Wikipedia:Manual of Style

This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style. Editors should follow it, except where common sense and the occasional exception will improve an article. Before editing this page, please make sure that your revision reflects consensus.

Shortcuts: WP:MOS WP:STYLE

The Manual of Style, often abbreviated MoS, is a style guide for Wikipedia articles. This article contains basic principles. The menu to the right contains links to Manual of Style articles that explore topics in detail. If the Manual of Style does not specify a preferred usage, discuss your issues on the talk page of this article.

General principles

Internal consistency

See also Consistency within articles

An overriding principle on Wikipedia is that style and formatting should be applied consistently within articles, though not necessarily throughout the encyclopedia as a whole. One way of presenting information may be as good as another is, but consistency within articles promotes clarity and cohesion.

Stability of articles

The Arbitration Committee has ruled that the Manual of Style is not binding, that editors should not change an article from one guideline-defined style to another without a substantial reason unrelated to mere choice of style, and that revert-warring over optional styles is unacceptable.^[1]

Where there is disagreement over which style to use in an article, defer to the style used by the first major contributor.

Article titles, headings, and sections

Main articles: Wikipedia:Naming conventions, Wikipedia:Lead section, Wikipedia:Layout, and Help:Section

Article titles

This guidance applies to the titles of Wikipedia articles, not to the titles of external articles that are cited.

• Article titles should conform to Wikipedia's naming conventions, including "Use English".
• Titles are generally nouns or noun phrases (Effects of the wild, not About the effects of the wild).
• Titles should be short—preferably fewer than ten words.
• The initial letter of a title is capitalized (except in very rare cases, such as eBay). Otherwise, capital letters are used only where implied by normal capitalization rules (Funding of UNESCO projects, not Funding of UNESCO Projects).
• A, an, and the are normally avoided as the first word (Economy of the Second Empire, not The economy of the Second Empire), unless part of a proper noun (The Hague).
• Special characters—such as the slash (/), plus sign (+), braces ({ }), and square brackets ([ ])—are avoided; the ampersand (&) is replaced by and, unless it is part of a formal name.

This guidance also applies to Section headings, below.

Section headings

See also the guidance in Article titles immediately above, which applies to both article titles and section headings.

• Headings provide an overview in the table of contents and allow readers to navigate through the text more easily.
• Change a heading only after careful consideration, because this will break section links to it within the same article and from other articles. If changing a heading, try to locate and fix broken links.
• Section names should preferably be unique within a page; this applies even for the names of subsections. The disadvantages of duplication are that:
  • after editing, the display can arrive at the wrong section; see also below; and
  • the automatic edit summary on editing a section with a non-unique name is ambiguous.
• Section names should not normally contain links, especially ones that link only part of the heading; they will cause accessibility problems.
• Section names should not explicitly refer to the subject of the article, or to higher-level headings, unless doing so is shorter or clearer. For example, Early life is preferable to His early life when His means the subject of the article; headings can be assumed to be about the subject unless otherwise indicated.
• Unspaced multiple equal signs are the style markup for headings. The triple apostrophes (''') that make words appear in boldface are not used in headings. The nesting hierarchy for headings is as follows:
  • the automatically generated top-level heading of a page is H1, which gives the article title;
  • primary headings are then ==H2==, followed by ===H3===, ====H4====, and so on.
• Spaces between the and the heading text are optional (==H2== versus == H2 ==). These extra spaces will not affect the appearance of the heading, except in the edit window.
• A blank line below the heading is optional. If there are no blank lines above the heading, one line should be added, for readability in the edit window. Only two or more blank lines above or below will change the public appearance of the page by adding more white space.

Section management

• When linking to a section, as a courtesy, go to that article's section and leave an editor's note to remind others that the title is linked. List the names of the linking articles, so that if the title is altered, others can fix the links without having to perform exhaustive searches. For example:

==Evolutionary implications==<!--This section is linked from [[Richard Dawkins]] and [[Daniel Dennett]]-->

• As well, consider a preemptive measure to minimize link corruption when the text of a heading changes by inserting an {{anchor}} with an alternative name by which to link to that heading section. For example:

==Evolutionary implications{{anchors | RDawkins | DDennett}}==<!-- This section is linked from [[Richard Dawkins]] and [[Daniel Dennett]] -->

• When referring to a section without linking, italicize the section name (italicize the actual section name only if it otherwise requires italics, such as the title of a book); for example, the current section is called Section management.
• As explained in more detail at Wikipedia:Layout#Standard appendices and descriptions, optional appendix sections containing the following information may appear after the body of the article in the following order: (a) a list of books or other works created by the subject of the article, (b) a list of internal links to related Wikipedia articles, (c) notes and references, (d) a list of recommended relevant books, articles, or other publications that have not been used as sources, and (e) a list of recommended relevant websites that have not been used as sources.

