cyanic-selkie/wikianc huggingface dataset:
MOS:MAIN
Typographic conformity
However, national varieties should not be changed, as these may involve changes in vocabulary. For example, a quotation from a British source should retain British spelling, even in an article that otherwise uses American spelling. Numbers also usually should not be reformatted.
Section headings
Section headings should generally follow the guidance for article titles (above), and should be presented in sentence case (Funding of UNESCO projects in developing countries), not title case (Funding of UNESCO Projects in Developing Countries).
which will be saved in the article as:
Number (pound, hash) sign and numero
Avoid using the # symbol (known as the number sign, hash sign, pound sign, or octothorpe) when referring to numbers or rankings. Instead write number, No. or Nos.; do not use the symbol №. For example:
Original wording
Quotations must be verifiably attributed, and the wording of the quoted text must be faithfully reproduced. This is referred to as the. Where there is good reason to change the wording, bracket the changed text; for example, "Ocyrhoe told him his fate" might be quoted as "Ocyrhoe told [her father] his fate". If there is a significant error in the original, follow it with (producing [sic]) to show that the error was not made by Wikipedia. However, insignificant spelling and typographic errors should simply be silently corrected (for example, correct basicly to basically).
And/or
Avoid writing and/or unless other constructions would be lengthy or awkward. Instead of Most had trauma and/or smoke inhalation, write simply trauma or smoke inhalation (which would normally be interpreted as an inclusive-or to imply or both); or, for emphasis or precision or both, write trauma or smoke inhalation or both. Where more than two possibilities are present, instead of x, y, and/orz write one or more of x, y, andz or some or all of x, y, andz.
Section organization
Stand-alone list articles have some additional layout considerations.
Colons
In most cases, a colon works best with a complete grammatical sentence before it. When what follows the colon is also a complete sentence, start it with a capital letter, but otherwise, do not capitalize after a colon except where doing so is needed for another reason, as for a proper name. Except in technical usage (a 3:1 ratio), no sentence should contain multiple colons, no space should precede a colon, and a space (but never a hyphen or dash) should follow the colon.
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:
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.
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.
Strong national ties to a topic
• American Civil War (American English)
Slashes (strokes)
Do not use the backslash character (\) in place of a slash.
Article titles
Subject both to the above and to Article titles, the rest of the MoS, particularly, applies also to the title.
Section organization
An article's content should begin with an introductory – a concise summary of the article – which is never divided into sections. The remainder of the article is typically divided into sections.
Number (pound, hash) sign and numero
An exception is issue numbers of comic books, which unlike for other periodicals are conventionally given in general text in the form #1, unless a volume is also given, in which case write volume two, number seven or Vol. 2, No. 7. Another exception are periodical publications carrying both, issue and number designations (typically one being a year-relative and the other an absolute value); they should be given in the form 2 #143 in citations, or be spelt out as Iss. 2, No. 143 in text. When using the abbreviations, write, , , or , at first occurrence.
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:
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 ).
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.
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:
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.)
Section headings
These technical restrictions are necessary to avoid technical complications and are not subject to override by local consensus.
Verb tense
Always use present tense for verbs that describe genres, types and classes, even if the subject of the description (e.g. program, library, device) no longer exists, is discontinued or is unsupported/unmaintained.
Brackets and linking
Square brackets inside of links must be escaped:
Effect on nearby punctuation
Italicize only the elements of the sentence affected by the emphasis. Do not italicize surrounding punctuation.
Brackets and parentheses
This section applies to both round brackets, often called parentheses, and square brackets [ ].
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.
Names and titles
• Locations
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).
Retaining existing styles
Edit-warring over style, or enforcing optional style in a bot-like fashion without prior consensus, is never acceptable.
Slashes (strokes)
An unspaced slash may be used:
To avoid awkward linebreaks, code spaced slashes (and fraction slashes) with a non-breaking space on the left and a normal space on the right, as in:. For short constructions, both spaces should be non-breaking:. On the other hand, if two long words are connected by an unspaced slash, an wbr added after the slash will allow a linebreak at that point.
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.
Titles of works
The English-language titles of compositions (books and other print works, songs and other audio works, films and other visual media works, paintings and other artworks, etc.) are given in, in which every word is given an initial capital except for certain less important words (as detailed at ). The first and last words in an English-language title are always capitalized.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Plurals
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 but the team are a bit worried about their goalkeeper, 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 a sports team is referred to by its short name, plural verbs are commonly used to match e.g., the Heat are playing the Lakers tonight and the team needs a win. See also including.
