Misplaced Pages

Pause or suspension of speech

Three periods are occasionally used to represent a pause in or suspense of speech, in which case the punctuation is retained in its original form (Virginia's startled reply was: "Could he...? No, I cannot believe it!"). This usage is avoided in Misplaced Pages except in direct quotations.

With square brackets

An ellipsis does not normally need square brackets around it, since its function is usually obvious—especially if the guidelines above are followed. But square brackets may optionally be used for precision, to make it clear that the ellipsis is not itself quoted; this is usually only necessary if the quoted passage also uses three periods in it to indicate a pause or suspension. The ellipsis should follow exactly the principles given above, but with square brackets inserted immediately before and after it. (Her long rant continued: "How do I feel? How do you think I... look, this has gone far enough!  I want to go home!")

Serial commas

• WP:COMMA

A serial comma (also known as the Oxford comma or Harvard comma) is a comma used immediately before a conjunction in a list of three or more items: the phrase ham, chips, and eggs contains a serial comma, while the variant ham, chips and eggs omits it. Both styles are acceptable in Misplaced Pages, but in a case where including or omitting the comma clarifies the meaning of the sentence, that solution should be adopted.

Sometimes omitting the comma can lead to an ambiguous sentence, as in this example: The author would like to thank her parents, Sinéad O'Connor and President Bush, which may be a list of either four or two people.

Including the comma can also cause ambiguity, as in: The author would like to thank her mother, Sinéad O'Connor, and President Bush, which may be a list of either two or three people.

In such cases of ambiguity there are three ways to clarify:

• Use or omit the serial comma to avoid ambiguity.
• Recast the sentence.
• Format the list, e.g. with paragraph breaks and numbered paragraphs.

Colons

A colon (:) informs the reader that what comes after it proves, explains, or modifies what has come before, or is a list alluded to before. More specifically, the colon is an introduction that warns the reader to be prepared for a closely related construction that is about to follow: this following segment may be the elements of a set illustrating the statement, or the logical consequence or effect of a fact stated before, or another closely related modifying sentence, or a direct speech in combination with quotation marks.

Colons should not have spaces before them:

Correct:	He attempted it in two years: 1941 and 1943
Incorrect:	He attempted it in two years : 1941 and 1943

Colons should have complete sentences before them:

Correct:	He attempted it in two years: 1941 and 1943
Incorrect:	The years he attempted it included: 1941 and 1943

Hyphens

• WP:HYPHEN

Hyphens (-) indicate conjunction. There are three main uses.

1. To distinguish between homographs (re-dress = dress again, but redress = remedy or set right).
2. To link certain prefixes with their main word (non-linear, sub-section, super-achiever):

   There is a clear trend, not yet complete, to join both elements in all varieties of English (subsection, nonlinear), particularly in North America. British English tends to hyphenate when the letters brought into contact are the same (non-negotiable, sub-basement) or are vowels (pre-industrial), or where a word is uncommon (co-proposed, re-target) or may be misread (sub-era, not subera). North American English reflects the same factors, but tends strongly to close up without a hyphen when possible. Consult a good dictionary, and see WP:ENGVAR.

3. To link related terms in compound adjectives and adverbs:
   • A hyphen can help with ease of reading (face-to-face discussion, hard-boiled egg); a hyphen is particularly useful in long nominal groups where non-experts are part of the readership, such as in Misplaced Pages's scientific articles: gas-phase reaction dynamics.
   • A hyphen can help to disambiguate (little-used car, not a reference to the size of a used car).
   • Many compound adjectives that are hyphenated when used attributively (before the noun they qualify—a light-blue handbag), are not hyphenated when used predicatively (after the noun—the handbag was light blue). Where there would be a loss of clarity, the hyphen may be used in the predicative case too (hand-fed turkeys, the turkeys were hand-fed).
   • A hyphen is not used after an -ly adverb (wholly owned subsidiary) unless part of a larger compound (a slowly-but-surely strategy).
   • A hyphen is normally used when the adverb well precedes a participle used attributively (a well-meaning gesture; but normally a very well managed firm, since well itself is modified); and even predicatively, if well is necessary to, or alters, the sense of the adjective rather than simply intensifying it (the gesture was well-meaning, the child was well-behaved, but the floor was well polished).
   • A hanging hyphen is used when two compound adjectives are separated (two- and three-digit numbers, a ten-car or -truck convoy).
   • Values and units used as compound adjectives are hyphenated only where the unit is given as a whole word. Where hyphens are not used, values and units are always separated by a non-breaking space ( ).

Incorrect:	9-mm gap
Correct:	9 mm gap (entered as 9 mm gap)
Incorrect:	9 millimetre gap
Correct:	9-millimetre gap
Correct:	12-hour shift
Correct:	12 h shift

A hyphen is never followed or preceded by a space, except when hanging (see above) or when used to display parts of words independently, such as the prefix sub- and the suffix -less.

A hyphen is used only to mark conjunction—not to mark disjunction (for which en dashes are correct: see below).

Hyphenation involves many subtleties that cannot be covered here; the rules and examples presented above illustrate the broad principles that inform current usage.

Do not use hyphens (-) to write minus signs (−), except in code.

Dashes

• WP:DASH
• WP:MOSDASH

Two kinds of dash are used on Misplaced Pages. The article on dashes shows common input methods for both kinds.

En dashes

En dashes (–) have three distinct roles.