First sentences

First sentence content

The article should begin with a short declarative sentence, answering two questions for the nonspecialist reader: "What (or who) is the subject?" and "Why is this subject notable?"^[2]

• If possible, the page title should be the subject of the first sentence:^[3] However, if the article title is merely descriptive—such as Electrical characteristics of a dynamic loudspeaker—the title does not need to appear verbatim in the main text. Similarly, where an article title is of the type "List of ...", a clearer and more informative introduction to the list is better than verbatim repetition of the title.
• When the page title is used as the subject of the first sentence, it may appear in a slightly different form, and it may include variations.^[4] Similarly, if the title has a parenthetical disambiguator, the disambiguator should be omitted in the text.^[5]
• If its subject is amenable to definition, then the first sentence should give a concise definition: where possible, one that puts the article in context for the nonspecialist. Similarly, if the subject is a term of art, provide the context as early as possible.^[6]
• If the article is about a fictional character or place, say so.^[7]

First sentence format

As a general rule, the first (and only the first) appearance of the page title should be as early as possible in the first sentence and should be in boldface.^[8] However, if the title of a page is descriptive and does not appear verbatim in the main text, then it should not be in boldface.^[9]

• If the subject of the page is normally italicized (for example, a work of art, literature, album, or ship) then its first mention should be both bold and italic text ("The 1656 painting Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez ...").
• If the subject of the page has a common abbreviation or more than one name, the abbreviation (in parentheses) and each additional name should be in boldface on its first appearance.^[10]
• Use as few links as possible before and in the bolded title. Thereafter, words used in a title may be linked to provide more detail.^[11]

Capital letters

Main article: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters)

There are differences between the major varieties of English in the use of capitals (uppercase letters). Where this is an issue, the rules of the cultural and linguistic context apply. As for spelling, consistency is maintained within an article.

Capitals are not used for emphasis at Wikipedia. Where wording cannot provide the emphasis, use italics.

Incorrect:	Contrary to popular belief, aardvarks are Not the same as anteaters.
Incorrect:	Contrary to popular belief, aardvarks are NOT the same as anteaters.
Correct:	Contrary to popular belief, aardvarks are not the same as anteaters.

Titles

• When used as titles (that is, followed by a name), items such as president, king, and emperor start with a capital letter: President Clinton, not president Clinton. The formal name of an office is treated as a proper noun: Hirohito was Emperor of Japan and Louis XVI was King of France (where Emperor of Japan and King of France are titles). Royal styles are capitalized: Her Majesty and His Highness; exceptions may apply for particular offices.
• When used generically, such items are in lower case: De Gaulle was a French president and Louis XVI was a French king. Similarly, Three prime ministers attended the conference, but We know that the British Prime Minister is Gordon Brown.
• For the use of titles and honorifics in biographical articles, see Honorific prefixes.

Religions, deities, philosophies, doctrines, and their adherents

• Religions, sects, and churches and their followers (in noun or adjective form) start with a capital letter. Generally, the is not capitalized before such names (the Shī‘a, not The Shī‘a). (However, see also the style guide and naming convention for the Latter Day Saint movement.)
• Scriptures (religious texts) are capitalized but often not italicized (for example, the names of the Qur’an, the Talmud, the Granth Sahib, and the Bible). When the is used, it is not capitalized. Some derived adjectives are capitalized by convention, some are not (normally biblical but Koranic, for example); if unsure, check a dictionary appropriate to the topic, and be consistent within an article.
• Honorifics for deities, including proper nouns and titles, start with a capital letter (God, Allah, the Lord, the Supreme Being, the Great Spirit, the Horned One); the is not capitalized. The same is true when referring to major religious figures and figures from mythology by titles or terms of respect (the Prophet, the Messiah, the Virgin). Common nouns denoting deities or religious figures are not capitalized; thus the Romans worshipped many gods, many Anglo-Saxons worshipped the god Wotan, Jesus and Muhammad are both considered prophets in Islam, biblical scholars dispute whether Mary was a virgin for her entire life, and her husband was her muse (but the nine Muses).
• Pronouns and possessives referring to figures of veneration are not capitalized in Wikipedia articles, even when they traditionally are in a religion's scriptures. They are left capitalized when directly quoting scriptures or any other texts that capitalize them.
• Broad categories of mythical or legendary creatures do not start with uppercase capital letters (elf, fairy, nymph, unicorn, angel), although in derived works of fantasy, such as the novels of J.R.R. Tolkien and real-time strategy video games, initial capitals are sometimes used to indicate that the beings are regarded as cultures or races in their fictional universes. Names or titles of individual creatures are capitalized (the Minotaur, the Pegasus) as are those of groups whose name and membership are fixed (the Cherubim, the Magi or the Three Wise Men). As with terms for deities, generalized references are not capitalized (cherub-like, the priests of this sect were called magi by some, several wise men were consulted).
• Spiritual or religious events are likewise capitalized only when they are terms referring to specific incidents or periods (the Great Flood, the Exodus, but annual flooding and an exodus of refugees).
• Philosophies, theories, and doctrines do not begin with a capital letter unless the name derives from a proper noun (capitalism versus Marxism) or has become a proper noun (lowercase republican refers to a system of political thought; uppercase Republican refers to one of several specific political parties or ideologies, such as the US Republican Party or Irish Republicanism). Physical and natural laws and parodies of them are capitalized (the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the Theory of Special Relativity, Murphy's Law; but an expert on gravity and relativity, thermodynamic properties, Murphy's famous mock-law). Doctrinal topics or canonical religious ideas (as distinguished from specific events) capitalized by some religious adherents are given in lower case in Wikipedia, such as virgin birth, original sin, or transubstantiation.
• Platonic or transcendent ideals are capitalized (Good, Truth), but only within the context of philosophical doctrine; used more broadly, they are in lower case (Superman represents American ideals of truth and justice). Personifications represented in art, such as a statue of the figure Justice, are capitalized.

Calendar items

• Months, days of the week, and holidays start with a capital letter: June, Monday, the Fourth of July (when referring to the U.S. Independence Day, otherwise July 4 or 4 July).
• Seasons, in almost all instances, are lowercase: This summer was very hot; The winter solstice occurs about December 22; I have spring fever. When personified, season names may function as proper nouns, and they should then be capitalized: I think Spring is showing her colors; Old Man Winter.

Animals, plants, and other organisms

Main articles: Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life#Article titles and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna)

Scientific names for genera and species are italicized, with a capital initial letter for the genus but no capital for the species; for more specific guidelines for article titles, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life#Article titles. For example, the tulip tree is Liriodendron tulipifera, and humans are Homo sapiens. Taxonomic groups higher than genus are given with an initial capital and are not in italics; for example, gulls are in the family Laridae, and we are in the family Hominidae.

Common (vernacular) names of flora and fauna should be written in lower case—for example, oak or lion. There are a limited number of exceptions to this:

1. Where the common name contains a proper noun, such as the name of a person or place, that proper noun should be capitalized (The Amur tiger may have a range of over 500 square kilometres; The Roosevelt elk is a subspecies of Cervus canadensis).
2. For particular groups of organisms, there are particular rules of capitalization based on current and historic usage among those who study the organisms; for example, official common names of birds.
3. In a very few cases, a set of officially established common names is recognized only within a country or a geographic region. Those common names may be capitalized according to local custom, but not all editors will have access to the references needed to support these names; in such cases, using the general recommendation is also acceptable.

A redirect from an alternative capitalization should be created where it is used in an article title.

In articles that cover two or more taxonomic groups, a consistent style of capitalization should be used for species names. This could involve the use of:

• scientific names throughout (often appropriate for specialist articles);
• title case for common names of species throughout (see WP:BIRDS) and lower case for non-specific names such as eagle or bilberry, which may work well for articles with a broad coverage of natural history; or
• lower-case initial letters for common names, which may work well for non-specialist articles that happen to refer to different taxonomic groups.