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.
Time of day
Times of day are normally expressed in figures rather than words. Context determines whether the 12- or the 24-hour format is more appropriate.
Slashes (strokes)
A spaced slash may be used:
Commas
<li> A comma may be included before a quotation embedded within a sentence. </li>
Verb tense
By default, write articles in the present tense, including those covering works of fiction and products or works that have been discontinued. Generally, use past tense only for past events, and for subjects that are dead or no longer meaningfully exist. Use past tense for articles about periodicals no longer produced, with common-sense exceptions.
Article titles
A title should be a recognizable name or description of the topic that is natural, sufficiently precise, concise, and consistent with those of related articles. If these criteria are in conflict, they should be balanced against one another.
Slashes (strokes)
Prefer the division operator (÷) to slash or fraction slash when representing elementary arithmetic in general text: 10 ÷ 2 = 5. In more advanced mathematical formulas, a vinculum or slash is preferred: or xn/n! .
Article titles
For formatting guidance see the section, noting the following:
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.
In compounds when the connection might otherwise be expressed with to, versus, and, or between
Here, the relationship is thought of as parallel, symmetric, equal, oppositional, or at least involving. The components may be nouns, adjectives, verbs, or any other independent part of speech. Often, if the components are reversed there would be little change of meaning.
MOS:AT
Where more than one style or format is acceptable under the MoS, one should be used consistently within an article and should not be changed without good reason. Edit warring over stylistic choices is unacceptable.
New content added to this page should directly address a persistently recurring style issue.
This Manual of Style (MoS or MOS) is the style manual for all English Wikipedia articles (though provisions related to accessibility apply across the entire project, not just to articles). This primary page is supported by further detail pages, which are cross-referenced here and listed at Manual of Style/Contents. If any contradiction arises, this page has precedence.
Editors should write articles using straightforward, succinct, easily understood language and structure articles with consistent, reader-friendly layouts and formatting (which are detailed in this guide).
Article titles
A title should be a recognizable name or description of the topic that is natural, sufficiently precise, concise, and consistent with those of related articles. If these criteria are in conflict, they should be balanced against one another.
Section organization
If an article has at least four section headings, a navigable table of contents appears automatically, just after the lead.
Colons
A colon may also be used to introduce direct speech enclosed within quotation marks.
In ranges that might otherwise be expressed with to or through
The en dash in a range is always unspaced, except when either or both elements of the range include at least one space, hyphen, or en dash; in such cases, snd between them will provide the proper formatting.
If negative values are involved, an unspaced en dash might be confusing:
In compounds when the connection might otherwise be expressed with to, versus, and, or between
Here, the relationship is thought of as parallel, symmetric, equal, oppositional, or at least involving. The components may be nouns, adjectives, verbs, or any other independent part of speech. Often, if the components are reversed there would be little change of meaning.
Section organization
Infoboxes, images, and related content in the lead section must be right-aligned.
Retaining existing styles
Edit-warring over style, or enforcing optional style in a bot-like fashion without prior consensus, is never acceptable.
Section organization
If the topic of a section is covered in more detail in a dedicated article, insert or  immediately under the section heading.
As explained in detail in, several kinds of material (mostly optional) may appear after the main body of the article, in the following order:
Colons
In most cases, a colon works best with a complete grammatical sentence before it. When what follows the colon is also a complete sentence, start it with a capital letter, but otherwise, do not capitalize after a colon except where doing so is needed for another reason, as for a proper name. Except in technical usage (a 3:1 ratio), no sentence should contain multiple colons, no space should precede a colon, and a space (but never a hyphen or dash) should follow the colon.
Foreign words
Italics is indicated for phrases in other languages and for isolated foreign words that are not common in everyday English. However, proper names (such as place names) in other languages are not usually italicized, nor are terms in non-Latin scripts. The template and its variants support all ISO 639 language codes, correctly identifying the language and automatically italicizing for you. Please use these templates rather than just manually italicizing non-English material.
Section organization
Stand-alone list articles have some additional layout considerations.
Quotations in italics
Do not use italics for quotations. Instead, use quotation marks for short quotations and block quoting for long ones.
Strong national ties to a topic
• Mumbai (Indian English)
Avoid using images to convey text
For entering textual information as audio, see WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia.
Strong national ties to a topic
• Vancouver (Canadian English)
Dates and time
For ranges of dates and times, see.
