Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles)
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This page is part of the Manual of Style, and is considered a guideline for Wikipedia. The consensus of many editors formed the conventions described here, and Wikipedia articles should heed these guidelines. Before making any major changes to these guidelines, please use the discussion page to ensure that your changes reflect consensus. |
These are guidelines for presentation of titles of things referred to within Wikipedia articles. For guidelines relating to the naming of Wikipedia articles, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions.
You may also be looking for Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lists of works).
Contents |
[edit] Italics
Italics should be used for:
- Scientific names for genera or species
- titles of the following:
- Books
- Comic strips and webcomics
- Computer and video games
- Court cases
- Films
- Long or epic poems
- Musical albums
- Named passenger trains
- Orchestral works
- Periodicals (newspapers, journals, and magazines)
- Plays
- Ships
- Ship class
- Television series
- Works of visual art (except sculpture)
Abbreviations of the above should also be italicized. If the title is also a link, you should usually place the italic markup outside the brackets, but see the Titanic example below for a special case.
[edit] Examples
- Huckleberry Finn, DCL Command Language Manual
- ''[[Huckleberry Finn]]'', ''DCL Command Language Manual''
- Casablanca, Boccacio '70
- ''[[Casablanca (film)|Casablanca]]'', ''Boccacio '70''
- The Mary Tyler Moore Show
- ''[[The Mary Tyler Moore Show]]''
- Life magazine, Astounding Science Fiction
- ''[[Life (magazine)|Life]]'' magazine, ''[[Astounding Science Fiction]]''
- RMS Titanic, USS Minnesota (BB-22), Apollo 11, The Legend of Zelda series. Only the name is italicized, not the classification or designation. This link will require a pipe character (a "|"), as italics tags will not work within a link
- [[RMS Titanic|RMS ''Titanic'']], [[USS Minnesota (BB-22)|USS ''Minnesota'' (BB-22)]], ''[[Apollo 11]]'', [[The Legend of Zelda series|''The Legend of Zelda'' series]]
- Escherichia, Escherichia coli, E. coli
- ''[[Escherichia]]'', ''[[Escherichia coli]]'', ''[[Escherichia coli|E. coli]]''
- USS Toledo (CA-133) was a Baltimore class cruiser, HMAS Australia (1911) was an Indefatigable class battlecruiser. Only the class name is italicized, not the ship type. This link will require a pipe character (a "|"), as italics tags will not work within a link.
Note that ship class names are not always italicised, for further information see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships).- [[USS Toledo (CA-133)|USS ''Toledo'' (CA-133)]] was a [[Baltimore class cruiser|''Baltimore'' class cruiser]], [[HMAS Australia (1911)|HMAS ''Australia'' (1911)]] was an [[Indefatigable class battlecruiser|''Indefatigable'' class battlecruiser]]
- Mouse Trap, The Incredible Machine, Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast, HL2
- ''[[Mouse Trap]]'', ''[[The Incredible Machine]]'', ''[[Baldur's Gate series|Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast]]'', ''[[Half-Life 2|HL2]]''
- Symphony No. 9 Op. 95 "From the New World"
- ''[[Symphony]] No. 9 Op. 95 'From the New World' ''
- Eldred v. Ashcroft, Plessy v. Ferguson
- ''[[Eldred v. Ashcroft]]'', ''[[Plessy v. Ferguson]]''
- Action Comics, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, The Beano, The Amazing Spider-Man
- ''[[Action Comics]]'', ''[[Batman: The Dark Knight Returns]]'', ''[[The Beano]]'', ''[[The Amazing Spider-Man]]''
- Peanuts, Penny Arcade
- ''[[Peanuts]]'', ''[[Penny Arcade (webcomic)|Penny Arcade]]''
[edit] Quotation marks
Italics are generally used for titles of longer works. Titles of shorter works (particularly those that exist as a smaller part of a larger work), such as the following, should be enclosed in double quotation marks:
- Articles, essays or papers
- Chapters of a longer work
- Episodes of a television series
- Short poems
- Short stories
- Songs and singles
- Statues
[edit] Examples
- "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"
- Rodin's "The Thinker"
- "Goober and Gomer Change a Tire"
- "Do's and Don'ts of Dating"
- "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"
- "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "She's Leaving Home" appear on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
- "The Germans" is an episode of the television programme Fawlty Towers
The quotation marks should not be bolded in the summary when the title of an article requires quotation marks, as they are not part of the title. See WP:Manual of Style#Punctuation.
[edit] Neither
There are a few cases in which the title should be in neither italics nor quotation marks:
- Scripture: the Holy Bible
- Legal or constitutional documents: Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
- Traditional games: hopscotch
- Software other than games: iTunes
- Commercial products other than media works: Super Slider Snow Skates
[edit] Punctuation
Whether the title is in italics or quotes, added punctuation -- such as a comma following a title in a series of titles, as contrasted with the novel and television series
or the film
-- belongs outside the markup, as can be seen in the series of titles above: the comma is not part of the title. For example,
- Huckleberry Finn,
is not the title of the book, so referring to the book and following the reference by a comma must look like
while
(with the comma italicized) is a mistake.