Celestial bodies

• Sun, earth, and moon are not capitalized generally (The sun was peeking over the mountain top). They may be proper nouns when personified, or in an astronomical context when referring to specific celestial bodies (our Sun, Earth, and Moon): "Busy old fool, unruly Sun ...", The Moon orbits the Earth, but Io is a moon of Jupiter.
• Names of other planets and stars are proper nouns and start with a capital letter: The planet Mars can be seen tonight in the constellation Gemini, near the star Pollux. Where a name has multiple words, it is treated like other proper nouns where each leading letter is capitalized: Alpha Centauri and not Alpha centauri.

Directions and regions

• Directions such as north are not proper nouns and are therefore lowercase. The same is true for their related forms: someone might call a road that leads north a northern road, compared with the Great North Road. Composite directions may or may not be hyphenated, depending on the general style adopted in the article (Southeast Asia and northwest in American English, but South-East Asia and north-west in British English).
• Regions that are proper nouns, including widely known expressions such as Southern California, start with a capital letter. Follow the same convention for related forms: a person from the Southern United States is a Southerner. Regions of uncertain proper-noun status are assumed not to have attained it.

Institutions

• Names of institutions (the University of Sydney, George Brown College) are proper nouns and require capitalization. The at the start of a title is not normally capitalized (a degree from the University of Sydney).
• Generic words for institutions (university, college, hospital, high school) require no capitalization:

Incorrect	(generic):	The University offers programs in arts and sciences.
Correct	(generic):	The university offers ...
Correct	(title):	The University of Delhi offers ...

Acronyms and abbreviations

Main articles: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (abbreviations) and Wikipedia:Edit summary legend

Write out both the full version and the abbreviation at first occurrence

When introducing a new name in an article, it is good practice to use the full name on its first occurrence, followed by the abbreviated form in parentheses. For example, The New Democratic Party (NDP) won the 1990 Ontario election with a significant majority (first mention of New Democratic Party in the article), and The NDP quickly became unpopular with the voters (subsequent mention).

Initial capitals are not used in the full name of an item just because capitals are used in the abbreviation.

Incorrect	(not a name):	We used Digital Scanning (DS) technology
Correct:		We used digital scanning (DS) technology
Correct	(name):	produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

If the full term is already in parentheses, use a comma (,) and or to indicate the abbreviation; for example, They first debated the issue in 1992 (at a convention of the New Democratic Party, or NDP).

Plural and possessive forms

Acronyms and initialisms are pluralized by adding -s or -es as with any other nouns (They produced three CD-ROMs in the first year; The laptops were produced with three different BIOSes in 2006). As with other nouns, no apostrophe is used unless the form is a possessive.

Periods (full stops) and spaces

Acronyms and initialisms are generally not separated by full stops (periods) or blank spaces (GNP, NORAD, OBE, GmbH); many periods and spaces that were traditionally required have now dropped out of usage (PhD is preferred over Ph.D. and Ph. D.). Periods are not used in units of measurement (see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) for more information).

Truncated (Hon. for Honorable), compressed (cmte. for committee), and contracted (Dr. for Doctor) abbreviations may or may not be closed with a period; a consistent style should be maintained within an article. A period is more usual in American usage (Dr. Smith of 42 St. Joseph St.); no period is commonly preferred in British and other usage (Dr Smith of 42 St Joseph St, although one or other St might take a period, in such a case). Some British and other authorities prefer to drop the period from truncated and compressed abbreviations generally (XYZ Corp, ABC Ltd), a practice favored in science writing. Regardless of punctuation, such abbreviations are spaced if multi-word (op. cit. or op cit, not op.cit. or opcit).

US and U.S.

In American English, U.S. is the standard abbreviation for United States; US is becoming more common and is standard in other national forms of English. In longer abbreviations incorporating the country's initials (USN, USAF), periods are not used. When the United States is mentioned along with one or more other countries in the same sentence, U.S. or US can be too informal, and many editors avoid it especially at first mention of the country (France and the United States, not France and the U.S.). In a given article, if the abbreviated form of the United States appears predominantly alongside other abbreviated country names, for consistency it is preferable to avoid periods throughout; never add periods to the other abbreviations (the US, the UK and the PRC, not the U.S., the U.K. and the P.R.C.). The spaced U. S. is never used, nor is the archaic U.S. of A., except in quoted materials. U.S.A. and USA are not used unless quoted or as part of a proper name (Team USA).

Do not use unwarranted abbreviations

The use of abbreviations should be avoided when they would be confusing to the reader, interrupt the flow, or appear informal or lazy. For example, approx. for approximate or approximately should generally not be used, although it may be useful for reducing the width of an infobox or a table of data, or in a technical passage in which the term occurs many times.

