted abbreviations

See also: UniWiki:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers § Units of measurement for when to abbreviate units of measurement.

Avoid abbreviations when they might confuse the reader, interrupt the flow, or appear informal. For example, do not use approx. for approximate or approximately, except in a technical passage where the term occurs many times or in an infobox or a data table to reduce width.

Do not invent abbreviations or acronyms

Generally avoid making up new abbreviations, especially acronyms (Test Alliance Please Ignore is the registered name of a particularly powerful nullsec alliance, but neither it nor the reduction TAPI is used by the organization; so use its official abbreviation and ticker, TEST). If it is necessary to abbreviate in a tight space, such as a header in a wide table of data, use widely recognized abbreviations (for New Zealand gross national product, use NZ and GNP, with a link if the term has not already been written out: NZ GNP; do not use the made-up initialism NZGNP).

Ampersand

In normal text and headings, the word and should be used instead of the ampersand (&); for example January 1 and 2, not January 1 & 2. Retain an ampersand when it is a legitimate part of a proper noun, such as in Up & Down or AT&T. Ampersands may be used with consistency and discretion in places where space is extremely limited (i.e. tables and infoboxes).

Italics

Further information: UniWiki:Manual of Style/Text formatting

Emphasis

Whereas italics may be used sparingly for emphasis, boldface is normally not used for this purpose. Use italics when introducing or distinguishing terms. Overuse of emphasis reduces its effectiveness.

When emphasis is intended, versus other uses of italics as described below, the semantic HTML markup <em>...</em> may be used. This helps editors understand the intent of the markup as emphasis.

Words as words

Use italics when mentioning a word or letter (see Use-mention distinction) or a string of words up to one full sentence (the term panning is derived from panorama; the most common letter in English is e). When a whole sentence is mentioned, quotation marks may be used instead, with consistency (The preposition in She sat on the chair is on; or The preposition in "She sat on the chair" is "on"). Mentioning (to discuss grammar, wording, punctuation, etc.) is different from quoting (in which something is usually expressed on behalf of a quoted source).

Quotations in italics

For quotations, use only quotation marks (for short quotations) or block quoting (for long ones), not italics. (See Quotations below.) This means that (1) a quotation is not italicized inside quotation marks or a block quote just because it is a quotation, and (2) italics are no substitute for proper quotation formatting. To distinguish block quotations from ordinary text, you can use <blockquote>. (See § Block quotations, below.)

Italics within quotations

Use italics within quotations if they are already in the source material. When adding emphasis on Wikipedia, add an editorial note [emphasis added] after the quotation.

"Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince: And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest" [emphasis added].

If the source has used italics (or some other styling) for emphasis and this is not otherwise evident, the editorial note [emphasis in original] should appear after the quotation.

Effect on nearby punctuation

Italicize only the elements of the sentence affected by the emphasis. Do not italicize surrounding punctuation.

Incorrect: What are we to make of that? (The question mark applies to the whole sentence, not just to the emphasized that, so should not be italicized.)}}

Correct: What are we to make of 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, the period, and the word and are not italicized.)}}

Italicized links

For a link to function, any italics markup must be either completely outside the link markup, or in the link's "piped" portion.

Incorrect: He died with [[''Turandot'']] still unfinished.

Correct: He died with ''[[Turandot]]'' still unfinished.

Incorrect: The [[USS ''Adder'' (SS-3)]] was a submarine.

Correct: The [[USS Adder (SS-3)|USS ''Adder'' (SS-3)]] was a submarine.

Controlling line breaks

See also: Wikipedia:Line-break handling

It is sometimes desirable to force a text segment to appear entirely on a single line—that is, to prevent a line break (line wrap) from occurring anywhere within it.

• A non-breaking space (or hard space) will never be used as a line-break point. Unlike normal spaces, multiple adjacent non-breaking spaces do not compress into a single space. Markup: for 19 kg, code 19 kg.

It is desirable to prevent line breaks ...

• where breaking across lines might be confusing or awkward, such as:

• 17 kg
• AD 565
• 2:50 pm
• £11 billion
• May 2014
• Boeing 747
• 123 Fake Street
• World War II
• Pope Benedict XVI

• before a spaced en dash. Markup: June 23 - June 29

Whether a non-breaking space is appropriate depends on context: whereas it is appropriate to use 12 MB in prose, it may be counterproductive in a table (where horizontal space is precious) and unnecessary in a short parameter value in an infobox (where a break would never occur anyway).

A line break may occur at a thin space ( ), which is sometimes used to correct too-close placement of adjacent characters. To prevent this, consider using  

Always insert hard/thin spaces symbolically ( ,  ), never by entering them as literal Unicode characters entered directly from the keyboard.

Dates and time

For ranges of dates and times, see § En dashes: other uses, above.

Dates should only be linked when they are germane and topical to the subject, as discussed at WP:Manual of Style/Linking § Chronological items.

Time of day

Time of day is normally expressed in figures rather than being spelled out. Use context to determine whether to use the 12- or 24-hour.

• 12-hour clock times are written in the form 11:15 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. or in the form 11:15 am and 2:30 pm, with a space (preferably a non-breaking space) before the abbreviation. Use noon and midnight rather than 12 pm and 12 am; it may need to be specified whether midnight refers to the start or end of a date.
• 24-hour clock times are written in the form 08:15 and 22:55, with no suffix. Midnight written as 00:00 begins the day; 24:00 ends it.

Days

• For full dates, use the format 10 June 1921 or the format June 10, 1921. Similarly, where the year is omitted, use 10 June or June 10. For choice of format, see below.
• Do not use numerical date formats such as "03/04/2005", as this could refer to 3 April or to March 4. If a numerical format is required (e.g., for conciseness in long lists and tables), use the YYYY-MM-DD format: 2005-04-03.

