cyanic-selkie/wikianc huggingface dataset:
MOS:MAIN
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:
Opportunities for commonality
For an international encyclopedia, using vocabulary common to all varieties of English is preferable.
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:
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:
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.
Strong national ties to a topic
• Afrikaners (South African English)
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.
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:
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).
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:
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.
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.
Formatting issues
Typically, the use of custom font styles:
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.
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.
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:
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).
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.
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.
Other uses (em dash only)
—Charlotte Brontë
Foreign-language quotations
If the original, untranslated text is available, provide a reference for it or include it, as appropriate.
Punctuating a sentence (em or en dashes)
But do not insert a non-breaking or other space where the en dash should be unspaced.
Names and titles
• Prayers
Quotation marks should be used for the following names and titles: • Articles and chapters (books and periodicals italicized)
Compass points
Do not capitalize directions such as north, or their related forms (We took the northern road), except where they are parts of proper names (Great North Road, Great Western Drive, South Pole).
Names and titles
Do not use quotation marks or italics for: • Ancient writings
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.
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).
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.
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.
Write first occurrences in full
When an abbreviation will be used in an article, first introduce it using the full expression:
Block quotations
Or quote such material inline, with line breaks indicated by, and paragraph or stanza breaks by.
No common usage in English
Foreign terms should be used sparingly.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
Original wording
In direct quotations, retain dialectal and archaic spellings, including capitalization (but not archaic glyphs and ligatures, as detailed below).
Avoid using images to convey text
Textual information should almost always be entered as text rather than as an image. True text can be colored and adjusted with CSS tags and templates, but text in images cannot be. Images are not searchable, are slower to download, and are unlikely to be read as text by devices for the visually impaired. Any important textual information in an image should also appear in the image's alt text, caption, or other nearby text.
Commas
<li> Modern writing uses fewer commas; there are usually ways to simplify a sentence so that fewer are needed.
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:
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  ):
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.
Controlling line breaks
It is desirable to prevent line breaks where breaking across lines might be confusing or awkward. For example:
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).
New content added to this page should directly address a persistently recurring style issue.
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).
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.
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.
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.
Quotations in italics
Do not use italics for quotations. Instead, use quotation marks for short quotations and block quoting for long ones.
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:
Section organization
If an article has at least four section headings, a navigable table of contents appears automatically, just after the lead.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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) " ' ":
Commas
<li> Place quotation marks by following. This is called "logical quotation".
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.
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.
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.
Names and titles
• Concert tours
Other uses (em dash only)
An indented em dash may be used before a name or other source when attributing below a block quotation, poem, etc. This dash should not be fully spaced, though it is best for metadata and accessibility reasons to hair-space it from the name. Most of Wikipedia's quotation templates with attribution-related parameters already provide this formatting.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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?
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.
Do not invent
Generally avoid devising new abbreviations, especially acronyms. For example, World Union of Billiards is good as a of Union Mondiale de Billard, but neither it nor the reduction WUB is used by the organization or by independent sources; use the original name and its official abbreviation, UMB.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
Dashes
Sources use dashes in varying ways. For consistency and clarity, Wikipedia adopts the following principles.
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.
Scrolling lists and collapsible content
When such features are used, take care that the content will still be accessible on devices that do not support JavaScript or CSS, and to the greater than 60% of Wikipedia readers who use the mobile version of the site, which has a limited set of features and does not support collapsing (any collapsible templates will either be automatically uncollapsed or hidden entirely). Mobile ability to access the content in question is easy to test with the "Mobile view" link at the bottom of each page.
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).
Names and titles
• Songs (albums, song cycles, operas, operettas, and oratorios italicized)
Section headings
These are broadly accepted community preferences.
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.
Punctuating a sentence (em or en dashes)
Dashes can clarify the sentence structure when there are already commas or parentheses, or both.
In ranges that might otherwise be expressed with to or through
Do not mix en dashes with between or from.
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).
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.
External links
Where appropriate, use external link templates such as and.
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.
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.
Brackets and linking
The nowiki markup can also be used: <nowiki >[Doe]</nowiki> or <nowiki >[etc.]</nowiki>.
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:
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.
Italics within quotations
If adding emphasis that was not in the original, add the editorial note [emphasis added] after the quotation.
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:
For additional reference works, see notable entries at Style guide and .
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.
Hyphens
Non-breaking: A non-breaking hyphen will  be used as a point of line-wrap.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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:
Always use a pair of commas for this, unless another punctuation mark takes the place of the second comma: </li>
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.
Emphasis
Use <em ></em> or for emphasis. This allows user style sheets to handle emphasis in a customized way, and helps reusers and translators.
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 Varieties of English template on its talk page.
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.
Semicolon before "however"
If the two clauses cannot be swapped, a semicolon is required.