See also Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) for when to abbreviate units of measurement.

Do not invent abbreviations or acronyms

Generally avoid the making up of new abbreviations, especially acronyms. For example, while it is reasonable to provide World Union of Billiards as a translation of Union Mondiale de Billard, the former is not the organization's name, and the organization does not use the acronym or initialism WUB; when referring to it in short form, use the official abbreviation UMB. In a wide table of international economic data, it might be desirable to abbreviate a United States gross national product heading; this might be done with the widely recognized initialisms US and GNP spaced together, with a link to appropriate articles, if it is not already explained: US GNP, rather than the made-up initialism USGNP.

HTML elements

The software that Wikipedia runs on does not support HTML abbreviation elements (<acronym> or <abbr>); therefore, these tags are not inserted into the source (see Mediazilla:671).

Italics

Further information: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting)

Emphasis

Italics are used sparingly to emphasize words in sentences (bolding is normally not used at all for this purpose). Generally, the more highlighting in an article, the less the effect of each instance.

Titles

Main article: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles)

Italics are used for the titles of works of literature and art, such as books, paintings, and musical albums. The titles of articles, chapters, songs, and other short works are not italicized, but are enclosed in double quotation marks.

Italics are not used for major revered religious works (for example the Bible, the Qur'an, and the Talmud).

Words as words

Italics are used when mentioning a word or letter (see Use–mention distinction) or a string of words up to a full sentence: The term panning is derived from panorama, a word coined in 1787; The most commonly used letter in English is e. For a whole sentence, quotation marks may be used instead: (1) The preposition in She sat on the chair is on, or (2) The preposition in "She sat on the chair" is "on". Mentioning (to discuss such features as grammar, wording and punctuation) is different from quoting (in which something is usually expressed on behalf of a quoted source).

Foreign words

Wikipedia prefers italics for phrases in other languages and for isolated foreign words that are not commonly used in everyday English.

Quotations in italics

For quotations, use only quotation marks (for short quotations) or block quoting (for long ones), not italics. (See Quotations below.) This means that (1) a quotation is not italicized inside quotation marks or a block quote just because it is a quotation, and (2) italicization is not used as a substitute for proper quotation formatting.

Italics within quotations

Italics are used within quotations if they are already in the source material, or are added by Wikipedia to give emphasis to some words. If the latter, an editorial note [emphasis added] should appear at the end of the quotation.

"Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince: And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest" [emphasis added].

If the source uses italics for emphasis, and it is desirable to stress that Wikipedia has not added the italics, the editorial note [emphasis in original] should appear after the quote.

Effect on nearby punctuation

Italicization is restricted to what should properly be affected by italics, and not the punctuation that is part of the surrounding sentence.

Incorrect:	What are we to make of that?
Correct:	What are we to make of that?
		(The question mark applies to the whole sentence, not just to the emphasized that.)
Correct:	Four of Patrick White's most famous novels are A Fringe of Leaves, The Aunt's Story, Voss and The Tree of Man.
		(The commas, period, and and are not italicized.)

Italicized links

The italics markup must be outside the link markup, or the link will not work; however, internal italicization can be used in piped links.

Incorrect:	The opera [[''Turandot'']] is his best.
Correct:	The opera ''[[Turandot]]'' is his best.
Correct:	The [[USS Adder (SS-3)|USS ''Adder'' (SS-3)]] was a submarine.

Non-breaking spaces

See also: Wikipedia:Line break handling and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Non-breaking spaces

• A non-breaking space (also known as a hard space) is recommended to prevent the end-of-line displacement of elements that could be awkward at the beginning of a new line:
  • in compound expressions in which figures and abbreviations or symbols are separated by a space (17 kg, AD 565, 2:50 pm), including scientific names of species where the genus is abbreviated (C. elegans);
  • in other places where displacement might be disruptive to the reader, such as £11 billion, 5° 24′ 21.12″ N, Boeing 747, and the first two items in 7 World Trade Center.
• A hard space can be produced with the HTML code &nbsp; instead of the space bar, or by pressing the key combination option–space bar on a Mac: 19&nbsp;kg yields a non-breaking 19 kg.
• Hard spaces can also be produced by using the {{nowrap}} template: {{nowrap|8 sq ft}} produces a non-breaking 8 sq ft. This is especially useful for short constructions requiring two or more hard spaces, as in the preceding example. Template {{nowrap}} has the disadvantage that if the enclosed text starts or ends with a space, these spaces are forced outside in the resulting HTML, and unpredicted breaks may occur. If &nbsp; occurs right before {{nowrap}}, or at the start of text within {{nowrap}}, some browsers allow a break at that point.
• Unlike normal spaces, multiple hard spaces are not compressed by browsers into a single space.