Choice of format

• All the dates in a given article should have the same format (day–month or month–day). However, for citations, see WP:Citing sources § Citation style. These requirements do not apply to dates in quotations or titles.
• Articles on topics with strong ties to a particular English-speaking country should generally use the more common date format for that country (month–day for the US, except in military usage; day–month for most others; articles related to Canada may use either consistently).
• Otherwise, do not change an article from one form to another without good reason. More details can be found at WP:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers § Dates.

Months

• For month and year, write June 1921, with no comma.
• Abbreviations for months, such as Feb, are used only where space is extremely limited. Such abbreviations should use three letters only, and should not be followed by a period (full stop) except at the end of a sentence.

Seasons

• Avoid ambiguous references to seasons, which are different in the southern and northern hemispheres.
• Names of seasons may be used when there is a logical connection to the event they are describing (the autumn harvest) or when referring to a phase of a natural yearly cycle (migration typically starts in mid-spring). Otherwise, neutral wording is usually preferable (He was elected in November 1992, not He was elected in the fall of 1992).
• Journals and other publications that are issued seasonally (e.g. "Summer 2005") should be dated as such in citations Template:Crossref.

Years and longer periods

• Do not use the year before the digits (1995, not the year 1995), unless the meaning would otherwise be unclear.
• Decades are written in the format the 1980s, with no apostrophe. Use the two-digit form ('80s) only with an established social or cultural meaning. Avoid forms such as the 1700s that could refer to 10 or 100 years.
• Years are denoted by AD and BC or, equivalently, CE and BCE. Use only one system within an article, and do not change from one system to the other without good reason. The abbreviations are written without periods, and with a non-breaking space, as in 5 BC. Omit AD or CE unless this would cause ambiguity.

More information on all of the above topics can be found at WP:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers § Dates, including the handling of dates expressed in different calendars, and times corresponding to different time zones.

Current

See also: Wikipedia:As of and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch#Relative time references

The term "current" should be avoided. What is current today may not be tomorrow; situations change over time. Instead, use date- and time-specific text. To help keep information updated use the Template:Tlx template.

Template:Em:	He is the current ambassador to ...
Template:Em:	As of March 2011, he is the ambassador to ...

Numbers

WP:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers (MOS:NUM) Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers § Numbers clarifies a number of situations, including the following:

• In general, write whole cardinal numbers from one to nine as words, write other numbers that, when spoken, take two or fewer words as either figures or words (with consistency within each article), and write all other numbers as figures: 1/5 or one-fifth, 84 or eighty-four, 200 or two hundred, but 3.75, 544, 21 million. See MOS:NUM § Numbers as figures or words et seq. for exceptions and fine points.
• In general, use a comma to delimit numbers with five or more digits to the left of the decimal point. Numbers with four digits are at the editor's discretion: 12,345, but either 1,000 or 1000. See MOS:NUM § Grouping of digits et seq. for exceptions.
• In general, use decimals rather than vulgar fractions with measurements, but the latter are permitted with measuring systems such as Imperial units, Avoirdupois, and U.S. customary units. Keep articles internally consistent.
• Scientific notation (e.g., Template:Val) is preferred in scientific contexts; editors can use the Template:Tlx template, which generates such expressions with the syntax {{val|5.8|e=7|u=kg}}.
• Write out "million" and "billion" on the first use. After that, unspaced "M" can be used for millions and "bn" for billions: 70M and 25bn. See MOS:NUM § Numbers as figures or words for similar words.
• Write 3%, three percent, or three per cent, but not 3 % (with a space) or three %. "Percent" is American usage, and "per cent" is British usage (see § National varieties of English, above). In ranges of percentages written with an en dash, write only one percent sign: 3–14%.
• Indicate uncertainties as "value ± uncertainty × 10<sup>n</sup>&nbsp;units",e.g., Template:Val. See MOS:NUM § Uncertainty and rounding for other acceptable formats.
• Fewer vs. less: In most cases, use fewer with countable nouns and less with non-countable ones. However, less than (not fewer than) is recommended before nouns that denote distance or time. For example, I picked fewer than one hundred apples, but we go on our trip in less than four weeks, and he can run the 100 m in less than ten seconds, because the word time can be understood to be implied after less. In short, if you'd count it, say fewer. If you'd measure it, say less.

Currencies

• Use the full abbreviation on first use (US$ for the US dollar and A$ for the Australian dollar), Template:Em. For example, the Government of the United States always spends money in American dollars, and never in Canadian or Australian dollars.
• Use only one symbol with ranges, as in $250–300.
• In articles that are not specific to a country, express amounts of money in United States dollars, euros, or pounds sterling. Do not link the names or symbols of currencies that are commonly known to English-speakers ($, £, €), unless there is a particular reason to do so; do not use potentially ambiguous currency symbols, unless the meaning is clear in the context.
• In country-specific articles, use the currency of the country. On first occurrence, consider including conversion to US dollars, euros, or pounds sterling, at a rate appropriate to the context. For example, Since 2001 the grant has been 10,000,000 Swedish kronor (€1.0M as of August 2009). Wording such as "approx." is not appropriate for simple rounding-off of the converted amount.
• Generally, use the full name of a currency, and link it on its first appearance if English-speakers are likely to be unfamiliar with it (52 Nepalese rupees); subsequent occurrences can use the currency sign (just 88 Rs).
• Most currency signs are placed Template:Em the number; they are unspaced ($123), except for alphabetic signs (R 75).

