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This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style. Editors should follow it, except where common sense and the occasional exception will improve an article. Before editing this page, please make sure that your revision reflects consensus. |
This is Wikipedia's style manual for text formatting. Use it for guidance on when to apply various formatting techniques, such as bold, italics and underlining. For instructions on how to do that, please see Wikipedia:How to edit a page#Character formatting.
Contents |
Boldface
Boldface is used to separate the article name from ordinary text. It is typically used in the first paragraph of an article, used with proper names and common terms for the article topic, including any synonyms and acronyms. Do this only for the first occurrence of the term; for instance, you should avoid using boldface in both the lead section and the caption of the lead image.
If the article topic does not have a commonly accepted name, but is merely descriptive, the title does not need to appear in the first sentence, and is not bolded if it does.
Wikipedia automatically puts headings (section titles) in boldface. Bolded headings, though possible, will appear especially bold, and are not appropriate.
Use italics, not boldface, for emphasis in article text. Use boldface in the remainder of the article only for a few special uses:
- Table headers
- Definition lists (example: Proof)
- Volume numbers of journal articles, in some bibliographic formats
It is technically possible to bold Greek and Cyrillic alphabets, but this should be avoided.
Italic face
Main uses
- See also: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles)
Use italics for titles of the following:
- Names of genera and species epithets of living organisms: Escherichia, Escherichia coli or E. coli.
- Names of higher taxa are not italicised: Hominidae, Mammalia, Animalia; neither are serovars: Salmonella Typhi.
- Books such as The Da Vinci Code
- Video games such as Halo: Combat Evolved
- Court cases such as Roe v. Wade
- Films such as The Terminator
- Foreign-language words such as kanji
- Genes (however, the proteins encoded by the genes are set in roman)
- Long or epic poems, such as Iliad
- Musical albums such as The Dark Side of the Moon
- Named passenger trains and locomotives such as 20th Century Limited and Mallard
- Orchestral works such as New World Symphony
- Periodicals (newspapers, journals, and magazines) such as Newsweek and The New York Times
- Plays such as Much Ado About Nothing
- Ships such as RMS Titanic
- Television series such as Gilligan's Island
- Works of visual art such as Nude Descending a Staircase
Italics are generally used for titles of longer works. Enclose titles of shorter works in double quotation marks, such as the following:
- Articles, essays or papers
- Chapters of a longer work
- Episodes of a television series
- Short poems
- Short stories
- Songs and singles
Items of middling length should be italicized or placed within double quotation marks as appropriate for the context. For example, a novela or novelette that has been published in an independent volume may be italicized when it is discussed as a work per se, or placed within quotation marks when it is discussed as a section published in an anthology of the author's shorter works.
In a few cases, the title should be in neither italics nor quotation marks:
- Scripture
- Legal/constitutional documents
Words as words
Use italics when writing about words as words, or letters as letters (to indicate the use–mention distinction). This category may also use quotation marks to distinguish words as words. For example:
- Deuce means "two".
- The term panning is derived from panorama, which was coined in 1787.
- The most common letter in English is e.
Foreign terms
Wikipedia prefers italics for phrases in other languages and for isolated foreign words that do not yet have everyday use in non-specialised English. Use the native spellings if they use the Latin alphabet (with or without diacritics)—otherwise Anglicise their spelling. For example: “Gustaf I of Sweden liked to breakfast on crisp bread (knäckebröd) open sandwiches with toppings such as messmör (butter made from goat's milk), ham (skinka), vegetables (grönsaker) like tomatoes (tomat) or cucumber (gurka)." Per the guide to writing better Wikipedia articles, use foreign words sparingly.
Loan words or phrases that have common use in English, however—praetor, Gestapo, samurai, esprit de corps—do not require italicization. If looking for a good rule of thumb, do not italicize words that appear in Merriam-Webster Online.
If there is a reason to include native spelling in a non-Latin script, it can be placed in parentheses. Text in non-Latin scripts (such as Greek or Cyrillic) should not be italicized at all—even where this is technically feasible; the difference of script suffices to distinguish it on the page.
A proper name is usually not italicized when it is used, but it may be italicized when the name itself is being referred to (see Words as words).
Quotations
It is normally incorrect to put quotations in italics. They should only be used if the material would otherwise call for italics, such as for emphasis or to indicate use of non-English words. Indicate whether italics were used in the original text or whether they were added later. For example:
- Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince: And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
- (emphasis added)
Variables
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It has been suggested that this page or section be merged into Manual of Style (dates and numbers) . (Discuss) |
Program variables
Variables in computer programs and symbols for program variables within plain-English prose and in computer source code presented as textual content can be marked up with the <var> element, or its wikimarkup equivalent, the {{var}} template:
...where <var>x</var> is incremented on each pass...⇒ ...where x is incremented on each pass...- |id={{var|ISBN or other identifier}} ⇒ |id=ISBN or other identifier
This provides richer semantic markup over simple italicization (or no formatting at all), that can aid in searching, accessibility, and disambiguation between variables and literal values.
Mathematics variables
Symbols for mathematics variables, either used within mathematical formulas or used in isolation, are simply italicized:
The value of ''y'' when ''x'' = 3⇒ The value of y when x = 3''E'' = ''m''c<sup>2</sup>⇒ E = mc2
Some things remain in upright form regardless of the surrounding text
- Bold-face variables (such as vectors), and structures (such as Q, the rational numbers)
- Letters with an arrow on top for vectors
- Symbols for chemical elements and compounds such as HCl
- Symbols for units of measure such as kg, ft/s
- Symbols for mathematical operators such as sin and ln
- sin x, ln (p/p0)
The template {{varserif}} is available to distinguish between I (upper-case i) and l (lower-case L) as variables, which look almost identical in most sans-serif fonts, including the default typefaces of many browsers.
When not to use emphasis
The following are proposed guidelines regarding the use of various style devices to show emphasis:
- Italics are used for emphasis, but sparingly.
Avoid various kinds of overemphasis, which distracts from the writing:
- Exclamation points (!) should usually only be used in direct quotes.
- Bold type is reserved for certain uses (see #Boldface, above).
- "Quotation marks" for emphasis of a single word or phrase, or scare quotes, are discouraged. Quotation marks are to show that you are using the correct word as quoted from the original source. For example: His tombstone was inscribed with the name "Aaron" instead of the spelling he used during his life.
- ALL CAPS and small caps formatting should be changed to Title Case, in which each significant word is capitalized. "WAR BEGINS TODAY" should be reduced to "War Begins Today". This has become the standard for the New York Times in its transcription project. The same rule applies to book and magazine titles as per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters)#All caps.
- Double emphasis, such as "italics in quotation marks" or italics and an exclamation point!, is unnecessary.
- Underlining is used in typewriting and handwriting to represent italic type. Generally, do not underline text or it may be confused with links on a web page.
