Help:Formatting Guidelines

This article is a "stub" or placeholder. It was likely created because someone was interested in reading more about the subject but either didn't have the time or knowledge to create or complete the article. If you can contribute, please do so.

^[???]

Linking

When to Link

• Internal Articles Link to an internal article the first time a topic appears on a page. No need to repeat the link in the body of the work unless it appears in a collection of links at the end (i.e "Related Links," "See Also," etc.).
• External Links Linking to external locations is encouraged, provided the contents of the external site provides significant insight into the topic of the containing article.
  • For example, assume your article contains the statement, "John once flew on an airplane seated next to Abraham Lincoln." The first link is superfluous, because details about air travel and the origin of planes do not have any bearing on the statement, but details about the other passenger is what makes the statement important.

Italics

Using italics is great for emphasizing a word or phrase within the line.

When to Italicize

• In place of ALL CAPS All uppercase for emphasis is a convention for environments where there is no opportunity or mechanism for other formatting (like text-only emails or message boards). In general, all caps words are interpreted online as screaming, and frankly they just look bad. Use italics for emphasis sparingly. It's almost always better if the emphasis is clear from the structure of the sentence itself.
  • Example: It was late in the day and Bob was REALLY hungry.
    Should be: It was late in the day and Bob was really hungry.
• Quotes When quoting someone directly, using italics helps the quote to stand out as not being part of the surrounding prose of the article. (Note: When italics are needed within a quote, de-italicize the emphasized word or phrase.)
  • Example: "It was late in the day and I was really hungry."
• Titles Italicize the titles of books, which may be novels, book-length nonfiction or book-length poems. (Generally, the titles of shorter works, such as essays or shorter poems, are not italicized but are set off with quotation marks.) Also italicize the names of...
  • ... newspapers and periodicals
  • ... television series, but not the names of individual episodes (which are set off with quotation marks)
  • ... movies and plays
  • ... operas and other full-length musical compositions, except for works that are named by their number or key (for example, Symphony No. 2)
  • ... ships, planes, automobiles and trains, but not a prefix such as "USS"
• Scientific names of plants and animals, such as canis dingo or ailurus fulgens, take italics.
• Foreign-language words that are likely to be unfamiliar to readers. For example, "At the Ristorante di Dante, I ordered cervello, not knowing I would be served brains." Don't, however, italicize proper names, such as Ristorante di Dante.