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 ), and initialisms. An initialism is formed from some or all of the initial letters of words in a phrase. Below, references to abbreviations should be taken to include acronyms, and the term acronym to apply also to initialisms.
Captions
Photographs and other graphics should have captions, unless they are unambiguous depictions of the subject of the article or when they are "self-captioning" images (such as reproductions of album or book covers). 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.
Proper names versus generic terms
Treat political or geographic units similarly: The city has a population of 55,000; The two towns merged to become the City of Smithville. Do not mimic the style of local newspapers which refer to their municipality as the City or The City; an exception is the City of London, referred to as the City in a context that already makes the subject clear, as distinct from London and Greater London. When in doubt, use the full name for accessibility reasons; users of text-to-speech systems usually cannot hear a difference between city and City.
Other dashes
For a negative sign or subtraction operator use, which can also be generated by clicking on the − following the ± in the Insert toolbar beneath the edit window. Do not use inside a  tag, as the character gives a syntax error; instead use a normal hyphen.
Hyphens
Image filenames and redirects: Image filenames are not part of the encyclopedic content; they are tools. They are most useful if they can be readily typed, so they usually use hyphens instead of dashes. Similarly, article titles with dashes should also have a corresponding redirect from a copy of the title with hyphens: for example, Michelson-Morley experiment redirects to Michelson–Morley experiment.
Wikilinks
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 worth pursuing should stand out clearly.
Other uses (en dash only)
The en dash (–) has other roles, beyond its use as a sentence-punctuating dash. It is often analogous to the hyphen, which more strongly than the en dash; or to the slash , which  more definitely. Consider the exact meaning when choosing which to use.
External links
Add external links with discretion; Wikipedia is not a link repository.
Identity
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 recent reliable sources. If it is unclear which is most used, use the term that the person or group uses.
Avoid unwarranted use
Avoid abbreviations when they might confuse the reader, interrupt the flow, or appear informal. For example:
Scientific names
Use italics for the scientific names of plants, animals, and all other organisms except viruses at the genus level and below (italicize Panthera leo and Retroviridae, but not Felidae). The hybrid sign is not italicized (Rosa × damascena), nor is the "connecting term" required in three-part botanical names (Rosa gallica subsp. officinalis).
In compounds when the connection might otherwise be expressed with to, versus, and, or between
A slash or some other alternative may occasionally be better to express a ratio, especially in technical contexts.
Dates and time
Dates should be linked only when they are germane and topical to the subject, as discussed at.
Names and titles
• Songs (albums, song cycles, operas, operettas, and oratorios italicized)
Brackets and parentheses
There should be a space after a closing bracket, except where a punctuation mark follows (though a spaced dash would still be spaced after a closing bracket) and in unusual cases similar to those listed for opening brackets.
Do not invent
If it is necessary to abbreviate in a tight space, such as a column header in a table, use widely recognized abbreviations. For example, for New Zealand gross national product, use NZ and GNP, with a link if the term has not already been written out in the article: NZ GNP. Do not make up initialisms such as NZGNP.
Section headings
For technical reasons, section headings should:
Time of day
Times of day are normally expressed in figures rather than words. Context determines whether the 12- or the 24-hour format is more appropriate.
Slashes (strokes)
To avoid awkward linebreaks, code spaced slashes (and fraction slashes) with a non-breaking space on the left and a normal space on the right, as in:. For short constructions, both spaces should be non-breaking:. On the other hand, if two long words are connected by an unspaced slash, an wbr added after the slash will allow a linebreak at that point.
Block quotations
Line breaks and indentation inside a or  are generally ignored; use poem or  for poetry, lyrics, and similar material:
Titles of works
Capitalization in foreign-language titles varies, even over time within the same language; generally, retain the style of the original for modern works, and follow the usage in current English-language reliable sources for historical works. When written in the Latin alphabet, many of these items should also be in italics, or enclosed in quotation marks.
Other dashes
Do not use typewriter approximations or other substitutes, such as two hyphens (--), for em or en dashes.
Serial commas
A serial comma (sometimes also called an Oxford comma or Harvard comma) is a comma used immediately before a conjunction (and, or, nor) in a list of three or more items.
Opportunities for commonality
For an international encyclopedia, using vocabulary common to all varieties of English is preferable.
Italics within quotations
Use italics within quotations to reproduce emphasis that exists in the source material. If it is not clear that the source already included italics (or some other styling) for emphasis, add the editorial note [emphasis in original] after the quotation.