Quotations

See also: Italics and quotations and Quotation marks

Minimal change

Wherever reasonable, preserve the original style, spelling, and punctuation. Where there is a good reason not to do so, insert an editorial explanation of the changes, usually within square brackets (e.g., [for example]). If there is an error in the original statement, use [sic], or {{sic}} (which produces [sic]), to show that it is not a transcription error.

Allowable changes

Though the requirement for minimal change is strict, a few merely typographical elements of the quoted text should normally be altered without comment, to conform to English Wikipedia conventions. Such a practice is universal, in all publishing. Such alterations include these:

• Styling of dashes (use the style chosen for the article: unspaced em dash or spaced en dash; see Dashes, below).
• Styling of apostrophes and quotes (they should all be straight, not curly; see Quote marks, below); such typographical elements as guillemets (« », in quoted French, Portuguese, and other foreign-language material) should be altered to their English-language equivalents (guillemets become standard straight quote marks, for example).
• Spaces before periods, colons, semicolons, and the like should be removed, since they are merely typographical and are alien to the conventions in use throughout English Wikipedia, and English-language publishing in general.
• Some text styling (of course the typeface will be automatically made the same as the article's default typeface; but preserve bold, underlining, and italics; see Italics, above).
• Ellipses should be used whenever parts of a quotation are skipped. Legitimate reasons for omitting parts of quotation include removing extraneous, irrelevant, or parenthetical words or skipping over unintelligible or guttural speech (umm, ahhs, and hmms, for example). Care should be made to not use ellipses to remove context or to selectively quote so as to change the meaning of the quote (as is sometimes seen in advertisements for movies and plays that selectively quote critical reviews to make them appear more favorable).

Quotations within quotations

When a quotation includes another quotation (and so on), start with double quote marks outermost, and, working inward, alternate single with double quote marks. The following example has three levels of quotation: "She disputed his statement that 'Voltaire never said "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."'" Adjacent quote marks, as at the end of this example, can be difficult to read (e.g.: "'") unless kerned apart slightly with CSS; the {{" '}}, {{' "}} and {{" ' "}} templates will accomplish this; the example above is output by ...your right to say it.{{" ' "}} in edit space.

Attribution

The author of a quote of a full sentence or more should be named; this is done in the main text and not in a footnote. However, attribution is unnecessary for quotations from the subject of the article or section. When preceding a quotation with its attribution, avoid characterizing it in a biased manner.

Linking

Unless there is a good reason to do so, Wikipedia avoids linking from within quotes, which may clutter the quotation, violate the principle of leaving quotations unchanged, and mislead or confuse the reader.

Block quotations

A long quote (more than four lines, or consisting of more than one paragraph, regardless of number of lines) is formatted as a block quotation, which Wikimedia's software will indent from both margins. Block quotes are not enclosed in quotation marks (especially including decorative ones such as those provided by the {{cquote}} template, used only for pull quotes). Block quotes can be enclosed between a pair of <blockquote>...</blockquote> HTML tags, or {{quotation}} or {{quote}} can be used.

Note: The current version of Wikipedia's MediaWiki software will not render multiple paragraphs inside a <blockquote> simply by spacing the paragraphs apart with blank lines. A workaround is to enclose each of the block-quoted paragraphs in its own <p>...</p> element.

For example writing:

<blockquote>
<p>And bring us a lot of [[horilka]], but not of that fancy kind with raisins, or with any other such things—bring us horilka of the purest kind, give us that demon drink that makes us merry, playful and wild!</p>

<p>—[[Nikolai Gogol]], ''[[Taras Bulba]]''</p>
</blockquote>

Will result in the following, indented on both sides (it may also be in a smaller font, depending on browser software). For example, writing

And bring us a lot of horilka, but not of that fancy kind with raisins, or with any other such things—bring us horilka of the purest kind, give us that demon drink that makes us merry, playful and wild!

