cyanic-selkie/wikianc huggingface dataset:
MOS:AT
Controlling line breaks
Insert non-breaking and thin spaces as named character reference ( or  ), or as templates that generate these, and never by entering them directly into the edit window from the keyboard – they are visually indistinguishable from regular spaces, and later editors will be unable to see what they are. Inside wikilinks, a construction such as works but  doesn't.
Instead of a hyphen, use an en dash when applying a prefix or suffix to a compound that itself includes a space, dash or hyphen
The form of category names follows the corresponding main articles, e.g.,. However, the principle is not extended when compounding other words in category names, e.g., and  both use hyphens.
Block quotations
Format a long quote (more than about forty words or a few hundred characters, or consisting of more than one paragraph, regardless of length) as a block quotation, indented on both sides. Block quotations should be enclosed in.
Dashes
Sources use dashes in varying ways. For consistency and clarity, Wikipedia adopts the following principles.
Double or single
Most quotations take double quotation marks (Bob said: "Jim ate the apple."). Exceptions:
For a quotation within a quotation
Use single quotes: For deeper nesting, alternate between single and double quotes:
Scrolling lists and collapsible content
Scrolling lists, and collapsible templates that toggle text display between hide and show, can interfere with readers' ability to access our content. Such mechanisms should not be used to conceal "spoiler" information. Templates should not normally be used to store article text at all, as it interferes with editors' ability to find and edit it.
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 commonly misused English words; see also.
Compass points
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.
Hyphens
Hyphenation involves many subtleties that cannot be covered here; the rules and examples presented above illustrate the broad principles.
Instructional and presumptuous language
Avoid phrases such as remember that and note that, which address readers directly in an unencyclopedic tone and lean toward instructional. They are a subtle form of Wikipedia self-reference, "breaking the fourth wall". Similarly, phrases such as of course, naturally, obviously, clearly, and actually make presumptions about readers' knowledge, may express a viewpoint, and may call into question the reason for including the information in the first place. Do not readers that something is interesting, ironic, surprising, unexpected, amusing, coincidental, etc. Simply present sourced facts neutrally and allow readers to draw their own conclusions. Such constructions can usually just be deleted, 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.
In compounds when the connection might otherwise be expressed with to, versus, and, or between
Do not use an en dash for hyphenated personal names, even when they are used as adjectives:
Formatting issues
Typically, the use of custom font styles:
Scrolling lists and collapsible content
This includes reference lists, tables and lists of article content, image galleries, and image captions.
External links
Where appropriate, use external link templates such as and.
Indentation
Avoid  (description list markup) for simple visual indentation in articles (common as it may be on talk pages). It causes accessibility problems and outputs invalid HTML.
Section headings
The advantage of using, or simply inserting the   tags directly, is that when edits are made to the section in the future, the anchor will not be included in page history entries as part of the section name. When  is used directly, that undesirable behavior does occur. Note: if electing to insert the span directly, do not abbreviate it by using a self-closing tag, as in, since in HTML5 that XML-style syntax is valid only for certain tags, such as. See for further discussion.
Hyphens
Encoding: The hyphen is represented by the ASCII/UNICODE HYPHEN-MINUS character, which is entered by the hyphen or minus key on all standard keyboards. Do not use the UNICODE HYPHEN character.
Spacing
In normal text, never put a space before a comma, semicolon, colon, period/full stop, question mark, or exclamation mark (even in quoted material; see ).
Section organization
Certain standardized templates and wikicode that are not sections go at the very top of the article, before the content of the lead section, and in the following order:
Formatting issues
Modifications in font size, blank space, and color are an issue for the Wikipedia site-wide style sheet and should be reserved for special cases only.
Names and titles
• Short stories (books and periodicals italicized)
Punctuation before quotations
If a non-quoted but otherwise identical construction would work grammatically without a comma, using a comma before a quotation embedded within a sentence is optional: The comma-free approach is often used with partial quotations: A comma is required when it would be present in the same construction if none of the material were a quotation: Do not insert a comma if it would confuse or alter the meaning: It is clearer to use a colon to introduce a quotation if it forms a complete sentence, and this should always be done for multi-sentence quotations: No additional punctuation is necessary for an explicit words-as-words scenario:
Instructional and presumptuous language
Avoid rhetorical questions, especially in headings. Use a heading of Active listening and text such as The term active listening, coined in ..., not What is active listening?
Typographic conformity
When quoting a complete sentence, it is usually recommended to keep the first word capitalized. However, if the quoted passage has been integrated into the surrounding sentence (for example, with an introduction such as "X said that"), the original capital letter may be lower-cased.
Instructional and presumptuous language
For issues in the use of cross-references – e.g., ) – see.
Typographic conformity
It is normally unnecessary to explicitly note changes in capitalization. However, for more precision, the altered letter may be put inside square brackets: "The" → "[t]he".
Punctuation and footnotes
Exceptions: Ref tags are placed dashes, not after. Where a footnote applies only to material within parentheses, the ref tags belong just before the closing parenthesis.
Brackets and parentheses
If a sentence contains a bracketed phrase, place the sentence punctuation outside the brackets (as shown here). However, where one or more sentences are wholly inside brackets, place their punctuation inside the brackets. There should be no space next to the inner side of a bracket. An opening bracket should usually be preceded by a space. This may not be the case if it is preceded by an opening quotation mark, another opening bracket, or a portion of a word:
Strong national ties to a topic
• Afrikaners (South African English)
Wikilinks
Initial capitalization: Wikipedia's MediaWiki software does not require that wikilinks begin with an upper-case character. Capitalize the first letter only where this is naturally called for, or when specifically referring to the linked article by its name (see also related rule for italics in cross-references): Snakes are often venomous, but lizards only rarely.
Commas
<li> Modern writing uses fewer commas; there are usually ways to simplify a sentence so that fewer are needed.
Official names
Official names (of companies, organizations, or places) should not be altered. (St Thomas' Hospital should therefore be rendered as St Thomas's Hospital or St. Thomas Hospital, even for consistency.)
Commas
<li> A comma may be included before a quotation embedded within a sentence. </li>
Controlling line breaks
Whether a non-breaking space is appropriate depends on context: whereas it is appropriate to use  in prose, it may be counterproductive in a table (where an unattractive break may be acceptable to conserve precious horizontal space) and unnecessary in a short parameter value in an infobox (where a break would never occur anyway).
Block quotations
Or quote such material inline, with line breaks indicated by, and paragraph or stanza breaks by.
Brackets and linking
If a URL itself contains square brackets, the wiki-text should use the URL-encoded form, rather than ... . This will avoid truncation of the link after.
Names and titles
• Individual episodes of television and radio series and serials (series title italicized)
Years and longer periods
More information on all the above topics can be found at, including the handling of dates expressed in different calendars, and times corresponding to different time zones.
Quotations within quotations
See.
First-person pronouns
To maintain an objective and impersonal encyclopedic voice, an article should never refer to its editors or readers using I, my, we, us, our, or similar forms: We note that some believe that bats are bugs. But some such forms are acceptable in certain figurative uses. For example:
Titles
Italics are not used for major religious works (the Bible, the Quran, the Talmud). Many of these titles should also be in title case.
Block quotations
Pull quotes do not belong in Wikipedia articles. These are the news and magazine style of "pulling" material already in the article to reuse it in attention-grabbing decorative quotations. This unencyclopedic approach is a form of editorializing, produces out-of-context and undue emphasis, and may lead the reader to conclusions not supported in the material.
Formatting issues
Specify font sizes (for example with  ) rather than  (like  ). The resulting font size of any text should not drop below 85% of the page's default font size.
Words as words
A closely related use of italics is when introducing or distinguishing terms: The natural numbers are the integers greater than 0.
Wikilinks
Check links: Ensure the destination is the intended one; many dictionary words lead to disambiguation pages and not to complete or well-chosen articles.
Slashes (strokes)
An unspaced slash may be used:
Names and titles
Do not use quotation marks or italics for: • Ancient writings
Punctuating a sentence (em or en dashes)
But do not insert a non-breaking or other space where the en dash should be unspaced.