And/or
Avoid writing and/or unless other constructions would be lengthy or awkward. Instead of Most had trauma and/or smoke inhalation, write simply trauma or smoke inhalation (which would normally be interpreted as an inclusive-or to imply or both); or, for emphasis or precision or both, write trauma or smoke inhalation or both. Where more than two possibilities are present, instead of x, y, and/orz write one or more of x, y, andz or some or all of x, y, andz.
Spacing
Some editors place two spaces after a period/full stop ; these are condensed to one space when the page is rendered, so it does not affect what readers see.
Slashes (strokes)
Generally, avoid joining two words with a slash, also called a forward slash, stroke or solidus (/), because it suggests that the words are related without specifying how. Replace with clearer wording.
Hyphens
Non-breaking: A non-breaking hyphen will  be used as a point of line-wrap.
Ligatures
Ligatures should be used in languages in which they are standard (hence Moreau's last words were clin d'œil is preferable to Moreau's last words were clin d'oeil) but not in English (encyclopedia or encyclopaedia, not encyclopædia), except in proper names (Æthelstan, not Aethelstan).
Semicolons
A semicolon is sometimes an alternative to a full stop (period), enabling related material to be kept in the same sentence; it marks a more decisive division in a sentence than a comma. If the semicolon separates clauses, normally each clause must be independent (meaning that it could stand on its own as a sentence). In many cases, only a comma or only a semicolon will be correct in a given sentence.
Keep markup simple
Other things being equal, keep markup simple. This makes wikitext easier to understand and edit, and the results seen by the reader more predictable. Use HTML and CSS markup sparingly. See: KISS principle.
Other uses (em dash only)
For example, —hair spaceCharlotte Brontë will produce:
Effect on nearby punctuation
Italicize only the elements of the sentence affected by the emphasis. Do not italicize surrounding punctuation.
Linking
Be conservative when linking within quotations: link only to targets that correspond to the meaning clearly intended by the quote's author. Where possible, link from text outside of the quotation instead – either before it or soon after. (If quoting hypertext, add an editorial note, [link in original] or [link added], as appropriate, to avoid ambiguity as to whether the link was made by the original author.)
Section headings
Section headings should generally follow the guidance for article titles (above), and should be presented in sentence case (Funding of UNESCO projects in developing countries), not title case (Funding of UNESCO Projects in Developing Countries).
Strong national ties to a topic
For topics with strong ties to Commonwealth of Nations countries and other former British territories, use Commonwealth English orthography, largely indistinguishable from British English in encyclopedic writing (excepting Canada, which uses a different orthography).
Dashes
Two forms of dash are used on Wikipedia: en dash (–) and em dash (—). To enter them, click on them in the CharInsert toolbar, or enter them manually as: Do not use a double hyphen to stand in for a dash.
In compounds when the connection might otherwise be expressed with to, versus, and, or between
Generally, use a hyphen in compounded proper names of single entities.
Section headings
These are broadly accepted community preferences.
Geographical items
Avoid anachronism. An article about Junípero Serra should say he lived in Alta Mexico, not in California, because the latter entity did not yet exist in Serra's time. The Romans invaded Gaul, not France, and Thabo Mbeki was the president of the Republic of South Africa, not of the Cape Colony. To be clear, you may sometimes need to mention the current name of the area (for example "in what is now France"), especially if no English name exists for that area in the relevant historical period.<section end="MOS:GEO" />
Names and titles
• Individual strips from comics and webcomics (comics italicized)
Emphasis
Italics are used for emphasis, rather than boldface or capitals. But overuse diminishes its effect; consider rewriting instead.
Foreign-language quotations
If the original, untranslated text is available, provide a reference for it or include it, as appropriate.
Strong national ties to a topic
• Christchurch (New Zealand English)
Current
Terms such as "current", "now", and "recent" 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, which will allow editors to catalog and update dated statements.
Section headings
These technical restrictions are necessary to avoid technical complications and are not subject to override by local consensus.
HTML tags and templates
Either or  can be used for abbreviations and acronyms: <abbr >WHO</abbr> or  will generate WHO; hovering over the rendered text causes a tooltip of the long form to pop up.
Section headings
As a matter of consistent style, section headings should:
To separate parts of an item in a list
Spaced en dashes are sometimes used between parts of list items. For example: or
Verb tense
Always use present tense for verbs that describe genres, types and classes, even if the subject of the description (e.g. program, library, device) no longer exists, is discontinued or is unsupported/unmaintained.