—Nikolai Gogol, Taras Bulba

The {{quote}} template provides the same semantic HTML formatting, as well as a workaround for the paragraph spacing bug and a pre-formatted attribution line:

{{quote |And bring us a lot of horilka, but not of that fancy kind with raisins, or with any other such things—bring us horilka of the purest kind, give us that demon drink that makes us merry, playful and wild! |[[Nikolai Gogol]] |''[[Taras Bulba]]''}}

Which results in:

And bring us a lot of horilka, but not of that fancy kind with raisins, or with any other such things—bring us horilka of the purest kind, give us that demon drink that makes us merry, playful and wild!

— Nikolai Gogol ,  Taras Bulba

Punctuation

Apostrophes

• Consistent use of the straight (or typewriter) apostrophe ( ' ) is recommended, as opposed to the curly (or typographic) apostrophe ( ’ ). For details and reasons, see Quotation marks, below.
• For the possessive apostrophe, see the summary of usage issues at Possessives, below.
• Foreign characters that resemble apostrophes, such as transliterated Arabic ayin ( ʿ ) and alif ( ʾ ), are represented by their correct Unicode characters, despite possible display problems. If this is not feasible, use a straight apostrophe instead.
• For a thorough treatment of all uses of the apostrophe (possessive, elision, formation of certain plurals, specific foreign-language issues) see the article Apostrophe.

Quotation marks

See also: Quotations

The term quotation in the material below also includes other uses of quotation marks such as those for titles of songs, chapters, and episodes; unattributable aphorisms; literal strings; "scare-quoted" passages, and constructed examples.

Double or single

Quotations are enclosed within double quotes (e.g., Bob said: "Jim ate the apple".). Quotations within quotations are enclosed within single quotes (e.g., Bob said: "Did Jim say 'I ate the apple' after he left?").

Inside or outside

Punctuation marks are placed inside the quotation marks only if the sense of the punctuation is part of the quotation. This system is referred to as logical quotation; it is used by Wikipedia both because of the principle of minimal change, and also because the method is less prone to misquotation, ambiguity, and the introduction of errors in subsequent editing.

Correct:	Arthur said, "The situation is deplorable and unacceptable."
	(The period is part of the quoted text.)
Correct:	Arthur said that the situation was "deplorable".
	(The period is not part of the quoted text.)
Correct:	Martha asked, "Are you coming?"
	(The question mark belongs inside because the quoted text itself was a question.)
Correct:	Did Martha say, "Come with me"?
	(The very quote is being questioned, so the question mark belongs outside; any punctuation at the end of the original quote is omitted.)

When quoting a sentence fragment that ends in a period, some judgment is required: if the fragment communicates a complete sentence, the period can be placed inside. The period should be omitted if the quotation is in the middle of a sentence.

Correct:

Martha said, "Come with me", and they did.

If the sequence of juxtaposed punctuation marks seems distracting or untidy, try to obviate it.

Correct:

Martha said, "Come with me" (and they did).

Article openings

When the title of an article appearing in the lead paragraph requires quotation marks (for example, the title of a song or poem), the quotation marks should not be in boldface, as they are not part of the title:

Correct:

"Jabberwocky" is a nonsense poem by Lewis Carroll.

Block quotes

As already noted above, we use quotation marks or block quotes (not both) to distinguish long quotations from other text. Multiparagraph quotations are always block-quoted. The quotations must be precise and exactly as in the source. The source should be cited clearly and precisely to enable readers to find the text that supports the article content in question.

Quotation characters

The following types of quoting should not be used:

• Grave and acute accents or backticks (`text´) are neither quotation marks nor apostrophes, and must not be used in their place.

There are two options when considering the look of the quotation marks (that is, the glyph):

• Typewriter or straight style: "text", 'text'
• Typographic or curly style: “text”, ‘text’

(Emphasis added to better distinguish between the glyphs.)

The exclusive use of straight quotes and apostrophes (see preceding section) is recommended. They are easier to type in reliably, and to edit. Mixed use interferes with some searches, such as those using the browser's search facility (a search for Korsakoff's syndrome could fail to find Korsakoff’s syndrome and vice versa).

Whenever quotation marks or apostrophes appear in article titles, make a redirect from the same title but using the alternative glyphs.