Animals, plants, and other organisms
Standardized breeds should generally retain the capitalization used in the breed standards. Examples: German Shepherd dog, Russian White goat, Berlin Short-faced Tumbler. As with plant cultivars, this applies whether or not the included noun is a proper name, in contrast to how vernacular names of species are written. However, unlike cultivars, breeds are never put in single quotation marks, and their names are never part of a scientific name. A species term appended at the end for disambiguation ("cat", "hound", "horse", "swine", etc.) should not be capitalized, unless it is a part of the breed name itself and is consistently presented that way in the breed standard(s) (rare cases include Norwegian Forest Cat and American Quarter Horse).
Semicolons
Semicolons are used in addition to commas to separate items in a listing, when commas alone would result in confusion.
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.
External links
Add external links with discretion; Wikipedia is not a link repository.
Section organization
If the topic of a section is covered in more detail in a dedicated article, insert or  immediately under the section heading.
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.
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.
Hyphens
Hyphenation involves many subtleties that cannot be covered here; the rules and examples presented above illustrate the broad principles.
Geographical items
At the start of an article, provide notable equivalent names from other languages, including transcriptions where necessary:
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.
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).
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:
Punctuating a sentence (em or en dashes)
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.
Hyphens
For optional hyphenation of compound points of the compass such as southwest/south-west, see.
In ranges that might otherwise be expressed with to or through
For ranges between numbers, dates, or times, use an en dash:
Punctuation and footnotes
When ref tags are used, a footnote list must be added, and this is usually placed in the References section, near the end of the article in the standard appendices and footers.
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.
Block quotations
Line breaks and indentation inside a or  are generally ignored; use poem or  for poetry, lyrics, and similar material:
Section headings
For technical reasons, section headings should:
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.
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).
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.
Strong national ties to a topic
• Australian Defence Force (Australian English)
Slashes (strokes)
In circumstances involving a distinction or disjunction, the en dash is usually preferable to the slash: the digital–analog distinction.
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.
Punctuation after formulae
A sentence that ends with a formula should have terminal punctuation (period, exclamation mark, or question mark) after the formula. Within a sentence, place other punctuation (such as commas or colons) after the formula just as if the text were not a formula. See.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Above, "Though he had been here before" cannot stand on its own as a sentence, and therefore is not an independent clause.
Capitalization of The
There are special considerations for: band names · institution names · nicknames · titles of works · trademarks.
Dates and time
For ranges of dates and times, see.
Dates should be linked only when they are germane and topical to the subject, as discussed at.
Double or single
Most quotations take double quotation marks (Bob said: "Jim ate the apple."). Exceptions:
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.
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:
Ampersand
In normal text and headings, use and instead of the ampersand (&): January 1 and 2, not January 1 & 2. But retain an ampersand when it is a legitimate part of the style of a proper noun, the title of a work, or a trademark, such as in Up &amp; Down or AT&T. Elsewhere, ampersands may be used with consistency and discretion where space is extremely limited (e.g., tables and infoboxes). Quotations may be cautiously modified, especially for consistency where different editions are quoted, as modern editions of old texts routinely replace ampersands with and (just as they replace other disused glyphs, ligatures, and abbreviations). Another frequent permissible but not required use is in short bibliographic references to works by multiple authors, e.g.: ... a series of French and Belgian papers (Lubbers & Scheepers, 2002; Van Hiel & Mervielde, 2002; Swyngedouw & Giles, 2007; Van Hiel, 2012).
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).
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
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).
Section organization
As explained in detail in, several kinds of material (mostly optional) may appear after the main body of the article, in the following order:
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Strong national ties to a topic
• Lagos (Nigerian English)
Section headings
An invisible comment on the same line must be the   markup:
Strong national ties to a topic
• Muhammad Ali Jinnah (Pakistani English)
Other uses (em dash only)
For example, —hair spaceCharlotte Brontë will produce:
Typographic conformity
A quotation is not a facsimile and, in most cases, it is not a requirement that the original formatting be preserved. Formatting and other purely typographical elements of quoted text should be adapted to English Wikipedia's conventions without comment, provided that doing so will not change or obscure meaning or intent of the text. These are alterations which make no difference when the text is read aloud, for example:
Strong national ties to a topic
• Christchurch (New Zealand English)
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.
Scrolling lists and collapsible content
This includes reference lists, tables and lists of article content, image galleries, and image captions.
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.
In compounds when the connection might otherwise be expressed with to, versus, and, or between
Do not use spaces around the en dash in any of the compounds above.
Section headings
It is more usual practice to put such comments the heading.
In ranges that might otherwise be expressed with to or through
If negative values are involved, an unspaced en dash might be confusing:
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.
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.
Hyphens
Hyphens (-) indicate conjunction. There are three main uses:
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.)
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.
Original wording
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.
Section headings
As a matter of consistent style, section headings should:
Consistency within articles
the conventions of one particular variety of English should be followed consistently. Exceptions include:
Block quotations
Use and so on only for actual quotations; indentation for other purposes is done differently.
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: