Guide to Styles

Article titles

In picking the best article title, remember these guidelines:

• Use the singular. For example, if you added a new article about comets, you would name it “Comet”, not "Comets".

• Do not use abbreviations. An article on the Right Ascension of the Ascending Node should not be titled "RAAN".

The first sentence

If possible, make the article's topic (usually the same as its title) the subject of the first sentence of the article (instead of putting it in the predicate, or in another sentence). For example, write "This Manual of Style is a style guide", not "This style guide is known as..." .

If the article's title is an important word, use it as early as possible in the article. Bold the article title the first (and only the first) time it is used. Also, bold any important synonyms - other names for the same thing, or older names. Use three apostrophes to make the bold: '''article title''' will appear as article title.

This example shows how bold words are used in an article on Halley's Comet:

Halley's Comet or Comet Halley (officially designated 1P/Halley) is the most famous of the periodic comets and can currently be seen every 75–76 years.

Do not bold any other words in the first paragraph, so that the reader will not be confused.

Sections and headings

Markup

Use the == (two equal signs) markup for headings (also called section titles), not the ''' (triple apostrophes) used to make words appear bold in character formatting. Start with ==, add the heading title, then end with ==.

This section’s heading was created by writing:

== Sections and headings ==

This subsection’s heading was created by writing:

=== Markup ===

Wording

• In a heading, capitalize only the first letter of the first word and the first letter of any proper nouns, and leave all of the other letters in lowercase. Example: "Rules and regulations", not "Rules and Regulations".

• Do not use special characters in headings, such as a slash (/), a plus sign (+), curly braces ({}), or square braces ([]). In place of an ampersand (&) use the word and, unless the ampersand is part of a formal name.

• Do not put links in headings. Instead, link the word or phrase the first time it appears in the section.

• Keep the heading short. Try not to use more than ten words in the heading.

• Try not to use extra words in headings if they aren't needed, such as a, an, the, and pronouns. Do not use the title of the whole article as a heading.

• Do not give the same title to different sections. This will confuse the reader. It also makes it difficult for any editor to create a section link to any such section except the first one.

  Creating and using sections

  Sub-headings help readers quickly see what is covered in an article and find subtopics of interest. Create sub-headings if a section becomes too long, and choose a wording that describes what is discussed in the section.

  • Do not italicize the section name, unless it needs italics (for example, if it is the title of a book).

  • If you link directly to a section, leave an editor’s note to remind others that the section title is linked. List the names of the linking articles, so when the title needs changing, others can fix the links more easily. For example: <!-- This section is linked from [Comets] and [Asteroids] --> .

  • Try not to change section headings and sub-headings too often. Other articles may have linked to that section, and the section link will be broken.

  Capital letters

  American English and British English sometimes do not agree on when to use capital letters. Try to use appropriate rules depending on the situation. In other words, do not insist on using American rules on pages about British topics or British rules on pages about American topics. On pages about other cultures, choose either style, but keep the style the same on the entire page.

  Do not capitalize the first letter in a word or the entire word to add importance to it. For example, "altitude, which is Not The Same as attitude" and "altitude, which is NOT THE SAME as attitude" are both wrong. If a word needs to show added importance or emphasis, use italics ("altitude, which is not the same as attitude").

  Calendar items

  The names of months and days always begin with a capital letter, for example: June or Monday.

  Dates normally should be followed by commas: "In 1957, the space race began"; "On October 4th, Sputnik was launched". An exception is when they are used to describe other words: "The 1993 edition was the first published".

  Celestial bodies

  Names of other planets and stars are proper nouns and begin with a capital letter: "The planet Mars can be seen tonight in the constellation Gemini, near the star Pollux." In cases where the name has multiple words, it is treated like other proper nouns where each leading letter is capitalized: "Alpha Centauri" and not "Alpha centauri".

  The words sun, earth, and moon are proper nouns when the sentence uses them in an astronomical sense, but not elsewhere: so "The Sun is a main sequence star, with a spectral class of G2"; but "It was a lovely day and the sun was warm". Note that these terms are proper nouns only when they refer to specific celestial bodies (our Sun, Earth and Moon): so "The Moon orbits the Earth", but "Pluto’s moon Charon".

  Directions and regions

  Regions that are proper nouns, including well known phrases such as Southern California, start with a capital letter. Directions (north, southwest, etc.) are not proper nouns and do not start with a capital letter.

  Institutions

  Proper names of specific institutions (for example, Glasgow University, Guiana Space Centre, etc.) are proper nouns and need capitalization.

  However, the words for types of institutions (university, college, etc.) should not be capitalized if they do not appear in a proper name:

  Incorrect:

  The University offers programs in space sciences.

  Correct:

  The university offers… or The University of Bath offers…

  Italics

  (italic) markup on both sides of the text to be italicized. For, example:

  ''This is italic.''

  will give:

  This is italic.

  Effect on nearby punctuation and links

  In all of the uses mentioned here, italicize only what should properly be affected by italics, and not the surrounding punctuation of the sentence. Examples:

  • What are we to make of that?

  Incorrect: only the word that should be italicized; the following question mark should not be italicized.

  • The word was tack; it certainly was not tick, tap, or tab.

  Correct: the punctuation marks here are not italicized; they are normal parts of the sentence.

  If an italicized word or phrase is linked, the italics markup should be placed outside of the link markup, otherwise you will get a "redlink". Example:

  • ''[Halley's Comet]'' was discovered by [Edmond Halley].

  Emphasis

  Italics are mainly used to emphasize (show importance of) certain words. Italics for emphasis should not be used too often.

  They are also used in these other cases:

  Titles

  Italics are used for the titles of works of scientific literature , such as books, papers and journals. The titles of articles and chapters are not italicized; instead they are put in double quotation marks ("Chapter Title").

  Italics within quotations

  Use italics inside quotations if the source material does, or if you want to add emphasis. If you are adding emphasis, write "emphasis added" at the end of the quotation. For example: "This experiment was the defining point in proving the theorem. emphasis added"

  If the source uses italics for emphasis, and you want to show that the emphasis is the source's and not yours, you can add "emphasis in original" after the quote.

  Acronyms and abbreviations

  Do not assume that your reader knows the acronym or abbreviation you are using. The acronym or abbreviation should be spelled out the first time it is used (linked if appropriate) and then show the acronym or abbreviation after it, in parentheses. For example:

  The Right Ascension of the Ascending Node (RAAN) is one of the orbital elements used to specify the orbit of an object in space.

  If the term is already in parentheses, use or to indicate the acronym. For example:

  There was an error in one of the orbital parameters (Right Ascension of the Ascending Node or RAAN).

  Acronyms and abbreviations are made plural by adding -s or -es. For example:

  • More than one CD-ROM are CD-ROMs

  • More than one NEO are NEOs

  Style books today do not use as many periods and spaces with acronyms and abbreviations for personal titles, as were traditionally used in the past. For example, PhD is more common than Ph.D. or Ph. D., and is preferred here. If an abbreviation is not clear without periods, the periods should not be removed.

  Punctuation

  In most cases, follow the usual rules of English punctuation. A few points where this wiki may be different from usual rules are listed below.

  Quotations and quote marks

  Whenever possible, faithfully use the same style that was used in the original quotation; do not change it to follow these rules on punctuation. If there is a spelling or other mistake in the original quote, it can be noted with sic.

  The guideline is to use the double-quotes (" ") – they are easier to read on the screen – and use single-quotes (‘ ’) for quotations that are within quotations. Quotation marks that are next to each other should be separated by a space. This best way to do this is to type &nbsp;.

  If you change the capitalization of the first letter of a quote, you do not need to "show the case change with square brackets".

  Except with well-known quotations, and those from the subject of the article or section, always name the person you are quoting for a full sentence or more. Name the person in the text, not in a footnote, unless the person is the subject of the article or is otherwise obvious.

  Look of quotation marks and apostrophes

  There are two options when considering the look of the quotation marks themselves:

  • “text”, ‘text’, foo’s

  • "text", 'text', foo's

  Either way is okay. Never use grave and acute accents or backticks (`text´) as quotation marks or apostrophes.

  Brackets

  If only part of a sentence is in brackets, the punctuation goes outside the brackets (as shown here). (If the entire sentence is inside brackets, the punctuation should also be inside the brackets.) These rules are true for square " " as well as round "( )" brackets (parentheses). There should be a space before an opening bracket in most cases. In certain rare cases, there will not be a space before the first bracket. This is the case when the bracket has one of these in front of it:

  • another opening bracket

  Several asteroids (ten omitted for brevity –ed. 1 Ceres, 4 Vesta, and 433 Eros) have, or will be, visited by robotic probes.

  There should be a space after a closing bracket, except where another punctuation mark (other than an apostrophe or a hyphen) follows, and except in cases similar to those listed for opening brackets.

  If a set of brackets must be put inside another, use the contrasting type (normally square brackets are put inside round brackets parentheses).

  Serial commas

  The 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 "Mercury, Venus, and Earth" is written with a serial comma, but "Mercury, Venus and Earth" is not. Sometimes not using a serial comma makes an unclear sentence, in such cases, there are three options to make the sentence more clear:

  • A choice can be made whether or not to use the comma.

  • The sentence can be rewritten to avoid listing the items in an unclear way.

  • The items in the list can be presented using a formatted list.

  If the presence of the final serial comma does not affect the clarity of the sentence (which is the case most of the time), there is no consensus on whether it should be used.

  Colons

  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

  Dashes

  The hyphen (-) is used to form compound words, such as "well-known". The en dash (–) is used to specify numeric ranges, such as “observing 24–7”. The em dash (—) can be used to link clauses of a sentence—like this one—as can the spaced en dash ( – ). Other dashes, such as the double-hyphen (--), should not be used.

  Spaces after the end of a sentence

  There are no guidelines on whether to use one space after the end of a sentence, or two. The issue is not important because the difference can only be seen in the edit box.

  Contractions

  Do not use contractions—such as don’t, can’t, won’t, would’ve, they’d, and so on—unless they are in a quotation. Contractions can be difficult for people who do not know English well.

  Slashes

  Try not to join two words with a slash (/), because it suggests that the two are related, but does not say exactly how. There is almost always a better choice than a slash. When it is possible, be specific to avoid wording that is not clear.

  An example: "The supervisor/instructor must be present at all times." Must both be present? (Then write and say "the supervisor and the instructor".) Must at least one be present? (Then write and say "the supervisor or the instructor".) Is it intended that the same person is both supervisor and instructor? (Then use an en dash or a hyphen: "the supervisor–instructor".)

  In situations involving a distinction or disjunction, the en dash is usually better than the slash, for example, "the novel–novella distinction".

  The slash does have some good uses. It can be used to show how something is spoken or pronounced ("ribald is pronounced /ri-bÉ™ld/" or to separate the numbers in a fraction ("⁷⁄₈").

  "And/or"

  The phrase and/or is especially awkward. For example, "x and/or y" can be written as "x or y, or both", or "either x or y" and optionally add "but not both", if necessary.

  When there are more than two choices, it is even more important to not use and/or. With two choices, at least the intention is clear; but with more than two it may difficult to know what is trying to be expressed. Instead of "x, y, and/or z", use an appropriate alternative: "one or more of x, y, and z"; "some or all of x, y, and z"; etc.

  Date and time

  Writing precisely

  Avoid words and statements that will quickly go out of date, such as recently and soon (unless their meaning is made clear by the rest of the sentence or paragraph), at the moment, currently, in modern times and is now considered. Instead, use either:

  • more precise terms ("in January 2005"; "since the start of 2005"; "during the 1990s"); or

  • an as of phrase ("as of August 2008"), which tells readers that the statement was correct as of a certain date, and reminds editors that the statement may need to be updated.

  It may not be necessary to follow the above rules on pages that are regularly updated, such as those that cover current events.

  Times

  Whether the 12- or 24-hour clock should be used to show a time depends on the article. In both cases, hours, minutes and seconds should be separated by colons ("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. Put a non-breaking space between the time and the a.m. or p.m. ("2:30 p.m." or "2:30 pm", not "2:30p.m." or "2:30pm"). To create a non-breaking space, type "&nbsp;", like this: "2:30&nbsp;p.m." Instead of using 12 pm and 12 am, use noon or 12 noon and midnight or 12 midnight.

  • 24-hour clock times do not have a.m., p.m., noon or midnight after the time. If the hour only has one digit, you can choose either to add a zero or not ("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

  • In dates, this wiki does not use ordinal suffixes (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th), the word the, or put a comma between the month and year.

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

  • Formats: In general, you can use either of the following formats:

    • International format: "14 February" and "14 February 1990" (common in most countries);

  • US format: "February 14" and "February 14, 1990" (mostly used in the US; note the comma between the day and the year).

  • To decide which format is best for an article, use the following guidelines:

    • Consistent format

      • Dates in the body text and in the references or footnotes of an article should all have the same format.

  • However, if dates are in a different format in titles of books and articles, or in quotations, do not change the format of those dates.

    • Strong national ties to a topic: An article on a topic with strong ties to a particular English-speaking country should generally use the more common date format for that nation. For example, it may be more suitable to use the "14 February 1990" format in an article about a person from the United Kingdom, and "February 14, 1990" in one about an event that happened in the United States.

  • Keeping the format already used:

    • If one format is already used in most parts of an article, the whole article should use that format unless there are reasons for changing it because of strong national ties to the topic.

  • If an article is fairly new, the date format chosen by the first editor who makes big changes to the article should be used, unless there is reason to change it because of strong national ties to the topic. Where an article that is not a stub shows no clear sign of which format is used, the first person to insert a date is considered to be the first editor who makes a big change to the article.

  • Date ranges. When a range of dates involves only numbers, type an en dash between the numbers with no spaces around it ("5–7 January 1979"; "January 5–7, 2002"). When the opening and/or closing dates have internal spaces, type an en dash with a space before and after it ("5 January – 18 February 1979"; "January 5 – February 18, 1979").

  • In rare cases, a night may be indicated using a slash, like this: "the meteor shower of the night of 14/15 August 2009".

  • Yearless dates: Do not use dates without years ("5 March", "March 5") unless the reader can tell what the year is from the rest of the sentence or paragraph. It is all right to use yearless dates when talking about events that happen every year, like this: "January 1 is New Year's Day".

  • ISO 8601 dates: Dates in ISO 8601 format (like "1976-05-13") are not common in English writing and are generally not used.

  Longer time periods

  • Months are expressed as whole words ("February", not "2"). Abbreviations (short versions) such as Feb are used only where there is very little space, such as in tables and infoboxes. Do not insert of between a month and a year ("April 2000", not "April of 2000").

  • Seasons as dates: Because the seasons are reversed in the Northen and Southern Hemispheres – and parts of the world near the Equator tend to have just wet and dry seasons – it is better to use wording like "in early 1990" and "in the second quarter of 2003" and "around September" rather than refer to seasons ("Summer 1918", "in the spring of 1995"). However, words referring to seasons can be used when there is a logical connection ("the autumn equinox"), and when they refer to a time of the year in certain parts of the world ("the birds usually start moving to higher latitudes in the middle of spring"). In these cases, the season names should be spelled with a lower-case initial ("spring", not "Spring").

  • Years

    • Years are normally expressed in digits ("1988", not "Nineteen eighty-eight"); a comma is not used in four-digit years (not "1,988").

  • Avoid inserting the words the year before the digits ("in 1995", not "in 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"). If an article already uses one style, do not change to the other style unless there is a good reason for the change.

  • Year ranges, like other date ranges, are separated by an en dash (do not use a hyphen or slash ("2005–08" or "2005–2008", not "2005-2008" or "2005/08"). A closing CE–AD year may be written with two digits ("1881–86") or four digits ("1881–1886"); if it is in a different century from that of the opening year then four digits must be used ("1881–1986"). Do not shorten the closing year to a single digit ("1881–6") or type three digits ("1881–886"). A closing BCE–BC year must be given in full ("2590–2550 BCE"). If CE, BCE, AD and/or BC are used after both the opening and closing dates, one space must be typed before and after the en dash ("5 BC – 29 AD").

  • A slash may be used to indicate regular defined yearly periods that are not the same as calendar years ("academic year 2008/2009", "the financial year 1993/4").

  • To indicate around, approximately, or about, type c. (which stands for the Latin word circa) before the year with a non-breaking space in between ("c. 1291"). If the date is not approximate but uncertain, use a question mark instead ("1291?"). (The question mark may mistakenly be thought to be 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".

  Pronunciation

  When a word is pronounced (said) differently from the way it is spelled, a guide to the pronunciation of the word should be set out. It is recommended that pronunciations of words be written using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), with or without a respelled pronunciation.

  Scientific style

  • For articles, use SI units as the main units of measure, unless there is a good reason not to (for example, Hubble's constant should be written in its most common unit of (km/s)/Mpc instead of its SI unit of s⁻¹).

  • In articles involving chemicals and chemistry, use the style of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) for chemical names. In article titles, the common name should be used if it is different from the IUPAC name. The common name should then be followed in the article by the IUPAC name.

  • In periodic table groups, use the IUPAC names (these use Arabic numerals, not Roman numerals or letters).

  • For mathematics and mathematical formulas, see en:Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics). ANDY RECCOMENDS ADDING ANOTHER PAGE HERE + TABLES

  Usage and spelling

  Usage

  Singular nouns that already end in s can sometimes be made possessive either by adding simply an apostrophe, or an apostrophe with another s, depending on the writer's choice. When a particular word or phrase is much more common without the s after the apostrophe, do not use it, such as with "Eros' crust".