Units of measurement

• The main unit in which a quantity is expressed should generally be an SI unit or non-SI unit officially accepted for use with the SI. However,
  • Scientific articles may also use specialist units appropriate for the branch of science in question.
  • In non-scientific articles relating to the United States, the main unit is generally an American customary unit (22 pounds (10 kg)).
  • In non-scientific articles relating to the United Kingdom, although the main unit is generally a metric unit (10 kg (22 pounds)), Imperial units are still used as the main units in some contexts (7 miles (11 km) by road).
• Where English-speaking countries use different units for the same measurement, provide a conversion in parentheses. Examples: the Mississippi River is Template:Convert long; the Murray River is Template:Convert long. The Template:Tlx template is useful for producing such expressions.
• In a direct quotation, always keep the source units. If a conversion is required, it should appear within square brackets in the quote, or else an obscure use of units can be explained in a footnote.
• Where space is limited (such as tables, infoboxes, parenthetical notes, and mathematical formulas) use unit symbols. In main text it is usually better to spell out unit names, but symbols may also be used when a unit (especially one with a long name) is used repeatedly. However, spell out the first instance of each unit in an article (for example, the typical batch is 250 kilograms ... and then 15 kg of emulsifier is added), except for unit names that are hardly ever spelled out (e.g., the degree Celsius). Most unit names are not capitalized. Use "per" when writing out a unit, rather than a slash: meter per second, not meter/second. (For spelling differences, follow § National varieties of English, above.)
• Potentially unfamiliar unit symbols should be introduced parenthetically at their first occurrence in the article, with the full name given first: for example, Her initial betatron reached energies of 2.3 megaelectronvolts (MeV), while subsequent betatrons achieved 300 MeV.
• For ranges, see § En dashes: other uses, above, and MOS:NUM, at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers § Date ranges.
• When dimensions are given, each number should be followed by a unit name or symbol (e.g., write 1 m × 3 m × 6 m, not 1 × 3 × 6 m).
• When they form a compound adjective, values and spelled-out unit names should be separated by a hyphen: for example, a five-day holiday. An exception is when the hyphenated construction has another meaning in the context.
• Unit symbols are preceded by figures, not by spelled-out numbers. Values and unit symbols are separated by a non-breaking space. For example, 5 min. The percent sign and units of degrees, minutes, and seconds Template:Em are unspaced.
• Standard unit symbols do not require a full stop (period). However, non-standard abbreviations should always be given a full stop.
• No s is appended, e.g., km, in, lb, not kms, ins, lbs.
• Write powers of unit symbols with HTML, e.g., 5 km² not Unicode superscripts and subscripts.
• For quantities of bytes and bits, specify whether the binary or decimal meanings of K, M, G, etc. are intended. The IEC prefixes kibi-, mebi-, gibi-, etc. (symbols Ki, Mi, Gi, etc.) are not familiar to most readers and should not generally be used (for exceptions, see MOS:NUM § Quantities of bytes and bits).

Common mathematical symbols

See also: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Mathematics

• For a negative sign or subtraction operator, use a minus sign (−, Unicode character U+2212 MINUS SIGN). Input by clicking on it in the insert box beneath the edit window or by typing −.
• For a multiplication sign between numbers, use × (Unicode character U+00D7 MULTIPLICATION SIGN), which is input by clicking on it in the edit toolbox under the edit window or by typing ×. The letter x should not be used to indicate multiplication, but it is used (unspaced) as the substitute for "by" in terms such as 4x4.
• Exponentiation is indicated by a superscript, Template:Var^Template:Var (typed as ''a''<sup>''n''</sup> or {{var|a}}<sup>{{var|n}}</sup>). Exponential notation can be spaced or unspaced, depending on circumstances.
• Do not use programming language notation outside computer program listings. In most programming languages, subtraction, multiplication, and exponentiation are respectively represented by the hyphen-minus -, the asterisk *, and either the caret ^ or the double asterisk **, and scientific notation is replaced by E notation.
• Symbols for binary operators and relations are spaced on both sides:
  • plus, minus, and plus-or-minus (as binary operators): +, −, ± (as in 5 − 3);
  • multiplication and division: ×, ÷;
  • equals, does not equal, equals approximately: Template:=, ≠, ≈;
  • is less than, is less than or equal to, is greater than, is greater than or equal to: <, ≤, >, ≥.
• Symbols for unary operators are closed-up to their operand:
  • positive, negative, and positive-or-negative signs: +, −, ± (as in −3);
  • other unary operators, such as the exclamation mark as a factorial sign (as in 5!).
• Variables are italicized, but digits and punctuation are not; only Template:Var and Template:Var are italicized in 2(5x + y)². The semantic HTML element <var>...</var>, or its template wrapper Template:Tlx can be used to distinguish variables from other uses of italics, as illustrated in the code example above.

Grammar and usage

Possessives

For the apostrophe character, see § Apostrophes, above. For thorough treatment of the English possessive, see Apostrophe.

Singular nouns

• For the possessive of most singular nouns, including proper names and words ending with a double-s, add 's (my daughter's achievement, my niece's wedding, Cortez's men, the boss's office, Glass's books, Illinois's largest employer, Descartes's philosophy, Verreaux's eagle). Exception: abstract nouns ending with an /s/ sound, when followed by sake (for goodness' sake, for his conscience' sake).
• For the possessive of singular nouns ending with just one s (sounded as /s/ or /z/), there are two practices advised by different grammar and style guides:
  1. Add 's: James's house, Sam Hodges's son, Jan Hus's life, Vilnius's location, Brahms's music, Dickens's novels, Morris's works, the bus's old route.
  2. Add either 's or just an apostrophe, according to how the possessive is pronounced:
     • Add only an apostrophe if the possessive is pronounced the same way as the non-possessive name: Sam Hodges' son, Moses' leadership;
     • Add 's if the possessive has an additional Template:IPAc-en at the end: Jan Hus's life, Morris's works.
     • Some possessives have two possible pronunciations: James's house or James' house, Brahms's music or Brahms' music, Vilnius's location or Vilnius' location, Dickens's novels or Dickens' novels.

