This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style. Use common sense in applying it; it will have occasional exceptions. Please ensure that any edits to this page reflect consensus.

Shortcuts: WP:MOSTEXT MOS:TEXT

This page in a nutshell: This page provides guidance on when to format text in articles. For instructions on how to do that, see Wikipedia:How to edit a page#Character formatting.

Contents 1 Boldface 1.1 Article title terms 1.2 Other uses 1.3 Contraindications 2 Italic face 2.1 Emphasis 2.2 Titles 2.3 Words as words 2.4 Foreign terms 2.5 Quotations 2.6 Variables 2.6.1 Program variables 2.6.2 Mathematics variables 2.7 Uses of italics that are specific to Wikipedia 3 When not to use emphasis 4 See also

[edit] Boldface

Shortcuts: WP:MOSBOLD MOS:BOLD

Boldface (text like this) is common in Wikipedia articles, but only for certain usages.

[edit] Article title terms

The most common use of boldface is to highlight the article title, and often synonyms, in the lead section (first paragraph). This is done for the vast majority of articles, but there are exceptions. See Lead section — Format of the first sentence for in-depth coverage.

[edit] Other uses

Use boldface in the remainder of the article only in a few special cases:

• Table headers
• Definition lists (example: Glossary of trucking industry terms in the United States)
• Volume numbers of journal articles, in some bibliographic formats

[edit] Contraindications

Use italics, not boldface, for emphasis in article text.

It is technically possible to bold Greek and Cyrillic alphabets, but this should be avoided.

Wikipedia automatically puts headings (section titles) in boldface. Bolded headings, though technically possible, will appear especially bold, and are not appropriate.

[edit] Italic face

Shortcut: WP:ITALICS

Italic type (text like this) has several uses on Wikipedia.

[edit] Emphasis

The use of italics for emphasis on Wikipedia should follow good English print style. Italics may be used to draw attention to an important word or phrase within a sentence when the point or thrust of the sentence may otherwise not be apparent to readers, or to stress a contrast:

Gellner accepts that knowledge must be knowledge of something; and that some philosophical theories may arise from linguistic confusion.

It may be preferable to avoid the need for italics by rewriting a sentence more explicitly.

Italics may also be used where, in the course of using a term in an article, that term is being defined, introduced or distinguished in meaning. For instance, in the consciousness article:

Access consciousness is the phenomenon whereby information in our minds is accessible for verbal report and reasoning.

If, however, a term is strictly synonymous with the subject of the article, then bold face should be used in place of italics. The first occurrence of a technical term may be both linked and italicised if the term also has its own article (or section) corresponding exactly to the meaning when used in the present article. A term being introduced is often mentioned as a word (see below) rather than playing its normal grammatical role; if so, it should be italicised or quoted, but not both.

[edit] Titles

Italics are generally used for proper titles of major works such as books, epic poems, films and names of ships. There are exceptions. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles) for specific usage guidelines.

[edit] Words as words

Use italics when writing about words as words, or letters as letters (to indicate the use–mention distinction). This category may also use quotation marks to distinguish words as words. For example:

• Deuce means "two".
• The term panning is derived from panorama, which was coined in 1787.
• The most common letter in English is e.

[edit] Foreign terms

Wikipedia prefers italics for phrases in other languages and for isolated foreign words that do not yet have everyday use in non-specialised English. Use the native spellings if they use the Latin alphabet (with or without diacritics)—otherwise Anglicise their spelling. For example: "Gustav I of Sweden liked to breakfast on crisp bread (knäckebröd) open sandwiches with toppings such as messmör (butter made from goat's milk), ham (skinka), vegetables (grönsaker) like tomatoes (tomat) or cucumber (gurka)." Per the guide to writing better Wikipedia articles, use foreign words sparingly.

Loanwords or phrases that have common use in English, however—praetor, Gestapo, samurai, esprit de corps—do not require italicization. If looking for a good rule of thumb, do not italicize words that appear in Merriam-Webster Online.

If there is a reason to include native spelling in a non-Latin script, it can be placed in parentheses. Text in non-Latin scripts (such as Greek or Cyrillic) should not be italicized at all—even where this is technically feasible; the difference of script suffices to distinguish it on the page.