  • Abbreviations of Latin words like i.e., e.g., or n.b., or use of the Latin words in full, such as "nota bene" or "vide infra", should only be in an article if it is used in a quotation. Instead, the words should be written in Simple English such as: "in other words", "for example", "such as" or "note".

  • Try to use words that have only one meaning, instead of words that can have many meanings. Remember that the person who is reading the article may not know all the possible meanings of a word.

  National varieties of English

  Remember that millions of people have learned a form of English different from yours, including different spellings, grammar, and punctuation. For this wiki, there is no preference for one variety of English over another; none is more "correct" than any other. However, there are rules that are generally accepted as to how to choose which variety to use. These guidelines are given in order of importance; those earlier in the list are generally more important than those later in the list:

  • The same spelling system and grammar rules should be used throughout an article.

    • Each article should have the same spelling within it and not a mix of different spellings. Different spellings can be confusing to the reader. For example, do not use center and centre in the same article (except in quotations or to make a comparison).

  • If an article is mostly written in one type of English, try to use that type instead of changing to another.

  • If there is a strong relationship to a specific region or dialect, use that dialect.

  • Try to find words that are common to all.

    • In choosing words or expressions (especially article titles) it is a good idea to select ones that do not have many different spellings if there are synonyms that can be chosen.

  • Stay with established spelling

    • If an article has been in a dialect for a long time, and there is no clear reason to change it, leave it alone. Editors should not change the spelling used in an article from one dialect to another unless there is a very good reason to do so (this is rarely the case). Other editors can revert such changes. Fixing any inconsistencies in the spelling is always appreciated.

  • Follow the dialect of the first contributor.

    • If all else fails, consider following the spelling style preferred by the first major contributor to the article.

  Images

  These are some general guidelines which are usually followed for the best appearance, although some editors have different ideas:

  • Articles usually start with an image on the right-hand side of the page (this is called right-alignment).

  • When using many images in the same article, they can be placed on either the right or left side of the page.

  • Avoid sandwiching text between two images directly across from each other.

  • Generally, right-alignment is preferred to left- or center-alignment. It is okay for all the pictures in an article to be on the right side of the page.

  Bulleted lists and numbered lists

  Do not use bullets if the article reads easily using plain paragraphs.

  Do not mix grammatical styles in a list – either use all complete sentences, or use all sentence fragments. Begin each item with a capital letter, even if it is a sentence fragment.

  When using complete sentences, put a period at the end of each sentence:

  • This is a complete sentence.

  • This is also a complete sentence.

  When using sentence fragments, do not put a period at the end:

  • Part of a sentence

  • Also a sentence fragment

  The rules for bulleted lists are the the same for numbered lists. Use numbered lists instead of bulleted lists only if you will be talking about the items by number, or if the order of the items is important (for example, you are explaining step 1, step 2, etc. of a process).

  Linking to other websites

  Links to websites outside of the Planetary Database Wiki can be listed at the end of an article or in the text of an article as an "embedded link".

  List of links at the end of an article

  A list of links should have a header named == Other websites ==, followed by a bulleted list of links. It is good if a link on the list summarizes the website's contents, and tells why the website is important to the article. For example:

  *http://www.esa.int/esaCP/index.html ESA Homepage

  By adding the code <span class="plainlinks"></span> around the link, it will look cleaner.

  Embedded links

  SHOULD PROBABLY HAVE A DEDICATED PAGE

  External links can also be "embedded" directly within an article. These links generally have no description, but they will automatically be given a number by the software. For example, typing:

  Sample text http://www.example.org.

  will show the link as:

  Sample text 1.

  An embedded external link should have a full citation in the article's References section.

  References or Notes

  THIS REQUIRES VERIFICATION

  The References or Notes section can have a code that will copy your embedded link (with its external link, description and/or quote) into the References or Notes section, and make it a functioning link there. Do not use this code with an embedded link alone. Use it only if you're adding a citation or description of the link.

  Here is an example:

  The embedded link format would look like this:

  <ref name="test1">http://www.example.org/ The name of the other website goes here. More information can go here.</ref>

  It will produce this: 1

  
  Then in the "References" or "Notes" section, the code would look like this:

  <references />

  Using this code will automatically copy the same embedded link you have made above:

  1. ↑ The name of the other website goes here. More information can go here.

  You can also use the template {{reflist}} to give the same as above, but with a smaller font size. For a two-column layout, use {{reflist|2}}.

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The last three changes:

andy_bacon - 2009-11-23 10:01:39 pm  |  andy_bacon - 2009-11-23 09:58:52 pm  |  andy_bacon - 2009-08-23 02:49:11 pm