Apply just Template:Em of these two practices consistently within an article. If the second practice is used and there is disagreement over the pronunciation of a possessive, the choice should be discussed and then that possessive adopted consistently in an article. (Possessives of certain classical and biblical names have traditional pronunciations that may be deemed to take precedence: Jesus' answer and Xerxes' expeditions, but Zeus's anger; and in some cases—particularly possessives of inanimate objects—rewording may be an option: the location of Vilnius, the old bus route, the moons of Mars.)

Plural nouns

• For a normal plural noun, ending with a pronounced s, form the possessive by adding just an apostrophe (my sons' wives, my nieces' weddings).
• For a plural noun Template:Em ending with a pronounced s, add 's (women's careers, people's habits, the mice's whiskers; The two Dumas's careers were controversial, but where rewording is an option, this may be better: The career of each Dumas was controversial).

Official names

• Official names (of companies, organizations, or places) should not be altered. (St Thomas' Hospital should therefore Template:Em be rendered as St Thomas's Hospital, even for consistency.)

First-person pronouns

Wikipedia articles must not be based on one person's opinions or experiences, so never use I, my, or similar forms (except in quotations).

Also avoid we, us, and our: We should note that some critics have argued against our proposal (personal rather than encyclopedic). But these forms are acceptable in certain figurative uses. For example:

• In historical articles to mean the modern world as a whole: The text of De re publica has come down to us with substantial sections missing.
• The author's we found in scientific writing: We are thus led also to a definition of "time" in physics (Albert Einstein); Throughout the proof of this theorem we assume that the function Template:Var is uniformly continuous. Often rephrasing using the passive voice is preferable: Throughout the proof of this theorem it is assumed that the function Template:Var is uniformly continuous.

Second-person pronouns

Avoid addressing the reader directly by using the second-person generic you or your; it is often ambiguous, and contrary to the tone of an encyclopedia (see also § Instructional and presumptuous language, below).

• Use a noun or a third-person pronoun: instead of When you move past "Go", you collect $200, use When players pass "Go", they collect $200, or A player passing "Go" collects $200.
• If a person cannot be specified, or when implying "anyone" as a subject, the pronoun one may be used, as an alternative to the vernacular you: a sense that one is being watched. Other constructions are usually preferable, because usage of one can seem stilted.
• The passive voice may sometimes be used instead: Impurities are removed before bottling.

Plurals

See also: English plurals and Collective noun

Use the appropriate plural; allow for cases (such as excursus or hanif) in which a word is now listed in major English dictionaries, and normally takes an s or es plural, not its original plural: two excursuses, not two Template:Lang as in Latin; two hanifs, not two hanufa as in Arabic.

Some collective nouns—such as team (and proper names of them), army, company, crowd, fleet, government, majority, mess, number, pack, and party—may refer either to a single entity or to the members that compose it. In British English, such words are sometimes treated as singular, but more often treated as plural, according to context. Exceptionally, names of towns and countries usually take singular verbs (unless they are being used to refer to a team or company by that name, or when discussing actions of that entity's government). For example, in England are playing Germany tonight, England refers to a football team; but in England is the most populous country of the United Kingdom, it refers to the country. In North American English, these words (and the United States, for historical reasons) are almost invariably treated as singular; the major exception is when sports teams are referred to by nicknames that are plural nouns, when plural verbs are commonly used to match. See also § National varieties of English, above.

Verb tense

Template:Shortcut Template:Redirect3

See also: Wikipedia:Writing better articles#Tense

By default, write all articles in the present tense, including for those covering products or works that have been discontinued. Articles discussing works of fiction are also written in the present tense Template:Crossref. Generally, do not use past tense except for deceased subjects, past events, and subjects that no longer meaningfully exist as such.

• The PDP-10 is a discontinued mainframe computer family.
• Earth: Final Conflict is a Canadian science fiction television series that ran for five seasons between October 6, 1997 and May 20, 2002.
• The 2006 Dublin riots were a series of riots which occurred in Dublin on 25 February 2006.
• The Beatles were an English rock band that formed in Liverpool in 1960.

Tense can be used to distinguish between current and former status of a subject: Dún Aonghasa Template:Strong the ruin of a prehistoric Irish cliff fort. Its original shape Template:Strong presumably oval or D-shaped, but parts of the cliff and fort have since collapsed into the sea. (Emphasis added for clarity.)

Vocabulary

Contractions

Avoid the use of contractions in encyclopedic writing; e.g., instead of the informal wasn't or it's, write was not and it is. However, contractions should not be expanded mechanically; sometimes, rewriting the sentence is preferable.

Gender-neutral language

See also: Wikipedia:Writing about women

Use gender-neutral language where this can be done with clarity and precision. For example, avoid the generic he. This does not apply to direct quotations or the titles of works (The Ascent of Man), which should not be altered, or to wording about one-gender contexts, such as an all-female school (When any student breaks that rule, she loses privileges).

Ships may be referred to using either feminine forms ("she", "her", "hers") or neutral forms ("it", "its"). Either usage is acceptable, but each article should be internally consistent and employ one or the other exclusively. As with all optional styles, articles should not be changed from one style to another unless there is a substantial reason to do so. See WP:Manual of Style/Military history § Pronouns.