Dashes can clarify the sentence structure when there are already commas or parentheses, or both.
Use dashes sparingly. More than two in a single sentence makes the structure unclear; it takes time for the reader to see which dashes, if any, form a pair.
Names and titles
• Myths and epics
Keep markup simple
In general, wikitext formatting is considered easier to use than HTML and wikitext is preferred if there are equivalents; see Help:HTML in wikitext. Obsolete elements and attributes should be updated or removed. There are many templates that allow HTML markup to be used without putting it in articles directly, such as em (see MOS:EMPHASIS) and strong (see MOS:BOLD).
Strong national ties to a topic
• American Civil War (American English)
National varieties of English
National varieties of English (for example, American English or British English) differ in vocabulary (elevator vs. lift), spelling (center vs. centre), and occasionally grammar. Articles such as English plurals and Comparison of American and British English provide information about such differences. The English Wikipedia prefers no national variety over others.
Strong national ties to a topic
• Australian Defence Force (Australian English)
National varieties of English
An article's date formatting ( vs. ) is also related to national varieties of English – see MOS:DATEFORMAT and especially MOS:DATETIES and MOS:DATEVAR.
Consistency within articles
the conventions of one particular variety of English should be followed consistently. Exceptions include:
Punctuation inside or outside
Use the "logical quotation" style in all articles, regardless of the variety of English in which they are written. Include terminal punctuation within the quotation marks only if it was present in the original material, and otherwise place it after the closing quotation mark. For the most part, this means treating periods and commas in the same way as question marks: keep them inside the quotation marks if they apply only to the quoted material and outside if they apply to the whole sentence. Examples are given below.
Color coding
Do not use color to mark differences in text: they may be invisible to people with color blindness and useless in black-and-white printouts or displays.
In compounds when the connection might otherwise be expressed with to, versus, and, or between
Use an en dash for the names of two or more entities in an attributive compound.
Punctuating a sentence (em or en dashes)
Dashes are often used to mark divisions within a sentence: in pairs (parenthetical dashes, instead of parentheses or pairs of commas) or singly (perhaps instead of a colon). They may also indicate an abrupt stop or interruption, in reporting quoted speech. In all these cases, use either unspaced em dashes or spaced en dashes, with consistency in any one article:
Names and titles
• Sections of musical pieces (pieces italicized)
Capital letters
Wikipedia article titles and section headings use sentence case, not title case; see Article titles and. For capitalization of list items, see. Other points concerning capitalization are summarized below. Full information can be found at Manual of Style/Capital letters. The central point is that Wikipedia does not capitalize something unless it is consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources.
Quotation marks and internal links
Internal links (wikilinks) accompanied by quotation marks should usually have the quotes outside the link. This applies to song titles. However, quotation marks are needed inside wikilinks when the quotation mark is part of the link, or where the linked display text includes quotation marks indicating slang, nicknames, common names, or similar usage.
Brackets and parentheses
Square brackets are used to indicate editorial replacements and insertions within quotations, though this should never alter the intended meaning. They serve three main purposes:
Invisible comments
Invisible comments are useful for alerting other editors to issues such as common mistakes that regularly occur in the article, a section title's 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 local 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.
In article titles
In article titles, do not use a hyphen (-) as a substitute for an en dash, for example in eye–hand span (since eye does not modify hand). Nonetheless, to aid searching and linking, provide a redirect with hyphens replacing the en dash(es), as in eye-hand span. Similarly, provide category redirects for categories containing dashes.
Invisible comments
To leave an invisible comment, enclose the text you intend to be read only by editors between  and. For example: This notation can be inserted with a single click in wiki markup, just under the edit pane in edit mode.
Attribution
The reader must be able to determine the source of any quotation, at the very least via a footnote. The source must be named if the quotation is an opinion. When attributing a quotation, avoid characterizing it in a biased manner.
Scrolling lists and collapsible content
Collapsed or auto-collapsing cells or sections may be used with tables if they simply repeat information covered in the main text (or are 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 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.
