Manual of Style

Manual of Style

The following is a set of guidelines that outline the way most pages are formatted and styled on Wikimedia-sponsored wikis.

Article Titles

If possible, make the title the subject of the first sentence of the article (as opposed to putting it in the predicate). In any case, the title should appear as early as possible in the article — preferably in the first sentence.

Note: It may not be the case in Wikinews & Wikisource.

The first time the title is mentioned in the article, put it in bold using three apostrophes. Here's an example: '''article title''' produces article title. You should not put links in the title.

Follow the normal rules for italics in choosing whether to put part or all of the title in italics.

Headings

Main article: Wikipedia:Manual of Style#headings

Use the == (heading) markup for headings, not the ''' (bold) markup. Example:

   ===Heading example===

which produces:

Heading example

If you mark headings this way, a table of contents is automatically generated from the headings in an article. Sections can be automatically numbered for users with that preference set and words within properly marked headings are given greater weight in searches. Headings also help readers by breaking up the text and outlining the article.

• Capitalize the first letter only of the first word and of any proper nouns in a heading, and leave all of the other letters in lower case.
• Avoid links within headings.
• Avoid overuse of sub-headings.

Italics

Use the '' (italic) markup. Example:

   ''This is italic.''

which produces:

   This is italic.

Italics are mainly used to emphasize certain words. They are also used in other cases that are mentioned here.