1. To indicate disjunction. In this role there are two main applications.
   • To convey the sense of to or through, particularly in ranges (pp. 211–19, 64–75%, the 1939–45 war, May–November) and where movement is involved (Dublin–Belfast route). The word to, rather than an en dash, is used when a number range involves a negative value or might be misconstrued as a subtraction (−3 to 1, not −3–1). This is also the case when the nearby wording demands it, e.g., he served from 1939 to 1941 and not he served from 1939–1941, in which from and to are complementary and should both be spelled out.
   • As a substitute for some uses of and, to or versus for marking a relationship involving independent elements in certain compound expressions (Canada–US border, blood–brain barrier, time–altitude graph, 4–3 win in the opening game, male–female ratio, 3–2 majority verdict, Lincoln–Douglas debate, diode–transistor logic; but a hyphen is used in Sino-Japanese trade, in which Sino-, being a prefix, lacks lexical independence.
     • Spacing: All disjunctive en dashes are unspaced, except when there is a space within either or both of the items (the New York – Sydney flight; the New Zealand – South Africa grand final; July 3, 1888 – August 18, 1940, but July–August 1940).
2. In lists, to separate distinct information within points—particularly track titles and durations, and musicians and their instruments, in articles on music albums. In this role, en dashes are always spaced.
3. As a stylistic alternative to em dashes (see below).

En dashes in page names

When naming an article, a hyphen is not used as a substitute for an en dash that properly belongs in the title, for example in Eye–hand span. However, editors should provide a redirect page to such an article, using a hyphen in place of the en dash (e.g., Eye-hand span), to allow the name to be typed easily when searching Misplaced Pages. See also Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (precision). The associated talk page name should match the page name exactly.

Minus signs

Do not use an en dash for negative signs and subtraction operators: use the correct unicode character for the minus sign (−) (see also Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (mathematics).) Negative signs (−8 °C) are unspaced; subtraction signs (42 − 4 = 38) are spaced.

Em dashes

Em dashes (—) indicate interruption. They are used in two roles.

1. Parenthesis (Misplaced Pages—one of the most popular web sites—has the information you need). Here, a pair of em dashes is a more arresting way of interpolating a phrase or clause than a pair of commas, and is less of an interruption than brackets. A pair of em dashes is particularly useful where there are already many commas; em dashes can make such a sentence easier to read, and sometimes they can remove ambiguity.
2. A sharp break in the flow of a sentence—sharper than is provided by a colon or a semicolon.

Em dashes should not be spaced.

Because em dashes are visually striking, it is preferable to avoid using more than two in a single paragraph. The roles of more than two em dashes in a single sentence can be unclear.

Do not use an em dash for a minus sign.

Spaced en dashes as an alternative to em dashes

Spaced en dashes – such as here – can be used instead of unspaced em dashes in all of the ways discussed above. Spaced en dashes are used by several major publishers, to the complete exclusion of em dashes. One style should be used consistently in an article.

Other dashes

These are avoided on Misplaced Pages, notably the double-hyphen (--).

Spaces after the end of a sentence

There are no guidelines on whether to use one space or two (French spacing) after the end of a sentence, but the issue is not important, because the difference is visible only in edit boxes; i.e. it is ignored by browsers when displaying the article.

Slashes

Avoid joining two words by a slash (/, also known as a forward slash), as it suggests that the two are related, but does not specify how. It is often also unclear how the construct would be read aloud. Consider replacing a slash with an explanation, or adding one in a footnote. Where possible, reword more fully to avoid uncertainties.

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.)

In circumstances involving a distinction or disjunction, the en dash is usually preferable to the slash, e.g., the novel–novella distinction.

An unspaced slash may be used:

• to show pronunciations ("ribald is pronounced /ˈrıb·əld/")
• to separate the numerator and denominator in a fraction (7/8 or 7⁄8)
• to indicate regular defined yearly periods that do not coincide with calendar years (see Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Longer periods)
• where slashes are used in a phrase outside Misplaced Pages, and using a different construction would be inaccurate, unfamiliar or ambiguous

A spaced slash may be used:

• to separate run-in lines of poetry or song (To be or not to be: that is the question: / Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune)
• to separate items of which one or both have an internal space (the NY 31 east / NY 370 exit with the NY 31 east/NY 370 exit), or where it otherwise makes the reading easier.

Spaced slashes should be coded with a leading non-breaking space and a trailing normal space, e.g., x / y (which renders as x / y), to prevent line breaks introducing readability problems.

The backslash character, \, is never used in place of a slash.

In general prose, prefer ÷ to / when representing mathematical division in the context of elementary arithmetic, as in "10 ÷ 2 = 5". In more advanced mathematical formulas, a vinculum or slash is preferred: ${\displaystyle \textstyle {\frac {x^{n}}{n!}}}$ or ${\displaystyle \textstyle x^{n}/n!}$. (See Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Common mathematical symbols and Help:Displaying a formula for more information.)

And/or

The term and/or is usually awkward. In general, where it is important to mark an inclusive or, use x or y, or both, rather than x and/or y. For an exclusive or, use either x or y, and optionally add but not both, if it is necessary to stress the exclusivity.

Where more than two possibilities are presented, from which a combination is to be selected, it is even less desirable to use and/or. With two possibilities, at least the intention is clear; but with more than two it may not be. Instead of x, y, and/or z, use an appropriate alternative, such as one or more of x, y, and z; some or all of x, y, and z.

Sometimes or is ambiguous in another way: "Wild dogs, or dingoes, inhabit this stretch of land". Are wild dogs and dingoes the same or different? For one case write: "wild dogs (dingoes) inhabit ..." (dingoes are wild dogs); for the other case write: "either wild dogs or dingoes inhabit ..." (I don't know which).

Question marks and exclamation marks

• Question and exclamation marks are never preceded by a space in normal prose.
• The exclamation mark is used with restraint: it is an expression of surprise or emotion that is generally unsuited to a scholarly or encyclopedic register.
• Clusters of question marks, exclamation marks, or a combination of them (such as the interrobang) are highly informal and inappropriate in Misplaced Pages articles.
• For the use of these marks in association with quotation marks, see Quotations above.

Punctuation and inline citations

The placement of inline citations relative to sentence punctuation is dealt with separately, within the Misplaced Pages guidelines concerning References.