A proper name is usually not italicized when it is used, but it may be italicized when the name itself is being referred to (see Words as words).

Scientific names of organisms are formatted according to normal nomenclature, with genus and species (and subgenus and subspecies if applicable) in italics (see the main section). For example: "The largest carnivore in family Tyrannosauridae was T. rex itself" but "Unicorn was an album by the band T. Rex".

For better accessibility, Latin quotations should never be set in all caps or small caps, even when such use might seem anachronistic.

See also Template:Lang/doc for marking passages in a foreign language with {{lang|xx}} and {{lang-xx}}.

[edit] Quotations

It is normally incorrect to put quotations in italics. They should only be used if the material would otherwise call for italics, such as for emphasis or to indicate use of non-English words. Indicate whether italics were used in the original text or whether they were added later. For example:

Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince: And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!

(emphasis added)

[edit] Variables

[edit] Program variables

Variables in computer programs and symbols for program variables within plain-English prose and in computer source code presented as textual content can be marked up with the <var> element, or its wikimarkup equivalent, the {{var}} template:

• ...where <var>x</var> is incremented on each pass... ⇒ ...where x is incremented on each pass...
• |id={{var|ISBN or other identifier}} ⇒ |id=ISBN or other identifier

This provides richer semantic markup over simple italicization (or no formatting at all), that can aid in searching, accessibility, and disambiguation between variables and literal values.

[edit] Mathematics variables

Symbols for mathematics variables, either used within mathematical formulas or used in isolation, are simply italicized:

• The value of ''y'' when ''x'' = 3 ⇒ The value of y when x = 3
• ''E'' = ''m''c<sup>2</sup> ⇒ E = mc²

Some things remain in upright form regardless of the surrounding text

• Bold-face variables (such as vectors), and structures (such as Q, the rational numbers)
• Letters with an arrow on top for vectors
• Symbols for chemical elements and compounds such as HCl
• Symbols for units of measure such as kg, ft/s
• Symbols for mathematical operators such as sin and ln

  sin x, ln (p/p₀)

The template {{varserif}} is available to distinguish between I (upper-case i) and l (lower-case L) as variables, which look almost identical in most sans-serif fonts, including the default typefaces of many browsers.

[edit] Uses of italics that are specific to Wikipedia

One-line notes that are placed at the top of articles or sections to assist disambiguation are hatnotes. One-line notes may also be placed at the top of sections to cross-reference or point to additional information that is not directly linked in the text. Both of these are in italics and indented, in order to distinguish them from the text of the article proper. Using the correct Disambiguation and redirection templates or Wikipedia page-section templates automatically provides the required italic formatting.

Special section headings for appendices such as ==See also== are not in italics.

A further type of cross-reference may occur within a paragraph of text, usually in parentheses. For example:

At this time France possessed the largest population in Europe (see Demographics of France).

Unlike many traditional reference works, the convention on Wikipedia that has evolved is that "see" or "see also" are not in italics. Nor are the article titles put in quotation marks.

[edit] When not to use emphasis

Avoid various kinds of overemphasis, which distracts from the writing:

• Exclamation points (!) should usually only be used in direct quotes.
• Bold type is reserved for certain uses (see boldface, above).
• "Quotation marks" for emphasis of a single word or phrase, or scare quotes, are discouraged. Quotation marks are to show that you are using the correct word as quoted from the original source. For example: His tombstone was inscribed with the name "Aaron" instead of the spelling he used during his life.
• ALL CAPS and small caps formatting should be changed to title case, in which each significant word is capitalized. "WAR BEGINS TODAY" should be reduced to "War Begins Today". This has become the standard for The New York Times in its transcription project. The same rule applies to book and magazine titles as per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters)#All caps.
• Double emphasis, such as "italics in quotation marks" or italics and an exclamation point!, is unnecessary.
• Underlining is used in typewriting and handwriting to represent italic type. Generally, do not underline text or it may be confused with links on a web page.

[edit] See also

• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters)
• Wikipedia:Stop bolding everything (essay)