Strong national ties to a topic
• Muhammad Ali Jinnah (Pakistani English)
Brackets and parentheses
If a sentence includes subsidiary material enclosed in square or round brackets, it must still carry terminal punctuation those brackets, regardless of any punctuation within the brackets. However, if the entire sentence is within brackets, the closing punctuation falls within the brackets. (This sentence is an example.)
Foreign-language quotations
When editors themselves translate foreign text into English, care must always be taken to include the original text, (except for non-Latin-based writing systems), and to use actual and (if at all possible) common English words in the translation. Unless you are certain of your competency to translate something, see Translation for assistance.
Hyphens
Hyphens (-) indicate conjunction. There are three main uses:
Identity
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.
Words as words
Use italics when a word or character  or a string of words up to one sentence (the term panning is derived from panorama; the most common letter in English is e). When a whole sentence is mentioned, double 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"). Quotation marks may also be used for shorter material to avoid confusion, such as when italics are already being heavily used in the page for some other purpose (e.g., many non-English words and phrases). (to discuss grammar, wording, punctuation, etc.) is different from (in which something is usually expressed on behalf of a quoted source). Quotation is done with quotation marks, never italics, nor both at once
Hyphens
Multi-word hyphenated items: It is often possible to avoid multi-word hyphenated modifiers by rewording (a four-CD soundtrack album may be easier to read as a soundtrack album of four CDs). This is particularly important where converted units are involved (the 6-hectare-limit (14.8-acre-limit) rule might be possible as the rule imposing a limit of six hectares (14.8 acres), and the ungainly 4.9-mile (7.9 km) -long tributary as simply 4.9-mile (7.9 km) tributary).
Guidelines within the Manual of Style
(Links to policy and guidelines on specific questions)
External style guides
Wikipedians are encouraged to familiarize themselves with modern editions of other guides to style and usage, which may cover details not included here. Those that have most influenced the Wikipedia Manual of Style are:
Retaining the existing variety
An article should not be edited or renamed simply to switch from one variety of English to another. may be placed on an editor's talk page to explain this.
Semicolons
A sentence may contain several semicolons, especially when the clauses are parallel in construction and meaning; multiple unrelated semicolons are often signs that the sentence should be divided into shorter sentences or otherwise refashioned.
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,, followed by a bulleted list of links. Identify the link and briefly indicate its relevance to the article. For example:
Gender-neutral language
Ships may be referred to using either neuter forms ("it", "its") or feminine forms ("she", "her", "hers"). 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.
<span class="anchor" id="Periods (full stops) and spaces"> Punctuation and spacing
An abbreviation may or may not be terminated with a full point (also called a period or full stop). A consistent style should be maintained within an article. North American usage is typically to end all abbreviations with a period/point (Dr. Smith of 42 Drummond St.) but in common British and Australian usage, no period/point is used if the abbreviation (contraction) ends in the last letter of the unabbreviated form (Dr Smith of 42 Drummond St) unless confusion could result. 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". In most situations, Wikipedia uses no such punctuation inside acronyms and initialisms: GDP, not G.D.P.
US and U.S.
While, in principle, either US or U.S. may be used (with internal consistency) to abbreviate "United States" in any given article, the use or non-use of periods (full stops) should also be consistent with other country abbreviations in the same article (thus the US, UK, and USSR, not the U.S., UK, and USSR). In longer abbreviations (three letters or more) that incorporate the country's initials (USN, USAID), do not use periods. When the United States is mentioned with one or more other countries in the same sentence, U.S. or US may be too informal, especially at the first mention or as a noun instead of an adjective (France and the United States, not France and the US). Do not use the spaced U. S. or the archaic U.S. of A., except when quoting; and do not use U.S.A. or USA except in a quotation, as part of a proper name (Team USA), or in certain technical or formal uses (e.g., the ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 codes and FIFA country codes).
Names and titles
• Prayers
Verb tense
Tense can be used to distinguish between current and former status of a subject: Dún Aonghasa the ruin of a prehistoric Irish cliff fort. Its original shape presumably oval or D-shaped, but parts of the cliff and fort have since collapsed into the sea. (Emphasis added to distinguish the different tense usages; Dún Aonghasa is a structure that was later damaged by an event.)