Punctuation after formulas

A sentence that ends with a formula must have a period after the formula. If the conventional punctuation rules would require a question mark, comma, semicolon, or other punctuation at that place, the formula must be followed by that punctuation. See further Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (mathematics)#Punctuation after formulas.

Chronological items

Precise language

Avoid statements that will date quickly, except on pages that are regularly refactored, such as those that cover current events. Avoid such items as recently and soon (unless their meaning is clear in a storyline), currently (except on rare occasions when it is not redundant), in modern times, is now considered and is soon to be superseded. Instead, use either:

• more precise items (since the start of 2005; during the 1990s; is expected to be superseded by 2008); or
• an as of phrase (as of August 2007), which is a signal to readers of the time-dependence of the statement, and to later editors of the need to update the statement (see As of).

Times

Context determines whether the 12- or 24-hour clock is used; in both, colons separate hours, minutes and seconds (1:38:09 pm and 13:38:09).

• 12-hour clock times end with dotted or undotted lower-case a.m. or p.m., or am or pm, which are spaced (2:30 p.m. or 2:30 pm, not 2:30p.m. or 2:30pm). Noon and midnight are used rather than 12 pm and 12 am; whether midnight refers to the start or the end of a date will need to be specified unless this is clear from the context.
• 24-hour clock times have no a.m., p.m., noon or midnight suffix. Discretion may be used as to whether the hour has a leading zero (08:15 or 8:15). 00:00 refers to midnight at the start of a date, 12:00 to noon, and 24:00 to midnight at the end of a date.

Dates

• Misplaced Pages does not use ordinal suffixes or articles, or put a comma between month and year.

Incorrect:	February 14th, 14th February, the 14th of February
Correct:	14 February, February 14
Incorrect:	October, 1976
Correct:	October 1976

• Date ranges are preferably given with minimal repetition (5–7 January 1979; September 21–29, 2002), using an unspaced en dash. If the autoformatting function is used, the opening and closing dates of the range must be given in full (see Autoformatting and linking) and be separated by a spaced en dash.
• Rarely, a night may be expressed in terms of the two contiguous dates using a slash (the bombing raids of the night of 30/31 May 1942); this cannot be done using the autoformatting function.
• Yearless dates (5 March, March 5) are inappropriate unless the year is obvious from the context. There is no such ambiguity with recurring events, such as "January 1 is New Year's Day".
• ISO 8601 dates (like 1976-05-13) are uncommon in English prose and are generally not used in Misplaced Pages. However, they may be useful in long lists and tables for conciseness and ease of comparison.

Longer periods

• Months are expressed as whole words (February, not 2), except in the ISO 8601 format. Abbreviations such as Feb are used only where space is extremely limited, such as in tables and infoboxes. Do not insert of between a month and a year (April 2000, not April of 2000).

• WP:SEASON

• Seasons. Because the seasons are not simply reversed in each hemisphere—and areas near the equator tend to have just wet and dry seasons—neutral wording may be preferable (in early 1990, in the second quarter of 2003, around September). Use a date or month rather than a season name, unless there is a logical connection (the autumn harvest). Seasons are normally spelled with a lower-case initial.
• Years
  • Years are normally expressed in digits; a comma is not used in four-digit years (1988, not 1,988).
  • Avoid inserting the words the year before the digits (1995, not the year 1995), unless the meaning would otherwise be unclear.
    • Either CE and BCE or AD and BC can be used—spaced, undotted (without periods) and upper-case. Choose either the BC-AD or the BCE-CE system, but not both in the same article. AD appears before or after a year (AD 1066, 1066 AD); the other abbreviations appear after (1066 CE, 3700 BCE, 3700 BC). The absence of such an abbreviation indicates the default, CE-AD. It is inappropriate for a Misplaced Pages editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change; the Manual of Style favors neither system over the other.
    • Uncalibrated (bce) radiocarbon dates: Do not give uncalibrated radiocarbon dates (represented by the lower-case bce unit, occasionally bc or b.c. in some sources), except in directly quoted material, and even then include a footnote, a , or other indication to the reader what the calibrated date is, or at least that the date is uncalibrated. Calibrated and uncalibrated dates can diverge surprisingly widely, and the average reader does not recognize the distinction between bce and BCE-BC.
    • Year ranges, like all ranges, are separated by an en dash (do not use a hyphen or slash (2005–08, not 2005-08 or 2005/08). A closing CE-AD year is normally written with two digits (1881–86) unless it is in a different century from that of the opening year (1881–1986). The full closing year is acceptable, but abbreviating it to a single digit (1881–6) or three digits (1881–886) is not. A closing BCE-BC year is given in full (2590–2550 BCE). While one era signifier at the end of a date range still requires an unspaced en dash (12–5 BC), a spaced en dash is required when a signifier is used after the opening and closing years (5 BC – 29 AD).
    • A slash may be used to indicate regular defined yearly periods that do not coincide with calendar years (the financial year 1993/4).
    • Abbreviations indicating long periods of time ago—such as BP (before present), as well as various annum-based units such as Ka (kiloannum) and kya (thousand years ago), Ma (megaannum) and mya (million years ago), and Ga (gigaannum or billion years ago)—are given as full words and wikilinked on first occurrence.
    • To indicate around, approximately, or about, the abbreviations c. and ca. are preferred over circa, approximately or approx., and are spaced (c. 1291). Use a question mark instead (1291?) only if the date is in fact questioned rather than approximate. (The question mark may mistakenly be understood as a sign that editors have simply not checked the date.)
• Decades contain no apostrophe (the 1980s, not the 1980's); the two-digit form is used only where the century is clear (the '80s or the 80s).
• Centuries and millennia are written using ordinal numbers, without superscripts and without Roman numerals: the second millennium, the 19th century, a 19th-century book (see also Numbers as figures or words below).