Contested vocabulary

Avoid words and phrases that give the impression of straining for formality, that are unnecessarily regional, or that are not widely accepted. See List of English words with disputed usage and Wikipedia:List of commonly misused English words; see also § Identity below.

Instructional and presumptuous language

See also: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch#Editorializing

Avoid such phrases as remember that and note that, which address readers directly in an unencyclopedic tone. They are a subtle form of Wikipedia self-reference. Similarly, phrases such as of course, naturally, obviously, clearly, and actually make presumptions about readers' knowledge, and call into question the reason for including the information in the first place. Do not Template:Em readers that something is ironic, surprising, unexpected, amusing, coincidental, etc. Simply state the sourced facts and allow readers to draw their own conclusions. Such constructions can usually just be deleted (and letter case adjusted if necessary), leaving behind proper sentences, with a more academic and less pushy tone: Note that this was naturally subject to controversy in more conservative newspapers. becomes This was subject to controversy in more conservative newspapers.

Subset terms

A subset term identifies a set of members of a larger class. Common subset terms are including, among, and et cetera (etc.). Do not use redundant subset terms (so avoid constructions like: Template:Strong the most well-known members of the fraternity are Template:Strong two members of the Onassis family. or The elements in stars Template:Strong hydrogen, helium, Template:Strong). Do not use including to introduce a complete list, where comprising, consisting of, or composed of would be more accurate.

Identity

Template:Shortcut

See also: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biographies#Child named for parent or predecessor and Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves

When there is a discrepancy between the term most commonly used by reliable sources for a person or group and the term that person or group uses for themselves, use the term that is most commonly used by reliable sources; if it isn't clear which is most used, use the term that the person or group uses.

Disputes over how to refer to a person or group are addressed by Wikipedia content policies, such as those on verifiability, and neutral point of view (and article titles when the term appears in the title of an article).

Use specific terminology. For example, it is often more appropriate for people or things from Ethiopia (a country in Africa) to be described as Ethiopian, not carelessly (with the risk of stereotyping) as African.

Use of "Arab" and "Arabic"

The adjective Arab refers to people and things of ethnic Arab origin. The term Arabic refers to the Arabic language or writing system, and related concepts (Not all Arab people write or converse in Arabic).

Gender identity

Main biographical article on a person whose gender might be questioned

Give precedence to self-designation as reported in the most up-to-date reliable sources, even when it doesn't match what's most common in reliable sources. When a person's gender self-designation may come as a surprise to readers, explain it without overemphasis on first occurrence in an article.

Any person whose gender might be questioned should be referred to by the pronouns, possessive adjectives, and gendered nouns (for example "man/woman", "waiter/waitress", "chairman/chairwoman") that reflect that person's Template:Em expressed gender self-identification. This applies in references to any phase of that person's life, unless the subject has indicated a preference otherwise. Avoid confusing constructions (Jane Doe fathered a child) by rewriting (e.g., Jane Doe became a parent). Direct quotations may need to be handled as exceptions (in some cases adjusting the portion used may reduce apparent contradictions, and "[sic]" may be used where necessary).

Referring to the person in other articles

Generally, do not go into detail over changes in name or gender presentation unless they are relevant to the passage in which the person is mentioned. Use context to determine which name or names to provide on a case-by-case basis. The MoS does not have specific rules stipulating when to give both names, which name to use first, or how that name should be written.

Foreign terms

See also: Help:Interlanguage links and [[::Category:Wikipedia Manual of Style (regional)|:Category:Wikipedia Manual of Style (regional)]]

Foreign words should be used sparingly.

No common usage in English

Use italics for phrases in other languages and for isolated foreign words that are not current in English. See WP:Manual of Style/Text formatting § Foreign terms for details.

Common usage in English

Loanwords and borrowed phrases that have common usage in English—Gestapo, samurai, vice versa—do not require italics. A rule of thumb is not to italicize words that appear unitalicized in general-purpose English-language dictionaries.

Spelling and romanization

See also: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English), Wikipedia:Romanization, and [[::Category:Romanization|:Category:Romanization]]

Names not originally written in one of the Latin-script alphabets (written for example in Greek, Cyrillic, or Chinese scripts) must be given a romanized form for use in English. Use a systematically transliterated or otherwise romanized name (Aleksandr Tymoczko, Wang Yanhong); but if there is a common English form of the name (Tchaikovsky, Chiang Kai-shek), use that form instead.

The use of diacritics (such as accent marks) for foreign words is neither encouraged nor discouraged; their usage depends on whether they appear in verifiable reliable sources in English and on the constraints imposed by specialized Wikipedia guidelines Template:Crossref. Provide redirects from alternative forms that use or exclude diacritics.

Spell a name consistently in the title and the text of an article. See relevant policy at WP:Article titles; see also WP:Naming conventions (use English). For foreign names, phrases, and words generally, adopt the spellings most commonly used in English-language references for the article, unless those spellings are idiosyncratic or obsolete. If a foreign term does not appear in the article's references, adopt the spelling most commonly used in other verifiable reliable sources (for example other English-language dictionaries and encyclopedias). For punctuation of compounded forms, see relevant guidelines in § Punctuation, above.

Sometimes the usage will be influenced by other guidelines, such as § National varieties of English (above), which may lead to different choices in different articles.