Punctuation inside or outside
Do not follow quoted words or fragments with commas inside the quotation marks, except where a longer quotation has been broken up and the comma is part of the full quotation.
Contractions
Avoid contractions, which have little place in formal writing. For example, write do not instead of don't. Use of o'clock is an exception. Contracted titles such as Dr. and St generally should not be used but may apply in some contexts (e.g., quoted material, place names, titles of works).
Punctuation inside or outside
If the quotation is a single word or a sentence fragment, place the terminal punctuation outside the closing quotation mark. When quoting a full sentence, the end of which coincides with the end of the sentence containing it, place terminal punctuation inside the closing quotation mark.
Gender-neutral language
Use gender-neutral language – avoiding the generic he and generic she, for example – if this can be done with clarity and precision. 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).
Slashes (strokes)
Do not use the backslash character (\) in place of a slash.
In compounds when the connection might otherwise be expressed with to, versus, and, or between
Use an en dash between the names of nations or nationalities when referring to an association between them. For people and things identifying with multiple nationalities, use a hyphen when using the combination adjectivally and a space when they are used as nouns, with the first used attributively to modify the second.
Slashes (strokes)
In circumstances involving a distinction or disjunction, the en dash is usually preferable to the slash: the digital–analog distinction.
Article titles
Subject both to the above and to Article titles, the rest of the MoS, particularly, applies also to the title.
Names and titles
Many, but not all, of the above items should also be in title case.
Consecutive punctuation marks
Where a word or phrase that includes terminal punctuation ends a sentence, do not add a second terminal punctuation mark. If a quoted phrase or title ends in a question mark or exclamation mark, it may confuse readers as to the nature of the article sentence containing it, and so is usually better reworded to be mid-sentence. Where such a word or phrase occurs mid-sentence, new terminal punctuation (usually a period) must be added at the end.
Slashes (strokes)
An example: The parent/instructor must be present at all times. Must both be present? (Then write the parent and the instructor.) Must at least one be present? (Then write the parent or the instructor.) Are they the same person? (Use a hyphen: the parent-instructor.)
Hyphens
Soft hyphens: Use soft hyphens to mark locations where a word will be broken and hyphenated at the end of a line of text, usually in very long words or narrow spaces (such as captions, narrow table columns, or text adjacent to a very wide image), for example:. Use sparingly to avoid making wikitext difficult to read and edit. For more information, see Help:Line-break handling.
Names and titles
The Beatles wrote "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" for their album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Plurals
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 excursus as in Latin; three hanifs, not three hunafa 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 (but singular is not actually ). In North American English, these words are almost invariably treated as singular; the major exception is that when a sports team is referred to by its short name, plural verbs are commonly used, e.g. the Heat are playing the Lakers tonight.
Color coding
Choose colors such as maroon  and  teal  that are distinguishable by readers with the most common form of colorblindness, and  mark the differences with change of font or some other means (<span style="background: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; color: maroon; font face: Times New Roman">maroon and alternative font face,  teal ). Avoid low contrast between text and background colors. See also color coding.
Verb tense
By default, write articles in the present tense, including those covering works of fiction and products or works that have been discontinued. Generally, use past tense only for past events, and for subjects that are dead or no longer meaningfully exist. Use past tense for articles about periodicals no longer produced, with common-sense exceptions.
Punctuation inside or outside
If the quoted sentence is followed by a clause identifying the speaker, use a comma outside the quotation mark instead of a full stop inside it, but retain any other terminal punctuation, such as question marks.
Quotations
Brief quotations of copyrighted text may be used to illustrate a point, establish context, or attribute a point of view or idea. While quotations are an indispensable part of Wikipedia, try not to overuse them. Using too many quotes is incompatible with an encyclopedic writing style and may be a copyright infringement. It is generally recommended that content be written in Wikipedia editors' own words. Consider paraphrasing quotations into plain and concise text when appropriate (while being aware that close paraphrasing can still violate copyright).
Write first occurrences in full
Do not use capitals in the full version merely because capitals are used in the abbreviation: an early Local Area Network (LAN).
For a quotation within a quotation
For quote marks in immediate succession, add a sliver of space by using " ', ' ", or (as in the example just given) " ' ":
Other media files
Other media files include video and audio files. Style recommendations for such files largely follow recommendations for image files (as far as applicable).