Semicolon before "however"
If the two clauses cannot be swapped, a semicolon is required.
Circa
To indicate approximately, the use of, showing as c., is preferred over circa, c., ca., or approx.
Names and titles
• Concert tours
Heading-like material
The above guidance about sentence case, redundancy, images, and questions also applies to headers of tables (and of table columns and rows). However, table headings can incorporate citations and may begin with, or be, numbers. Unlike page headings, table headers do not automatically generate link anchors. Aside from sentence case in glossaries, the heading advice also applies to the term entries in description lists. If using template-structured glossaries, terms will automatically have link anchors, but will not otherwise. Citations for description-list content go in the term or definition element, as needed.
No common usage in English
Use italics for phrases in other languages and for isolated foreign words that are not current in English (except certain cases in other guidance). Where possible, this is best done with the template using the appropriate ISO language code, e.g.,. This does not apply to foreign names of people or places. There are alternatives to the template which also provide additional information about a foreign word or phrase, such as a link to the language name;. The template and related templates automatically italicize text for Latin-alphabet scripts, so do not add separate italics markup around or within them. Non-Latin-based scripts like Chinese should not be italicized, since it is already obvious the material cannot be English, and some such scripts do not support italicization.
Gender identity
Specific guidelines apply to any person whose gender might be questioned, and any living transgender or non-binary person. In summary:
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 to not italicize words that appear in major general-purpose English-language dictionaries.
No common usage in English
Foreign terms should be used sparingly.
Spelling and 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 more common English form of the name (Tchaikovsky, Chiang Kai-shek), use that form instead.
Semicolon before "however"
When the word however is a conjunction meaning "in whatever manner", or "regardless of how", it may be preceded by a comma but not by a semicolon, and should not be followed by punctuation. Example:
Controlling line breaks
It is sometimes desirable to force a text segment to appear entirely on a single linethat is, to prevent a line break (line wrap) from occurring anywhere within it.
Typographic conformity
Direct quotation should not be used to preserve the formatting preferred by an external publisher (especially when the material would otherwise be unchanged), as this tends to have the effect of scare-quoting:
Hyphens
Hyphenation rules in other languages may be different. Thus, in French a place name such as Trois-Rivières ("Three Rivers") is hyphenated, when it would not be in English. Follow reliable sources in such cases.
Subset terms
A subset term identifies a set of members of a larger class. Common subset terms are including, among, and etc. Avoid redundant subset terms (e.g., mis-constructions like the most well-known members of the fraternity are two members of the Onassis family or The elements in stars hydrogen, helium,). The word including does not introduce a complete list; instead, use consisting of, or composed of.
Punctuating a sentence (em or en dashes)
Ideally, use a non-breaking space before the en dash, which prevents the en dash from occurring at the beginning of a line (markup: or  or  ):
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 Help:IPA/English and Help:IPA (general) for keys, and for templates that link to these keys. For English pronunciations, pronunciation respellings may be used the IPA.
Commas
<li> Place quotation marks by following. This is called "logical quotation".
Plural forms
Pluralize acronyms by adding -s or -es: Three CD-ROMs and two BIOSes were released. (Do not use apostrophes to form plurals: Three CD-ROM's and two BIOS's were released.)
Write first occurrences in full
When an abbreviation will be used in an article, first introduce it using the full expression:
Semicolons
Semicolons are used in addition to commas to separate items in a listing, when commas alone would result in confusion.
Geographical items
This is an English-language encyclopedia, so established English names are preferred if they exist, and spellings in non-English alphabets should always be transcribed into the Roman alphabet. In general, other articles should refer to places by the names which are used in the articles on those places, according to the rules described at Naming conventions (geographic names). If a different name is appropriate in a given historical or other context, then that may be used instead, although it is normal to follow the first occurrence of such a name with the standard modern name in parentheses.