Other concerns

• Capitalization in foreign-language titles varies; see § Titles of works.
• For non-English vernacular names of species, see § Animals, plants, and other organisms.
• For handling of foreign-language quotations, see § Foreign-language quotations.
• For non-English characters that resemble single quotation marks and apostrophes, see § Foreign characters that resemble apostrophes.
• For actual non-English quotation characters, see § Quotation characters.
• See Category:Multilingual support templates for templates that can be used to provide language information and metadata about foreign words or phrases. The most commonly used is Template:Tlx.

Technical language

See also: Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable

Some topics are intrinsically technical, but editors should try to make them understandable to as many readers as possible. Minimize jargon, or at least explain it or tag it using Template:Tlx or Template:Tlx for other editors to fix. For unavoidably technical articles, a separate introductory article (like Introduction to general relativity) may be the best solution. Avoid excessive wikilinking (linking within Wikipedia) as a substitute for parenthetic explanations such as the one in this sentence. Do not introduce new and specialized words simply to teach them to the reader when more common alternatives will do. When the notions named by jargon are too complex to explain concisely in a few parenthetical words, write one level down. For example, consider adding a brief background section with Template:Tlx tags pointing to the full treatment article(s) of the prerequisite notions; this approach is practical only when the prerequisite concepts are central to the exposition of the article's main topic and when such prerequisites are not too numerous. Short articles like stubs generally do not have such sections.

Geographical items

See also: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names)

Places should generally be referred to consistently by the same name as in the title of their article (see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names)). Exceptions are made if there is a widely accepted historical English name appropriate to the given context. In cases where such a historical name is used, it should be followed by the modern name in round brackets (parentheses) on the first occurrence of the name in applicable sections of the article. This resembles linking; it should not be done to the detriment of style. On the other hand, it is probably better to provide such a variant too often than too rarely. If more than one historical name is applicable for a given context, the other names should be added after the modern English name, that is: "historical name (modern name, other historical names)".

Media files

See also: Wikipedia:Creation and usage of media files

Images

See also: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility#Images, Wikipedia:Image use policy, and Wikipedia:Picture tutorial

• Infoboxes, images, and related content in the lead section must be right-aligned.
• Use captions to clarify the relevance of the image to the article (see § Captions, below).
• Each image should be inside the major section to which it relates (within the section defined by the most recent level 2 heading or at the top of the lead section), not immediately above the section heading.
• Avoid sandwiching text between two images that face each other, and between an image and an infobox or similar.
• It is often preferable to place images of faces so that the face or eyes look toward the text. However, it is not necessary to reverse an image simply to have the subject facing the text.
• Multiple images in the same article can be staggered right-and-left (for example, Timpani).
• The thumbnail option may be used (thumb), or another size may be fixed. The default thumbnail width is 220 pixels; users can adjust this in their preferences. Lead-section images should be no wider than "upright=1.35" (by default this is 300 pixels, but may appear larger or smaller based on the thumbnail width setting in preferences). See Manual of Style/Images for information on when and how to use other sizes.
• Link to more images on Wikimedia Commons when appropriate; see WP:Wikimedia sister projects for advice and methods. The use of galleries should be in keeping with WP:Image use policy § Image galleries.
• Avoid referring to images as being on the left or right. Image placement is different for viewers of the mobile version of Wikipedia, and is meaningless to people having pages read to them by assistive software. Instead, use captions to identify images.
• Alt text takes the place of an image for text-only readers, including those using screen readers. Images should have an alt attribute added to the Template:Para parameter. See WP:ALT for more information.

Other media files

See also: Wikipedia:Videos

Other media files include video and audio files. Style recommendations for such files largely follow recommendations for image files (as far as applicable).

Avoid entering textual information as images

Textual information should almost always be entered as text rather than as an image. True text can be colored and adjusted with CSS tags and templates, but text in images cannot be. Images are not searchable, are slower to download, and are unlikely to be read as text by devices for the visually impaired. Any important textual information in an image should also appear in the image's alt text, caption, or other nearby text.

For entering textual information as audio: see Wikipedia:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia

Captions

Photographs and other graphics should always have captions, unless they are "self-captioning" images (such as reproductions of album or book covers) or when they are unambiguous depictions of the subject of the article. In a biography article no caption is necessary for a portrait of the subject pictured alone; but one might be used, to give the year, the subject's age, or other circumstances of the portrait along with the name of the subject.

Formatting of captions

• Captions normally start with a capital letter.
• Most captions are not complete sentences but merely sentence fragments that should not end with a period. However, if any complete sentence occurs in a caption, then every sentence and every sentence fragment in that caption should end with a period.
• The text of captions should not be specially formatted, except in ways that would apply if it occurred in the main text (e.g., italics for the Latin name of a species).
• Captions should be succinct; more information about the image can be included on its description page, or in the main text.
• Captions for technical charts and diagrams may need to be substantially longer than those for other images. Captions for technical images should fully describe all the elements of the image and indicate the image's significance.

Bulleted and numbered lists

• Do not use lists if a passage is read easily as plain paragraphs.
• Use proper wikimarkup- or template-based list code Template:Crossref.
• Do not leave blank lines between items in a bulleted or numbered list unless there is a reason to do so, since this causes the Wiki software to interpret each item as beginning a new list.
  • Indents (such as this) are permitted if the elements are "child" items
• Use numbers rather than bullets only if:
  • A need to refer to the elements by number may arise;
  • The sequence of the items is critical; or
  • The numbering has some independent meaning, for example in a listing of musical tracks.
• Use the same grammatical form for all elements in a list, and do not mix sentences and sentence fragments as elements.
  • For example, when the elements are:
    • Complete sentences, each one is formatted with sentence case (its first letter is capitalized) and a final period (full stop).
    • Sentence fragments, the list is typically introduced by an introductory fragment ending with a colon.
    • Titles of works, they retain the original capitalization of the titles.
    • Other elements, they are formatted consistently in either sentence case or lower case.