Numbers

Numbers as figures or words

As a general rule, in the body of an article, single-digit whole numbers from zero to nine are spelled out in words; numbers greater than nine are commonly rendered in numerals, or may be rendered in words if they are expressed in one or two words (16 or sixteen, 84 or eighty-four, 200 or two hundred, but 3.75, 544, 21 million). This applies to ordinal numbers as well as cardinal numbers. However there are frequent exceptions to these rules.

• Numerals are used in tables and infoboxes, and in places where space is limited. Numbers within a table's explanatory text and comments should be consistent with the general rule.
• Comparable quantities should be all spelled out or all figures: we may write either 5 cats and 32 dogs or five cats and thirty-two dogs, not five cats and 32 dogs.
• Adjacent quantities which are not comparable should usually be in different formats: thirty-six 6.4-inch rifled guns is more readable than 36 6.4-inch rifled guns.
• Numbers that begin a sentence are spelled out, although it is often better to recast the sentence if simply changing format would produce other problems.
• The numerical elements of dates and times are not normally spelled out, except where customary in historical references such as Seventh of March Speech.
• Centuries are named in figures: (the 5th century CE; 19th-century painting); when the adjective is hyphenated, consider nineteenth-century painting, but not when contrasted with painting in the 20th century.
• Simple fractions are normally spelled out; use the fraction form if they occur in a percentage or with an abbreviated unit (⅛ mm or an eighth of a millimeter) or if they are mixed with whole numbers. Decimal fractions are not spelled out.
• Mathematical quantities, measurements, stock prices etc. are normally stated in figures.
• The use of words rather than figures may be preferred when expressing approximate numbers.
• Proper names, idioms, and formal numerical designations comply with common usage (Chanel No. 5, 4 Main Street, 1-Naphthylamine, Channel 6). This is the case even where it causes a numeral to open a sentence, although this is usually avoided by rewording.
• Most proper names containing numbers spell them out (e.g. Fourth Amendment, Seventeenth Judicial District, Seven Years' War); the proper names of military units do not.

Large numbers

• Commas are used to break the sequence every three places (2,900,000).
• Large rounded numbers are generally assumed to be approximations; only where the approximation could be misleading is it necessary to qualify with about or a similar term.
• Avoid over-precise values where they are unlikely to be stable or accurate, or where the precision is unnecessary in the context. (The speed of light in a vacuum is 299,792,458 metres per second is probably appropriate, but The distance from the Earth to the Sun is 149,014,769 kilometres and The population of Cape Town is 2,968,790 would usually not be, because both values are unstable at that level of precision, and readers are unlikely to care in the context.)
• Scientific notation (6.02 × 10) is preferred in scientific contexts.
• Where values in the millions occur a number of times through an article, upper-case M may be used for million, unspaced, after using the full word at the first occurrence. (She bequeathed her fortune of £100 million unequally: her eldest daughter received £70M, her husband £18M, and her three sons just £4M each.)
• Billion is understood as 10. After the first occurrence in an article, billion may be abbreviated to unspaced bn ($35bn).

Decimal points

• A decimal point is used between the integral and the fractional parts of a decimal; a comma is never used in this role (6.57, not 6,57).
• The number of decimal places should be consistent within a list or context (The response rates were 41.0 and 47.4 percent, respectively, not The response rates were 41 and 47.4 percent, respectively), except in the unusual instances where the items were measured with unequal precision.
• Numbers between minus one and plus one require a leading zero (0.02, not .02); exceptions are performance averages in sports where a leading zero is not commonly used, and commonly used terms such as .22 caliber.

Percentages

• Percent or per cent are commonly used to indicate percentages in the body of an article. The symbol % may be more common in scientific or technical articles, or in complex listings.
• The symbol is unspaced (71%, not 71 %).
• In tables and infoboxes, the symbol is used, not the words percent or per cent.
• Ranges are preferably formatted with one rather than two percentage signifiers (22–28%, not 22%–28%).

Units of measurement

• WP:UNITS

Which system to use

• For US-related articles, the main units are US units; for example, 23 miles (37 km).
• For UK-related articles, the main units are metric (consistently within an article).
• For other country-related articles, the main units are metric; for example, 37 kilometres (23 mi).
• American English uses -er endings for metric units (liter, kilometer); all other varieties of English, including Canadian, use -re (litre, kilometre).
• In scientific articles, use the units employed in the current scientific literature on that topic. This will usually be SI, but not always; for example, natural units are often used in relativistic and quantum physics, and Hubble's constant should be quoted in its most common unit of (km/s)/Mpc rather than its SI unit of s.
• If editors cannot agree on the sequence of units, put the source value first and the converted value second. If the choice of units is arbitrary, use SI units as the main unit, with converted units in parentheses.

Conversions

• Conversions to and from metric and imperial/US units should generally be provided. There are two exceptions:
  • articles on scientific topics where there is consensus among the contributors not to convert the metric units, in which case the first occurrence of each unit should be linked;
  • where inserting a conversion would make a common expression awkward (The four-minute mile).
• In the main text, give the main units as words and use unit symbols or abbreviations for conversions in parentheses; for example, a pipe 100 millimetres (4 in) in diameter and 16 kilometres (10 mi) long or a pipe 4 inches (100 mm) in diameter and 10 miles (16 km) long. The exception is that where there is consensus to do so, the main units may also be abbreviated in the main text after the first occurrence.
• Converted values should use a level of precision similar to that of the source value; for example, the Moon is 380,000 kilometres (240,000 mi) from Earth, not (236,121 mi). The exception is small numbers, which may need to be converted to a greater level of precision where rounding would be a significant distortion; for example, one mile (1.6 km), not one mile (2 km).
• Category:Conversion templates can be used to convert and format many common units, including {{convert}}, which includes non-breaking spaces.
• In a direct quotation:
  • conversions required for units cited within direct quotations should appear within square brackets in the quote;
  • if the text contains an obscure use of units (e.g., five million board feet of lumber), annotate it with a footnote that provides standard modern units, rather than changing the text of the quotation.
• Measurements should be accompanied by a proper citation of the source using a method described at the style guide for citation.
• Where footnoting or citing sources for values and units, identify both the source and the original units.