Section headings
which will be saved in the article as:
Geographical items
<section begin="MOS:GEO" />Geographical or place names are the nouns used to refer to specific places and geographic features. These names often give rise to conflict, because the same places are called different things by different peoples speaking different languages. Many place names have a historical context that should be preserved, but common sense should prevail. There can be few places that have not been parts of more than one culture or have had only one name. As proper nouns, all such place names (but not terms for types of places) have major words capitalized.
Semicolon before "however"
In the first case, the clause that starts with "however" cannot be swapped with the first clause; in the second case this can be done without change of meaning:
Section headings
<section begin="heading links" />Before changing a heading, consider whether you might be breaking existing links to it.<section end="heading links" /> If there are many links to the old title, create an anchor with that title to ensure that these still work. Similarly, when linking to a section, leave an invisible comment at the heading of the target section, naming the linking articles, so that if the heading is later altered these can be fixed. Combined example:
Technical language
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 or  for other editors to fix. For unavoidably technical articles, a separate introductory article (like Introduction to general relativity) may be the best solution.
Brackets and parentheses
This section applies to both round brackets, often called parentheses, and square brackets [ ].
Animals, plants, and other organisms
Cultivar and cultivar group names of plants are not italicized, and are capitalized (including the word Group in the name); cultivar names appear within single quotes (Malus domestica 'Red Delicious'), while cultivar groups do not (Cynara cardunculus Scolymus Group).
Scrolling lists and collapsible content
When hiding content is desired, it must be done using the  parameter of relevant templates, or manually-added CSS classes , and   (see Help:Collapsing). Other methods of hiding content should not be used, as they may render content inaccessible to many users, such as those browsing Wikipedia with JavaScript disabled, browsing the mobile version, or using proxy services such as Google Web Light.
Semicolon before "however"
When the word however is an adverb meaning "nevertheless", it should be preceded by a semicolon and followed by a comma. Example:
In ranges that might otherwise be expressed with to or through
Do not change hyphens to dashes in filenames, URLs, or templates such as (which formats verse ranges into URLs), even if a range is embedded in them.
Animals, plants, and other organisms
Create redirects from alternative capitalization and spelling forms of article titles, and from alternative names, e.g., Adélie Penguin, Adelie penguin, Adelie Penguin and Pygoscelis adeliae should all redirect to Adélie penguin.
In ranges that might otherwise be expressed with to or through
For ranges between numbers, dates, or times, use an en dash:
Commas
<ul> <li> A pair of commas can bracket an appositive, relative clause, or parenthetical phrase (as can brackets or dashes, though with greater interruption of the sentence). For example:
Animals, plants, and other organisms
English vernacular ("common") names are given in lower case in article prose (plains zebra, mountain maple, and southwestern red-tailed hawk) and in sentence case at the start of sentences and in other places where the first letter of the first word is capitalized. They are additionally capitalized where they contain proper names: Przewalski's horse, California condor, and fair-maid-of-France. This applies to species and subspecies, as in the previous examples, as well as to general names for groups or types of organism: bird of prey, oak, great apes, Bryde's whales, livestock guardian dog, poodle, Van cat, wolfdog. When the common name coincides with a scientific taxon, do not capitalize or italicize, except where addressing the organism taxonomically: A lynx is any of the four medium-sized wild cat species within the genus Lynx. Non-English vernacular names, when relevant to include, are handled like any other foreign-language terms: italicized as such, and capitalized only if the rules of the native language require it. Non-English names that have become English-assimilated are treated as English (ayahuasca, okapi).
Hyphens
For optional hyphenation of compound points of the compass such as southwest/south-west, see.
Commas
<li> In geographical references that include multiple levels of subordinate divisions (e.g., city, state/province, country), a comma separates each element and follows the last element unless followed by terminal punctuation or a closing parenthesis. The last element is treated as parenthetical.
Spelling and romanization
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. Provide redirects from alternative forms that use or exclude diacritics.
Block quotations
It is conventional to precede a block quotation with an introductory sentence (or sentence fragment) and append the source citation to that line. Alternatively, the template provides parameters for attribution and citation which will appear below the quotation. This below-quotation attribution style is intended for famous quotations and is unusual in articles because it may strike an inappropriate tone. A quotation with no cited source should be flagged with, or deleted.
