User:Tony1/MOS comparison: Italics and Quotations
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
COMPARE WITH THE EXISTING VERSION
Contents |
[edit] Italics
- Further information: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting)
[edit] 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. An exception is the italicisation/bolding of inline headings, such as
[edit] Titles
Italics are used for the titles of works of literature and art. The titles of articles, chapters and other short works are not italicized but are enclosed in double quotation marks.
[edit] Words as words
Italics are used when citing a word or letter (see use-mention distinction). For example:
- The term panning is derived from panorama, a word coined in 1787.
- The most commonly used letter in English is e.
[edit] Quotations in italics
An entire quotation is not italicized solely because it is a quotation.
[edit] Italics within quotations
Italics are used within quotations if they are in the source material, or to add emphasis; if the latter, an editorial note “[emphasis added]” appears at the end of the quotation. For example: “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]” appears after the quote.
[edit] Effect on nearby punctuation and links
Italicization is restricted to what should properly be affected by italics, and not the surrounding punctuation.
- 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 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 and and are not italicized.]
In italicized links, the italic markup is outside the link markup, or the link will not work.
- Incorrect: The opera [[[''Turandot'']] is his best.
- Correct: The opera ''[[Turandot]]'' is his best.
[edit] Foreign terms
- See also: Wikipedia:Interlanguage links
Foreign words are used sparingly.
- No common usage in English. Wikipedia prefers italics for phrases in other languages and for isolated foreign words that do not yet have common usage in English.
- Common usage in English. Loan words and phrases that have common usage in English—praetor, Gestapo, samurai, esprit de corps—do not require italicization. A rule of thumb is: do not italicize words that appear in an English language dictionary.
- Spelling and transliteration. For terms in common usage, anglicized spellings are used, or native spellings if they use the Latin alphabet; diacritics are optional. Where native spellings in non-Latin scripts (such as Greek and Cyrillic) are given, they appear in parentheses, and are not italicized, even where this is technically feasible.
[edit] Quotations
- Minimal change. Wherever it is reasonable to do so, the style that was used in the original text is preserved. Where there is a good reason not to preserve the original style, the changes are indicated with [sic] or an editorial explanation.
- Attribution. The author of a quote of a full sentence or more is named; this is done in the main text and not in a footnote. An exception is that attribution is unnecessary for well-known quotations (e.g., from Shakespeare) and those from the subject of the article or section.
- Quotations within quotations. An exception to the previous rule is when a quotation encloses a quotation: here, Wikipedia's style is used, starting with double-quotes outermost and working inward, alternate single-quotes with double-quotes. For example, the following 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, are separated by a non-breaking space ).
- 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) is formatted as a block quotation, which Wikipemedia's software will indent from both margins. Block quotes are not enclosed in quotation marks.