SI symbols and unit abbreviations

• Non-breaking spaces are used between values and units; see the Non-breaking spaces section above.
• Standard abbreviations and symbols for units are undotted (do not carry periods). For example, m for metre and kg for kilogram (not m. or kg.), in for inch (not in.,  or ″), ft for foot (not ft., or ′) and lb for pound (not lb. or #).
• The degree symbol is °. Using any other symbol (e.g., masculine ordinal º or "ring above" ˚) for this purpose is incorrect.
• Do not append an s for the plurals of unit symbols (kg, km, in, lb, not kgs, kms, ins, lbs). A lowercase 's' is the SI symbol for second; thus, 'kgs' can be confused with 'kg s', which means "kilogram-second".
• Temperatures are always accompanied by °C for degrees Celsius, °F for degrees Fahrenheit, or K for kelvin (35 °C, 62 °F, and 5,000 K, not 5,000 °K).
• Values and unit symbols are spaced (25 kg, not 25kg). The exceptions are degrees, minutes and seconds for angles and coordinates (the coordinate is 5° 24′ 21.12″ N, the pathways meet at a 90° angle, but the average temperature is 18 °C).
• Squared and cubic metric-symbols are always expressed with a superscript exponent (5 km, 2 cm); squared imperial and US unit abbreviations may be rendered with sq, and cubic with cu (15 sq mi, 3 cu ft).

• Do not use the unicode characters ² and ³, but rather write ² and ³ to produce the superscripts and . The superscripted 2 and 3 are easier to read, especially on small displays, and ensures that exponents are properly aligned (compare xx²x³x vs xxxx).

• In tables and infoboxes, use symbols and abbreviations for units, not words.
• Some different units share the same name. These examples show the need to be specific.
  • Use US or imperial gallon rather than just gallon.
  • Use nautical or statute mile rather than mile in nautical and aeronautical contexts.
  • Use long ton or short ton rather than just ton (the metric unit—the tonne—is also known as the metric ton).
• Ranges are preferably formatted with one rather than two unit signifiers (5.9–6.3 kg, not 5.9 kg – 6.3 kg).

Unnecessary vagueness

Use accurate measurements whenever possible.

Currencies

• WP:$

Which currency to use

• In country-specific articles, such as Economy of Australia, use the currency of the country.
• In non-country-specific articles such as Wealth, use US dollars (US$123).

Formatting

• Fully identify a currency on its first appearance (AU$52); subsequent occurrences are normally given without the country identification (just $88), unless this would be unclear. The exception to this is in articles related to the US and the UK, in which the first occurrence may also be shortened ($34 and £22, respectively), unless this would be unclear.
• Do not place a currency symbol after the value (123$, 123£, 123€), unless the symbol is normally written as such. Do not write $US123 or $123 (US).
• Currency abbreviations that come before the number are unspaced if they end in a symbol (£123, €123), and spaced if they end in an alphabetical character (R 75). Do not place EU or a similar prefix before the € sign.
• If there is no common English abbreviation or symbol, use the ISO 4217 standard.
• Ranges are preferably formatted with one rather than two currency signifiers ($250–300, not $250–$300).
• Conversions of less familiar currencies may be provided in terms of more familiar currencies, such as the euro or the US dollar. Conversions should be in parentheses after the original currency, with the year given as a rough point of reference; for example, 1,000 Swiss francs (US$763 in 2005), rounding to the nearest whole unit.
• Consider linking the first occurrence of a symbol for less well-known currencies (₮146); it is generally unnecessary to link the symbols of well-known currencies.

Common mathematical symbols

• For a negative sign or subtraction operator, use a minus sign (−), input by clicking on it in the insert box beneath the edit window or by typing −), or an en dash (see En dashes); do not use a hyphen, unless writing code.
• For a multiplication sign between numbers, use ×, which is input by clicking on it in the edit toolbox under the edit window or by typing ×; do not use an asterisk between numbers in non-technical articles; however, the unspaced letter x is accepted as a substitute for by in such terms as "4x4".
• Exponentiation is indicated using a superscript, a (typed as a<sup>n</sup>); do not use a caret, a^n. Exponential notation can be spaced or unspaced, depending on circumstances; do not use E notation.
• Symbols for binary operators and relations are spaced on both sides, including:
  • plus, minus, and plus-or-minus (as operators): + − ±
  • multiplication and division: × ÷
  • equals, does not equal, equals approximately: = ≠ ≈
  • is less than, is less than or equal to, is greater than, is greater than or equal to: < ≤ > ≥

Simple tabulation

Lines that start with blank spaces in the editing window are displayed boxed and in a fixed-width font, for simple tabulation. Lines that contain only a blank space insert a blank line into the table. For a complete guide to constructing tables, see Meta:Help:Table.

Usage

Possessives

For thorough treatment of the English possessive see Apostrophe.

• It's is the short form of it is or it has; the possessive its has no apostrophe.
• Usage varies for the possessive of singular nouns ending in s sounds. Maintain consistency (James' house or James's house, but not both in the same article). Some forms almost always take an extra s (Ross's father); some usually do not (Socrates' wife; Moses' ascent of Sinai; Jesus' last words).

First-person pronouns

Misplaced Pages articles must not be based on one person's opinions or experiences; thus, I is never used, except when it appears in a quotation. For similar reasons, avoid we; a sentence such as We should note that some critics have argued in favor of the proposal sounds more personal than encyclopedic. It is however acceptable to use we in historical articles to mean the modern world as a whole (The text of De re publica has come down to us with substantial sections missing).