Links

Wikilinks

See also: Help:Link

Make links only where they are relevant and helpful in the context: Excessive use of hyperlinks can be distracting and may slow the reader down. Redundant links (like the one in the tallest people on Earth) clutter the page and make future maintenance harder. High-value links that Template:Em worth pursuing should stand out clearly.

Linking to sections: A hash sign (#) followed by the appropriate heading will lead to a relevant part of a page. For example, [[Apostrophe#Use in non-English names]] links to a particular section of the article Apostrophe.

Initial capitalization: Wikipedia's MediaWiki software does not require that wikilinks begin with an upper-case character. Only capitalize the first letter where this is naturally called for, or when specifically referring to the linked article by its name: Snakes are often venomous, but lizards only rarely (see Poison).

Check links: Ensure that the destination is the intended one; many dictionary words lead to disambiguation pages and not to complete or well-chosen articles.

External links

External links should not normally be used in the body of an article. Instead, articles can include an External links section at the end, pointing to further information outside Wikipedia as distinct from citing sources. The standard format is a primary heading, ==External links==, followed by a bulleted list of links. Identify the link and briefly indicate its relevance to the article. For example:

* [http://history.nih.gov/exhibits/history/index.html History of NIH]

* [http://nih.gov/ National Institutes of Health homepage]

These will appear as:

• History of NIH
• National Institutes of Health homepage

Where appropriate, use external link templates such as Template:Tlx and Template:Tlx.

Add external links with discretion; Wikipedia is not a link repository.

Miscellaneous

Keep markup simple

The simplest markup is often the easiest to edit, the most comprehensible, and the most predictable. Markup may appear differently in different browsers. Use HTML and CSS markup sparingly; in particular, do not use the CSS float or line-height properties because they break rendering on some browsers when large fonts are used.

An HTML character entity is sometimes better than the equivalent Unicode character, which may be difficult to identify in edit mode; for example, Α is understood where Α (the upper-case form of Greek α) may not be.

Formatting issues

See also: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Text formatting

Modifications in font size, blank space, and color (see § Color coding, below) are an issue for the Wikipedia site-wide style sheet, and should be reserved for special cases only.

Typically, the use of custom font styles will:

• reduce consistency, since the text will no longer look uniform;
• reduce usability, since it might be impossible for people with custom style sheets (for accessibility reasons, for example) to override it, and it might clash with a different skin as well as inconvenience people with color blindness (see below); and
• cause disputes, since other editors may disagree aesthetically with the choice of style.

Outside article text, different font sizes are routinely used in navigation templates and infoboxes, tables (especially in larger ones), and some other contexts where alternatives are not available (such as table captions). Specify font sizes Template:Em (for example in CSS with font-size: 85%) rather than Template:Em (like font-size: 8pt).

Color coding

Information should be accessible to all. Do not use color Template:Em to mark differences in text: they may be invisible to people with color blindness. Also, black-and-white printouts, older computer displays with fewer colors, and monochrome displays (older PDAs and cell phones) cannot show such distinctions.

Choose colors that can be distinguished by the readers with the commonest form of colorblindness (red–green), such as maroon and teal; and Template:Em mark the differences with change of font or some other means (maroon and alternative font face, teal). Avoid low contrast between text and background colors. Viewing the page with Wickline can help with the choice of colors. See also color coding.

In addition to vision accessibility problems, usage of only color to encode attributes in tables (for example, Gold, Silver, or Bronze achievement levels) instead of a separate sortable column, disables the use of the powerful Wikitable sortability feature on that attribute for all readers. Even for readers with unimpaired color vision, excessive background shading of table entries impedes readability and recognition of Wikilinks. Background color should be used only as a Template:Em visual cue, and should be subtle (consider using lighter, less-dominant pastel hues) rather than a glaring spotlight.

Scrolling lists and collapsible content

See also: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility#Users with limited CSS or JavaScript support

Scrolling lists, and collapsible templates that toggle text display between hide and show, can interfere with readers' ability to access our content. Such mechanisms are not to be used to conceal "spoiler" information. Templates are not normally used to store article text at all, as it interferes with editors' ability to find and edit it, and watchlist for changes.

When such features are used, take care that the content will still be accessible on devices that do not support JavaScript or CSS, and to the 45% (and climbing) of Wikipedia readers who use the mobile version of the site, which has a limited set of features. Mobile ability to access the content in question is easy to test with the "Mobile view" link at the bottom of each page.

Template:Strong This includes reference lists, tables and lists of article content, image galleries, and image captions. In particular, note that while some templates support a collapsible parameter or manually-added CSS class, and this is permissible, the collapsed, mw-collapsed, and autocollapse states Template:Em to pre-emptively force the closure of these elements, except as noted below. Any information hidden in this way when the page loads will be irreversibly invisible to the aforementioned classes of users, as well as a growing number of low-bandwidth users in Asia who reach a Wikipedia article via Google. Several other CSS classes, used manually or by templates, will render content inaccessible to mobile users.

Collapsed or auto-collapsing cells or sections may be used with tables if it simply repeats information covered in the main text (or is purely supplementary, e.g. several past years of statistics in collapsed tables for comparison with a table of uncollapsed current stats). Auto-collapsing is often a feature of navboxes. A few infoboxes also use pre-collapsed sections for infrequently accessed (usually navigational) details. If information in a list, infobox, or other non-navigational content seems extraneous or trivial enough to inspire pre-collapsing it, consider raising a discussion on the article (or template) talk page about whether it should be included at all. If the information is important and the concern is article density or length, consider dividing the article into more sections, integrating unnecessarily list-formatted information into the article prose, or splitting the article.