Commas
<li> Don't let other punctuation distract you from the need for a comma, especially when the comma collides with a bracket or parenthesis:
Section headings
It is more usual practice to put such comments the heading.
Hyphens
Do not use a capital letter after a hyphen except for a proper name: Graeco-Roman and Mediterranean-style, but not Gandhi-Like. In titles of published works, follow the capitalization rule for each part independently (resulting in, e.g., The Out-of-Towners), unless reliable sources consistently do otherwise in a particular case (The History of Middle-earth).
Spelling and romanization
Sometimes usage will be influenced by other guidelines, such as, which may lead to different choices in different articles.
Semicolon before "however"
A sentence or clause can also contain the word however in the middle, if it is an adverb meaning "although" that could have been placed at the beginning but does not start a new clause in mid-sentence. In this use, the word may be enclosed between commas. Example:
Geographical items
Names in languages with no particular present-day or historical ties to the place in question (English excepted, of course) should be listed as alternatives.
A place should generally be referred to consistently by the same name as in the title of its article. An exception may be made when 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)".
Technical language
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 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, such as stubs, generally do not have such sections.
Spelling and romanization
A non-English proper name should generally not be italicized, unless it would be for some other reason; this is most commonly when it is the title of a major published work, as in Les Liaisons dangereuses; or when it is being compared in a words-as-words manner to another name for the same subject, e.g., Nuremberg (Nürnberg). When the name should not be italicized, language markup can still be used to ensure proper pronunciation in screen readers, with the unset parameter:.
Strong national ties to a topic
• Lagos (Nigerian English)
Invisible comments
Editors use "invisible" comments – not shown in the rendered page seen by readers of the article, but visible in the source editing mode when an editor opens the article for editing – to communicate with one another.
Semicolon before "however"
The meaning of a sentence containing a trailing clause that starts with the word however depends on the punctuation preceding that word. A common error is to use the wrong punctuation, thereby changing the meaning to one not intended.
Foreign-language quotations
Quotations from foreign-language sources should appear with a translation into English, preferably a modern one. Quotations that are translations should be explicitly distinguished from those that are not. Indicate the original source of a translation (if it is available, and not first published within Wikipedia), and the original language (if that is not clear from the context).
Spelling and romanization
Spell a name consistently in the title and the text of an article. For a foreign name, phrase, or word, adopt the spelling most commonly used in English-language reliable sources, including but not limited to those already cited in the article. For punctuation of compounded forms, see relevant guidelines in.
Technical language
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.
Proper names versus generic terms
Capitalize names of particular institutions (the founding of the University of Delhi; the history of Stanford University) but not generic words for institutions (the high school is near the university). Do not capitalize the at the start of an institution's name, regardless of the institution's preferred style. There are rare exceptions, when a leading The is represented by a T in the organization's acronym: The International Cat Association (TICA).
Spelling and romanization
Proper names in languages which use the Latin alphabet can include characters with diacritics, ligatures, and others that are not commonly used in present-day English. Wikipedia normally retains these special characters, except where there is a well-established English spelling that replaces them with English standard letters. Examples: Such matters are determined on a topic-by-topic basis; a small group of editors cannot "prohibit" or "require" diacritics across a category of articles.
Block quotations
Use and so on only for actual quotations; indentation for other purposes is done differently.
Names and titles
Quotation marks should be used for the following names and titles: • Articles and chapters (books and periodicals italicized)
Semicolons
This incorrect use of a comma between two independent clauses is known as a comma splice; however, in certain kinds of cases, a comma may be used where a semicolon would seem to be called for:
Hyphens
Spacing: A hyphen is never followed or preceded by a space, except when hanging or when used to display parts of words independently, such as the prefix sub-and the suffix-less.
Block quotations
Do not enclose block quotations in quotation marks (and especially avoid large, decorative quotation marks; those provided by the template have been disabled in mainspace). Block quotations using a colored background are also discouraged.
External style guides
For additional reference works, see notable entries at Style guide and .
Compass points
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.