Second-person pronouns

Use of the second person (you), which is often ambiguous and contrary to the tone of an encyclopedia, is discouraged. Instead, refer to the subject of the sentence or use the passive voice—for example:

Use:	When a player moves past "Go", that player collects $200.
Use:	Players passing "Go" collect $200.
Use:	$200 is collected when passing "Go".
Do not use:	When you move past "Go", you collect $200.

This guideline does not apply to quoted text, which should be quoted exactly.

Contested vocabulary

Words and phrases like thusly, overly, whilst, amongst, as per, refute in the sense of dispute, along with several others, should be avoided because they are not widely accepted—at least in some of their applications. Some are regional, so unsuitable in an international encyclopedia (see National varieties of English below). Some give an impression of "straining for formality", and therefore of an insecure grasp of English. See List of English words with disputed usage, Words to avoid, and List of frequently misused English words; see also Identity and Gender-neutral language below.

Contractions

In general, the use of contractions—such as don't, can't, won't, they'd, should've, it's—is informal and should be avoided; however, contractions should be left unchanged when they occur in a quotation.

Instructional and presumptuous language

It is usually preferable to avoid such phrases as remember that and note that, which address readers directly in an unencyclopedic tone. Similarly, phrases such as of course, naturally, obviously, clearly and actually make presumptions about readers' knowledge, and call into question the reason for including the related information in the first place. See Misplaced Pages:Words to avoid.

Subset terms

A subset term identifies a set of members of a larger class. Common subset terms are including, among, and et cetera (etc.). Do not use two subset terms ("Among the most well-known members of the fraternity include ...", "The elements in stars include hydrogen, helium and iron, etc."). Do not use including to introduce a complete list, where comprising, consisting of, or composed of would be correct.

Plurals

• WP:PLURALS

Use the appropriate plural; allow for cases like oblast, or octopus, when a foreign word has been assimilated into English and normally takes an s or es plural, not its original plural.

A number of words like army, company, crowd, fleet, government, majority, mess, number, pack, and party may refer either to a single entity or the members of the set that compose it. In British English they are normally treated as singular or plural according to context; names of towns and countries take plural verbs when they refer to sports teams but singular verbs when they refer to the actual place (or to the club as a business enterprise): England are playing Germany tonight refers to a football team, but England is the most populous country of the United Kingdom refers to the country.

In North American English, these words (and the United States, for historical reasons) are invariably treated as singular. See WP:ENGVAR.

Ampersand

The ampersand (&) is a logogram representing the word and. In running prose, use it instead of and only if there is a good reason to do so. The ampersand may be used in tables and infoboxes where space is restricted. Retain it in the titles of business and works, and in quotations.

National varieties of English

• WP:ENGVAR

The English Misplaced Pages has no general preference for a major national variety of the language. No variety is more correct than the others. Users are asked to take into account that the differences between the varieties are superficial. Cultural clashes over spelling and grammar are avoided by using the following four simple guidelines. The accepted style of punctuation is covered in the punctuation section.

Consistency within articles

Each article should consistently use the same conventions of spelling and grammar. For example, center and centre are not to be used in the same article. The exceptions are:

• quotations (the original variety is retained);
• titles (the original spelling is used, for example United States Department of Defense and Australian Defence Force); and
• explicit comparisons of varieties of English.

Strong national ties to a topic

An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation uses the appropriate variety of English for that nation. For example:

• Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (British English)
• American Civil War (American English)
• European Union institutions (British or Irish English / European English)
• Australian Defence Force (Australian English)
• Vancouver (Canadian English)

Retaining the existing variety

If an article has evolved using predominantly one variety, the whole article should conform to that variety, unless there are reasons for changing it on the basis of strong national ties to the topic. In the early stages of writing an article, the variety chosen by the first major contributor to the article should be used, unless there is reason to change it on the basis of strong national ties to the topic. Where an article that is not a stub shows no signs of which variety it is written in, the first person to make an edit that disambiguates the variety is equivalent to the first major contributor.

Opportunities for commonality

Misplaced Pages tries to find words that are common to all varieties of English.

• In choosing words or expressions, especially for article titles, there may be value in making choices that avoid varying spellings, where possible. In extreme cases of conflicting names, a common substitute (such as fixed-wing aircraft) is favored over national varieties (fixed-wing aeroplanes , and fixed-wing airplanes ).
• If a variable spelling appears in an article name, redirect pages are made to accommodate the other variants, as with Artefact and Artifact, so that they can always be found in searches and linked to from either spelling.
• Sensitivity to terms that may be used differently between different varieties of English allows for wider readability; this may include glossing terms and providing alternative terms where confusion may arise. Insisting on a single term or a single usage as the only correct option does not serve well the purposes of an international encyclopedia.
• Use an unambiguous word or phrase in preference to one that is ambiguous because of national differences. For example, use alternative route (or even other route) rather than alternate route, since alternate may mean only "alternating" to a British English speaker.

Articles such as English plural and American and British English differences provide information on the differences between the major varieties of the language.

Foreign terms

Foreign words should be used sparingly.

No common usage in English

Use italics for phrases in other languages and for isolated foreign words that are not current in English.

Common usage in English

Loanwords and borrowed phrases that have common usage in English—praetor, Gestapo, samurai, vice versa, esprit de corps—do not require italics. A rule of thumb is not to italicize words that appear unitalicized in major English-language dictionaries.

Spelling and transliteration

Names not originally in a Latin alphabet—such as Greek, Chinese or Russian scripts—must be transliterated into characters generally intelligible to English-speakers. Do not use a systematically transliterated name if there is a common English form of the name, such as Tchaikovsky or Chiang Kai-shek.

Foreign words originally written in a Latin alphabet with diacritics (accent marks) are normally written with those diacritics in Misplaced Pages, unless a form without diacritics has become generally accepted in English.