Names and titles
• Poems (long or epic poems italicized)
Emphasis
Use <em ></em> or for emphasis. This allows user style sheets to handle emphasis in a customized way, and helps reusers and translators.
Titles
Use italics for the titles of works (such as books, films, television series, named exhibitions, computer games, music albums, and artworks). The titles of articles, chapters, songs, episodes, storylines, research papers and other short works instead take double quotation marks.
Point of view
Quotation should be used, with attribution, to present emotive opinions that cannot be expressed in Wikipedia's own voice, but never to present cultural norms as simply opinional:
Commas
</li>
Strong national ties to a topic
• Dublin (Hiberno-English)
Article titles
For formatting guidance see the section, noting the following:
Block quotations
This gives: "What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore         Meant in croaking 'Nevermore.'"
Controlling line breaks
A line break may occur at a thin space (, or ), which is sometimes used to correct too-close placement of adjacent characters. To prevent this, consider using.
Singular nouns
For the possessive of singular nouns, including proper names and words ending in s, add &apos;s (my daughter's achievement, my niece's wedding, Cortez's men, the boss's office, 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). If a name ending in s or z would be difficult to pronounce with &apos;s added (Jesus's teachings), consider rewording (the teachings of Jesus).
Gender-neutral language
References to space programs, past, present and future, should use gender-neutral phrasing: human spaceflight, robotic probe, uncrewed mission, crewed spacecraft, piloted, unpiloted, astronaut, cosmonaut, not manned or unmanned. Direct quotations and proper nouns that use gendered words should not be changed, like Manned Maneuvering Unit.
Brackets and parentheses
Avoid adjacent sets of brackets. Either put the parenthetical phrases in one set separated by semicolons, or rewrite:
Quotation marks
In the material below, the term quotation includes conventional uses of quotation marks such as for titles of songs, chapters, episodes, and so on. Quotation marks are also used in other contexts, such as in cultivar names.
Punctuation inside or outside
If the quoted sentence is followed by a clause that should be preceded by a comma, omit the full stop (period) – but other terminal punctuation, such as a question mark or exclamation mark, may be retained.
Strong national ties to a topic
An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should use the (formal, not colloquial) English of that nation. For example:
Write first occurrences in full
Except in special circumstances, common abbreviations (such as PhD, DNA, USSR) need not be expanded even on first use.
Controlling line breaks
It is desirable to prevent line breaks where breaking across lines might be confusing or awkward. For example:
Italics within quotations
If adding emphasis that was not in the original, add the editorial note [emphasis added] after the quotation.
Animals, plants, and other organisms
When using taxonomic ("scientific") names, capitalize and italicize the genus: Berberis, Erithacus. (Supergenus and subgenus, when applicable, are treated the same way.) Italicize but do not capitalize taxonomic ranks at the level of species and below: Berberis darwinii, Erithacus rubecula superbus, Acacia coriacea subsp. sericophylla; no exception is made for proper names forming part of scientific names. Higher taxa (order, family, etc.) are capitalized in Latin (Carnivora, Felidae) but not in their English equivalents (carnivorans, felids); they are not italicized in either form, except for viruses, where all names accepted by the ICTV are italicized (Retroviridae).
Capitalization of The
Generally, do not capitalize the word the in mid-sentence: throughout the United Kingdom, not throughout The United Kingdom. Conventional exceptions include certain proper names (he visited The Hague) and most titles of creative works (Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings – but be aware that the may not be part of the title itself, e.g., Homer composed the Odyssey).
There are special considerations for: band names · institution names · nicknames · titles of works · trademarks.
Titles of works
The English-language titles of compositions (books and other print works, songs and other audio works, films and other visual media works, paintings and other artworks, etc.) are given in, in which every word is given an initial capital except for certain less important words (as detailed at ). The first and last words in an English-language title are always capitalized.
Number (pound, hash) sign and numero
Avoid using the # symbol (known as the number sign, hash sign, pound sign, or octothorpe) when referring to numbers or rankings. Instead write number, No. or Nos.; do not use the symbol №. For example:
Brackets and linking
The nowiki markup can also be used: <nowiki >[Doe]</nowiki> or <nowiki >[etc.]</nowiki>.
Section organization
An article's content should begin with an introductory – a concise summary of the article – which is never divided into sections. The remainder of the article is typically divided into sections.
