Help:Formatting Guidelines

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• Help:Style Guide

This article has been updated and replaced with the much superior and more aptly-named, Style Guide. Leaving the last draft of this article intact for modification into a future help topic related to actual formatting of pages.

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.

Abbreviations

All-Capital Abbreviations

All-capital abbreviations do not take periods except when referring to nations, states, cities or persons. Academic degrees, however, should be abbreviated with periods with no spaces in between. For example:

• John Doe, Ph.D. works for NASA

Lowercase Abbreviations

Abbreviations consisting of lowercase letters usually take periods with no spaces in between. For example:

• a.m.
• p.m.
• c.o.d.
• g.p.a.

Names of Organizations

Spell out the name of an organization on first reference. Do not follow an organization's name with an abbreviation or acronym in parentheses or set off by dashes. If an abbreviation or acronym would not be clear on second reference without this arrangement, do not use it. For example:

• The Career Development Center received a grant from the Western College Placement Association to study the current job market. The CDC will begin research as soon as the WCPA check clears the bank.

Capitalization

Titles

Titles are capitalized only when they precede a person's name. For example:

• President John Doe; John Doe, president of the world

Numbers

As a general rule, numbers from one to nine should be written out; numbers 10 and over should be left in numerical form.

When referring to percentages, do not use "%" except in tables and technical text. For example:

• More than 20 percent passed the test with a score of 85 or better.

Spell out ordinal numbers first through ninth. Numbers above the 10th ordinal may use figures. For example:

• first
• second
• 10th
• 23rd
• 31st

Commas and Other Punctuation

Use commas to separate items in a simple series but not before the conjunction. For example:

• The fruit bowl contained apples, oranges and bananas.

A comma should be used before the conjunction, however, if there would be a possibility of confusion without it. For example:

• Items on the table included butter, bread, salt and pepper, and ketchup.

Do not use a comma to separate a name from Jr. or Sr.

When used with quotation marks, commas and periods are always enclosed within the quotation marks. For example:

• "This parking lot is crowded," he said. "I should have stayed at home."

Colons and semicolons are never enclosed within quotation marks unless they are part of the quotation.

Colons and semicolons are followed by a single space.

The dash, question mark and exclamation mark are enclosed within quotation marks only when they apply to the quoted material. For example:

• "Shall we all go together?" he asked.
• Did he say, "We should all go together"?