Within an article, spell a name that appears in the article title as it appears in that title, unless there is a good reason to use an alternative spelling. Spell other foreign names, phrases and words as they are most commonly spelled in the English-language references in an article, unless those spellings are idiosyncratic. If the foreign names, phrases or words do not appear in the article's references, then use the spelling as most commonly used in other verifiable reliable sources (for example other English-language dictionaries and encyclopedias). If a foreign phrase or word appears rarely in English, use the original spelling or a systematic transcription.

Sometimes the usage will be influenced by other guidelines such as national varieties of English, which may lead to different usage in different articles.

Identity

• MOS:IDENTITY

• Disputes over the proper name of a person or group are addressed by policies such as Verifiability, Neutral point of view, and Naming conventions where the name appears in an article name. When there is no dispute, the name most commonly used for a person will be the one that person uses for himself or herself, and the most common terms for a group will be those that the group most commonly uses for itself; Misplaced Pages should use them too.
• A transgender, transsexual or genderqueer person's latest preference of name and pronoun should be adopted when referring to any phase of that person's life, unless this usage is overridden by that person's own expressed preference. Nevertheless, avoid confusing or seemingly logically impossible text that could result from pronoun usage (e.g., she fathered her first child).
• Use specific terminology. For example, often it is more appropriate for people from Ethiopia (a country in Africa) to be described as Ethiopian, not carelessly (with the risk of stereotyping) as African.
• Avoid the use of certain adjectives as nouns to refer to groups of people within society: use black people rather than blacks, gay people rather than gays, disabled people rather than the disabled, etc.
• The term Arab (never to be confused with Muslim or Islamic) refers to people and things of ethnic Arab origin. The term Arabic refers to the Arabic language or writing system, and related concepts (Not all Arab people write or converse in Arabic.)
• As always in a direct quotation, use the original text, even if the quoted text is inconsistent with the preceding guidelines.

Gender-neutral language

Consider using gender-neutral language where this can be done with clarity and precision. This does not apply to direct quotations or the titles of works (The Ascent of Man), or where all referents are of one gender, such as in an all-female school (if any student broke that rule, she was severely punished).

Images

• MOS:IMAGES

The following general guidelines should be followed in the absence of a compelling reason to do otherwise.

• Start an article with a right-aligned lead image. This image is often resized to about 300px.
• Multiple images in the same article can be staggered right-and-left (for example: Timpani). It is often preferable to place images of faces so that the face or eyes look toward the text.
• See Misplaced Pages:Picture tutorial#Avoiding image "stackups" for how to group images and avoid "stackups".
• Avoid sandwiching text between two images facing each other.
• Use {{Commons}} to link to more images on Commons, wherever possible. If there are too many images in a given article, a link to the Commons is a good solution. Use of galleries should be in keeping with Misplaced Pages's image use policy.
• Do not place left-aligned images directly below second-level (===) headings, as this disconnects the heading from the text it precedes.
• Use captions to explain the relevance of the image to the article (see #Captions).
• Some users need to configure their systems to display large text; forced large thumbnails can leave little width for text, making reading difficult.

Images should not be reversed simply to resolve a conflict between these guidelines; doing so misinforms the reader for the sake of our layout preferences. If an image is ever reversed or otherwise substantially altered, there should be a clear advantage to the reader in doing so (for example, cropping a work of art to focus on a detail that is the subject of commentary), and the alteration must be noted in the caption.

The current image markup for landscape-format and square images is (for example):

]

or for portrait-format images:

]

The pixel size parameter may be omitted; this will result in default image width of 180px (140px for portrait format), although this value can be altered in user preferences. If an image displays satisfactorily at the default size, it is recommended that no explicit size be specified. Examples of images which typically need more than the default size include lead images (see above) and detailed maps.

Images as text

Textual information should be entered as text rather than as an image. Such text is not searchable and is slow to download over low-bandwidth connections; the image is unlikely to be read as text by devices for the visually impaired, and will deprive those users of information. Text may be colored and decorated with CSS tags and templates if necessary. Even if the problems can be worked around, as by including a caption or internal information, editors should still consider whether fancy text adds anything to the encyclopedia.

Captions

Usage

Photographs and other graphics should always have captions, unless they are "self-captioning" (such as reproductions of album or book covers) or when they are unambiguous depictions of the subject of the article. For example, in a biography article, a caption is not mandatory for a portrait of the subject pictured alone, but might contain the name of the subject and additional information relevant to the image, such as the year or the subject's age.

Formatting

• Captions normally start with a capital letter.
• Most captions are not complete sentences, but merely nominal groups (sentence fragments) that should not end with a period. If a complete sentence occurs in a caption, that sentence and any sentence fragments in that caption should end with a period.
• Captions should not be italicized, except for words that are conventionally italicized.
• Captions should be succinct; more information about the image can be included on its description page, or in the main text.

Bulleted and numbered lists

• Do not use lists if a passage reads easily using plain paragraphs.
• Do not leave blank lines between items in a bulleted or numbered list unless there is a reason to do so, since this causes the Wiki software to interpret each list item as an individual list.
• Use numbers rather than bullets only if:
  • there is a need to refer to the elements by number;
  • the sequence of the items is critical; or
  • the numbering has value of its own, for example in a track listing.
• All elements in a list should use the same grammatical form and should be consistently either complete sentences or sentence fragments.
  • When the elements are complete sentences, they are formatted using sentence case and a final period.
  • When the elements are sentence fragments, they are typically introduced by a lead fragment ending with a colon, are formatted using consistently either sentence or lower case, and finish with a final semicolon or no punctuation, except that the last element typically finishes with a final period.

Links

Wikilinks

Make links only where they are relevant to the context: It is not useful and can be very distracting to mark all possible words as hyperlinks. Links should add to the user's experience; they should not detract from it by making the article harder to read. A high density of links can draw attention away from the high-value links that you would like your readers to follow up. Redundant links clutter the page and make future maintenance harder.