Wikilinks
Linking to sections: A hash sign followed by the appropriate heading will lead to a relevant part of a page. For example,  links to a particular section of the article Apostrophe.
Color coding
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 visual cue and should be subtle (consider using lighter, less-dominant pastel hues) rather than glaring.
Serial commas
However, there are cases in which either omitting or including the serial comma results in ambiguity:
In such cases of ambiguity, clarify one of four ways:
Indentation
Do not abuse block quotation markup to indent non-quotations. Various templates are available for indentation, including and (for inline use).
Ellipses
Use an ellipsis (plural ellipses) if material is omitted in the course of a quotation, unless square brackets are used to gloss the quotation.
Commas
</ul>
Original wording
Quotations must be verifiably attributed, and the wording of the quoted text must be faithfully reproduced. This is referred to as the. Where there is good reason to change the wording, bracket the changed text; for example, "Ocyrhoe told him his fate" might be quoted as "Ocyrhoe told [her father] his fate". If there is a significant error in the original, follow it with (producing [sic]) to show that the error was not made by Wikipedia. However, insignificant spelling and typographic errors should simply be silently corrected (for example, correct basicly to basically).
Use ellipses to indicate omissions from quoted text. Legitimate omissions include extraneous, irrelevant, or parenthetical words, and unintelligible speech (umm and hmm), but do not omit text where doing so would remove important context or alter the meaning of the text. Vulgarities and obscenities should be shown exactly as they appear in the quoted source; Wikipedians should never bowdlerize words (G-d d--m it!), but if the text being quoted itself does so, copy the text verbatim and use to indicate that the text is quoted as shown in the source.
In direct quotations, retain dialectal and archaic spellings, including capitalization (but not archaic glyphs and ligatures, as detailed below).
Keep markup simple
An HTML character entity is sometimes better than the equivalent Unicode character, which may be difficult to identify in edit mode; for example,  is explicit whereas   (the upper-case form of Greek  ) may be misidentified as the Latin.
Number (pound, hash) sign and numero
An exception is issue numbers of comic books, which unlike for other periodicals are conventionally given in general text in the form #1, unless a volume is also given, in which case write volume two, number seven or Vol. 2, No. 7. Another exception are periodical publications carrying both, issue and number designations (typically one being a year-relative and the other an absolute value); they should be given in the form 2 #143 in citations, or be spelt out as Iss. 2, No. 143 in text. When using the abbreviations, write, , , or , at first occurrence.
Retaining the existing variety
When an English variety's consistent usage has been established in an article, maintain it in the absence of consensus to the contrary. With few exceptions (e.g., when a topic has strong national ties or the change reduces ambiguity), there is no valid reason for changing from one acceptable option to another.
Punctuation and footnotes
Ref tags () are used to create footnotes (sometimes called endnotes or just notes), as citation footnotes and sometimes explanatory notes. All ref tags should follow the text to which the footnote applies, with no intervening space. Refs are placed adjacent punctuation, not before (apart from the exceptions below). Adjacent ref tags should have no space between them, nor should there be any between ref tags and inline dispute/cleanup templates.
Article openings
In the bolded text typically appearing at the opening of an article:
Dates
Full dates are formatted 10 June 1921 or June 10, 1921; or where the year is omitted, use 10 June or June 10.
Retaining the existing variety
When no English variety has been established and discussion does not resolve the issue, use the variety found in the first post-stub revision that introduced an identifiable variety. The established variety in a given article can be documented by placing the appropriate variety of English template on its talk page.
Typographic conformity
Italics can be used to mark a particular usage as a term of art (a case of "words as words"), especially when it is unfamiliar or should not be reworded by a non-expert:
Serial commas
Editors may use either convention so long as each article is internally consistent. Serial commas are more helpful when article text is complex, such as a list with multi-word items (especially if one contains its own "and" or a series of probably unfamiliar terms.
Section headings
An invisible comment on the same line must be the   markup:
Commas
<li> Dates in month–day–year format require a comma after the day, as well as after the year, unless followed by other punctuation. The last element is treated as parenthetical.
Point of view
Concise opinions that are not overly emotive can often be reported with attribution instead of direct quotation. Use of quotation marks around simple descriptive terms can imply something doubtful regarding the material being quoted; sarcasm or weasel words such as supposedly or so-called, might be inferred.
Strong national ties to a topic
• Great Fire of London (British English)
Commas
Always use a pair of commas for this, unless another punctuation mark takes the place of the second comma: </li>