Other matters

• A quotation is not italicized simply because it is a quotation.
• If an entire sentence is quoted in such a way that it becomes a grammatical part of the larger sentence, the first letter loses its capitalization: It turned out to be true that "a penny saved is a penny earned".
• If a word or phrase appears in an article in single quotes, such as 'abcd', Wikipedia's search facility will find that word or phrase only if the search string is also within single quotes. This difficulty does not arise for double quotes, and this is one of the reasons the latter are recommended.

Brackets and parentheses

If a sentence contains a bracketed phrase, the sentence punctuation comes outside the brackets (as shown here). However, where one or more sentences are wholly inside brackets, their punctuation comes inside the brackets (see further details below). These rules apply to both round brackets ( ( ) ), often called parentheses, and square brackets( [ ] ). There should not be a space next to a bracket on its inner side. An opening bracket should be preceded by a space, except in unusual cases; for example, when it is preceded by:

• An opening quotation mark

He rose to address the meeting: "(Ahem) ... Ladies and gentlemen, welcome!"

• Another opening bracket

Only the royal characters in the play ([Prince] Hamlet and his family) habitually speak in blank verse.

• A portion of a word

We journeyed on the Inter[continental].

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

If sets of brackets must be nested, use the contrasting type. Normally, square brackets appear within round brackets. Often, it is better to revise the sentence to reduce clutter, using commas, semicolons, colons, or dashes instead.

Avoid adjacent sets of brackets—either put the parenthetic phrases in one set separated by commas, or rewrite the sentence. For example:

Incorrect:	Nikifor Grigoriev (c. 1885–1919) (also known as Matviy Hryhoriyiv) was a Ukrainian insurgent leader.
Correct:	Nikifor Grigoriev (c. 1885–1919), also known as Matviy Hryhoriyiv, was a Ukrainian insurgent leader.
Correct:	Nikifor Grigoriev (c. 1885–1919) was a Ukrainian insurgent leader. He was also known as Matviy Hryhoriyiv.

Square brackets are used to indicate editorial replacements and insertions of text. They serve three main purposes:

• To clarify. ("She attended [secondary] school"—where this was the intended meaning, but the type of school was unstated in the original sentence.)
• To reduce the size of a quotation. If a source says, "X contains Y, and under certain circumstances, X may contain Z as well", it is acceptable to reduce this to "X contains Y [and sometimes] Z", without ellipsis. When an ellipsis (...; see below) is used to indicate material removed from a direct quotation, it should not normally be bracketed.
• To make the grammar work: She said that "[she] would not allow this" – where her original statement was "I would not allow this". (Generally, though, it is better to begin the quotation after the problematic word: She said that she "would not allow this.")

The use of square-bracketed wording should never alter the intended meaning of a quotation.

Sentences and brackets

• If any sentence includes material that is enclosed in square or round brackets, it still must end—with a period, or a question or exclamation mark—after those brackets (a rule that applies in all English, whether British or U.S.). The preceding sentence is an example. This principle applies no matter what punctuation is used within the brackets.
• Normally, if the words of a sentence begin within brackets, the sentence must also end within those brackets. (This sentence is an example.) There is an exception for matter that is added or modified editorially at the beginning of a sentence for clarity, usually in square brackets: "[Principal Skinner] already told me that", he objected in preference to the potentially more ambiguous "He already told me that", he objected.
• A sentence that occurs within brackets in the course of another sentence does not have its first word capitalized just because it starts a sentence. The enclosed sentence may have a question mark or exclamation mark added, but not a period: Alexander then conquered (who would have believed it?) most of the known world; Clare demanded that he drive (she knew he hated driving) to the supermarket. These constructions are usually best avoided, for readability.

Ellipses

An ellipsis (plural ellipses) is an omission of material from quoted text; or some other omission, perhaps of the end of a sentence, often used in a printed record of conversation. The ellipsis is represented by ellipsis points: a set of three dots.

Style

Ellipsis points (loosely called ellipses) have traditionally been implemented in three ways:

• Three unspaced periods (...). This is the easiest way, and gives a predictable appearance in HTML. Recommended.
• Pre-composed ellipsis character (…); generated with the &hellip; character entity, or by insertion from the set below the edit window. This is harder to input and edit, and too small in some fonts. It may be hard to search for. Not recommended.
• Three spaced periods (. . .). This is an older style that is unnecessarily wide and requires non-breaking spaces to keep it from breaking at the end of a line. Not recommended.

Function and impl