Check links: After linking, ensure that the destination is the intended one; many dictionary words lead to disambiguation pages and not to complete articles on a concept. An anchor into a targeted page—the label after a pound/hash sign (#) in a URL—will get readers to the relevant area within that page.

Initial capitalization: Misplaced Pages's MediaWiki software does not require that wikilinks begin with an upper-case character. Only capitalize the first letter where this is naturally called for, or when specifically referring to the linked article by its name: Snakes are often venomous, but lizards only rarely (see Poison).

External links

Articles can include an external links section at the end to list links to websites outside Misplaced Pages for the purpose of providing further information, as opposed to citing sources. The standard format is a primary heading named == External links == followed by a bulleted list of links. External links should identify the link and briefly indicate its relevance to the article subject. For example:

*

*

These will appear as:

• History of NIH
• National Institutes of Health homepage

Avoid listing an excessive number of external links; Misplaced Pages is not a link repository.

Miscellaneous

Keep markup simple

Use the simplest markup to display information in a useful and comprehensible way. Markup may appear differently in different browsers. Use HTML and CSS markup sparingly and only with good reason. Minimizing markup in entries allows easier editing.

In particular, do not use the CSS float or line-height properties because they break rendering on some browsers when large fonts are used.

Formatting issues

• WP:MOSCOLOR

Formatting issues such as font size, blank space and color are issues for the Misplaced Pages site-wide style sheet and should not be specified in articles except in special cases. If you absolutely must specify a font size, use a relative size like font-size: 80%, not an absolute size like font-size: 8pt. It is also almost never a good idea to use other style changes, such as font family or color.

Typically, the use of custom font styles will

• reduce consistency—the text will no longer look uniform;
• reduce usability—it will likely be impossible for people with custom stylesheets (for accessibility reasons, for example) to override it, and it might clash with a different skin as well as bother people with color blindness; and
• increase arguments—other Wikipedians may disagree aesthetically with the choice of style.

Color coding

Using color alone to convey information (color coding) should not be done. Such information is not accessible to people with color blindness (especially monochromacy), on black-and-white printouts, on older computer displays with fewer colors, on monochrome displays (PDAs, cell phones), and so on.

If it is necessary to use colors, try to choose colors that are unambiguous (such as orange and violet) when viewed by a person with red-green color blindness (the most common type). In general, this means that shades of red and green should not both be used as color codes in the same image. Viewing the page with Vischeck can help determine whether the colors should be altered.

It is certainly desirable to use color as an aid for those who can see it, but the information should still be accessible without it.

Scrolling lists

• MOS:SCROLL

Scrolling lists, for example of references, should never be used because of issues with readability, accessibility, printing, and site mirroring. Additionally, such lists may not display properly in all web browsers.

Invisible comments

Editors use invisible comments to communicate with each other in the body of the text of an article. These comments are visible only in the wiki source (i.e. in edit mode), not in read mode.

Invisible comments are useful for flagging an issue or leaving instructions about part of the text, where this is more convenient than raising the matter on the talk page. They should be used judiciously, because they can clutter the wiki source for other editors. Check that your invisible comment does not change the formatting, such as introducing unwanted white space in read mode.

To leave an invisible comment, enclose the text you intend to be read only by editors within <!-- and -->. For example: <!--If you change this section title, please also change the links to it on the pages ...-->

Pronunciation

Pronunciation in Misplaced Pages is indicated using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For ease of understanding across dialects, fairly broad IPA transcriptions are usually provided for English pronunciations. See Help:Pronunciation (English) and Help:IPA (general) for keys, and {{IPA}} for templates that link to these keys. For English pronunciations, pronunciation respellings may be used in addition to the IPA.

Other resources

Wikipedians are encouraged to familiarize themselves with other guides to style and usage, which may cover details that are not included in this Manual of Style. These include:

• The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS), available in print, on CDROM, and online at The Chicago Manual of Style Online (subscription required). The CMS Crib Sheet is free online, and summarizes some main provisions of The Chicago Manual of Style.
• The Oxford Guide to Style (OGS), along with its companion the Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors.
• New Hart's Rules (NHR), based on the classic Hart's Rules and the Oxford Guide to Style.
• Style Manual: for authors, editors and printers of Australian Government publications. (AGSM) Sixth edition 2002. ISBN 0 642 03345 5.
• Guides such as Fowler's Modern English Usage (Fowler's) and Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage.
• Guardian style guide for British English
• The major English dictionaries.

See also

• Style guide, the Misplaced Pages entry on style guides. Contains links to the online style guides of some magazines and newspapers.
• Wiki markup explains the mechanics of what codes are available to you when editing a page, to do things like titles, links, external links, and so on.
• Misplaced Pages:Annotated article is a well-constructed article, with annotations that explain why.
• Misplaced Pages:Avoiding common mistakes gives a list of common mistakes and how to avoid them.
• Misplaced Pages:Be bold in updating pages should define your attitude toward page updates.
• Misplaced Pages:Citing sources explains process and standards for citing references in articles.
• Misplaced Pages:Editing policy explains Misplaced Pages's general philosophy of editing.
• Misplaced Pages:Footnotes describes footnote usage and style; parts of it are contested.
• Misplaced Pages:Guide to layout is an example of how to lay out an article.
• Misplaced Pages:How to copy-edit gives helpful how-to advice on copy-editing.
• Misplaced Pages:How to edit a page is a short primer on editing pages.
• Misplaced Pages:Introduction is a gentle introduction to the world of Misplaced Pages.
• Misplaced Pages:Perfect stub article shows what you should aim for at a minimum when starting a new article.
• Misplaced Pages:Policies and guidelines is the main stop for policies and, well, guidelines.
• Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Jguk was an Arbitration Committee case on style edit warring.
• Misplaced Pages:WikiProject sets out boilerplates for certain areas of knowledge.
• Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Style guide lists variations between the printed encyclopedia and Misplaced Pages's MoS.

Notes

1. See Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Jguk#Optional styles.