Invisible comments

Editors use invisible comments to communicate with each other in the body of the text of an article. These comments are visible only in the wiki source and in VisualEditor; they are not visible in read mode.

Invisible comments are useful for alerting other editors to issues such as common mistakes that regularly occur in the article, a section title being the target of an incoming link, or pointing to a discussion that established a consensus relating to the article. They should not be used to instruct other editors not to perform certain edits, although where existing consensus is against making such an edit, they may usefully draw the editor's attention to that. Avoid adding too many invisible comments because they can clutter the wiki source for other editors. Check that your invisible comment does not change the formatting, for example by introducing unwanted white space in the rendered page.

To leave an invisible comment, enclose the text you intend to be read only by editors between <!-- and -->. For example:

• <!--> If you change this section title, also change the links to it on the pages .... </!-->
• <!--> When adding table entries, remember to update the total given in the text. </!-->

This notation can be inserted with a single click in Wiki markup, just under the edit pane in edit mode.

Pronunciation

Pronunciation in Wikipedia is indicated in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). In most situations, for ease of understanding by the majority of readers and across variants of the language, quite broad IPA transcriptions are best for English pronunciations. See Wikipedia:IPA for English and Wikipedia:IPA (general) for keys, and Template:Tlx for templates that link to these keys. For English pronunciations, pronunciation respellings may be used Template:Em the IPA.

See also

• Beginners' guide to the Manual of Style – a Template:Em of a trimmed-down version of the Manual of Style.
• Editing policy – explains Wikipedia's general philosophy of editing.
• Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, textbook, or scientific journal – policy that we write for a general, not technical, readership as much as we can
• Manual of Style tutorial – a quick introduction to the style guide for articles.
• Styletips – a list of advice for editors on writing style and formatting.
• Topic- and culture-related Manuals of Style for film, novels, biographies, military history, etc.

Guidance

• Annotated article – is a well-constructed sample article, with annotations.
• Article development – lists the ways in which you can help an article grow.
  • Basic copyediting – gives helpful advice on copy-editing.
  • Better articles – guidance on how to make articles better.
  • Perfect article – point-by-point guidance on what makes a great article.
• Avoiding common mistakes – gives a list of common mistakes and how to avoid them.
• Be bold – suggests a bold attitude toward page updates.
• Citing sources – explains process and standards for citing references.
• Editing – is a short primer on editing pages.
• Style guide – contains links to the style guides of some magazines and newspapers.
• Wiki markup – explains the codes and resources available for editing a page.

Development

• Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Style guide – lists some variations between the proposed printed versions of Wikipedia and the Manual of Style.

Tools

• User:GregU's dashes script – a script that will fix dashes in articles in accordance with MOS:DASH
• User:Ohconfucius MOSDATE script – a script that will unify dates in articles in accordance with MOS:DATEFORMAT

Other community standards

• List of policies – a comprehensive, descriptive directory of policies
• List of guidelines – a comprehensive descriptive directory of guidelines.
  • Community standards and advice – a quick directory of community norms and related guidance essays.
• Advice pages – about advice pages written by WikiProjects.

Guidelines within Manual of Style

For the major parts of the Manual of Style, see the sidebar at top right of this page (visible only in desktop view, not in mobile view).

(Links to policy and guidelines on specific questions.)

Names

• Policy for naming articles: WP:AT
• Proper names
  • Generally (dedicated MOS page): Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Proper names (MOS:PN)
  • Place names: MOS:PN, at § Place names
  • Diacritical marks in names: MOS:PN, at § Diacritics
  • Same name for peoples and languages: MOS:PN, at § Peoples and their languages
• Naming and identifying individuals and peoples:
  • Generally: current page, at MOS:IDENTITY
  • Specifically (for individuals): MOS:BIO, at WP:FULLNAME
  • Opening paragraph of biographies: MOS:BIO, at WP:OPENPARA
• Names of organizations:
  • Generally (has application beyond to topic guideline in which it's presently located): MOS:CUE, at § Respect for official organization names
  • Names that are also trademarks (dedicated MOS page): MOS:TM
• Names of animal species, etc. (in article titles): WP:FAUNA

Capitalization

• Generally (dedicated MOS page): MOS:CAPS
• In musical items: MOS:MUSIC, at § Capitalization

Language varieties

• English national varieties (U.S., British, and other): current page, at MOS:ENGVAR
  • Commonalities across national varieties: current page, at WP:COMMONALITY
  • Topic strongly tied to one nation: current page, at MOS:TIES

Foreign terms used in English

• current page, at MOS:FOREIGN

Quotations in articles

• Generally: current page, at MOS:QUOTE
• Form of quotation marks: current page, at MOS:QUOTEMARKS

Numbers, times, and dates

• Generally (dedicated MOS page): MOS:NUM
• Fractions: MOS:NUM, at MOS:FRAC
• Months, seasons, years, and longer periods of time: MOS:NUM, at § Longer periods
• Ages: Template:Age

Lists

• Bulleted, numbered, or otherwise: current page, at § Bulleted and numbered lists

Punctuation guidance

• Generally: current page, at § Punctuation
• Apostrophe: current page, at § Apostrophes
  • Possessive apostrophe: current page, at MOS:POSS
• Ampersand ("&"): current page, at MOS:&
• Hyphen ("-"): current page, at MOS:HYPHEN
• Dashes
  • Generally (em dash "—" and en dash "–"): current page, at MOS:DASH
  • En dash (more): current page, at MOS:ENDASH
  • Em dash, no spaces before or after: current page, at MOS:EMDASH