User:OrenBochman/Test1

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Introduction to copy editing

This is the longest tutorial has one mission and three goals.

To complete this tutorial you will:

• complete the compulsory units.
• participate in a GOCE backlog elimination drive; peer review process.
• tag articles with stylistic issues.
• rank a number of articles at level B.
• help promote three articles/lists to good standing.
• help promote one article to featured level.
• copy-edit 100,000 words.
• pass the final test.

The mission — To instruct student how to write their article in compliance of Wikipedia's Manual of style.

The goal of this tutorial is tree fold:

1. Write higher quality copy in your articles.
2. Improve other editors writing according to the Wikipedia's Manual of style.
3. Participate in MOS related activities
4. Promotion of articles to good and featured standing.

What is in it for you:

1. Once you complete the full tutorial and assignment you will obtain an editing skill mastered by the top draftsman in Wikipedia. This ability to communicate efficiently and be understood by other is one of the few skill gained in Wikipedia which has a marketable value in the outside world.
2. The ability to write and edit at this level is even more scarce than most domain expertise. Most featured article candidates 'fail to qualify due to short comings in style. Contribute to the promotion of good and featured articles is a necessary requirements for qualifying for the mop.
3. Learning to copy-edit has benefits far beyond the scope of Wikipedia. While it does not require a diploma it is one of the most scarce skill in Wikipedia and will require commitment to a term of study and self-training. Luckily Wikipedia is ideally suited for this work and with the right attitude you may gain this skill as you editing Wikipedia.

The guild of copy editors (GOCE)

The guild of copy editors is the project which coordinates the work on copyediting. Its members include professional journalist and editors. They will assist you by evaluating your work as you progress through thus tutorial.

Once you have completed a major copy-edit on an article marked with the {{copy edit}} tag, you are welcome to remove the tag under one of the following conditions:

• You are confident in your skills and abilities to make this decision on your own.
• You have asked other GOCE members on the project's talk page to double-check your work and they are satisfied with the results.

What is copy editing?

Copy editing is the work of professional editors. In the context of this tutorial we are interested in the following activities drawn from the beginner's guide of the Guild of Copy Editors:

1. Formatting and Wiki markup
   1. Dividing article into sections if these are missing.
   2. Adding required links and disambiguations.
   3. Creating an info-box template
   4. Moving of images to improve overall layout.
2. Language:
   1. Simplify language and make it direct.
   2. Remove sentiment from the article − unless it is supported by sources.
   3. Remove superfluous words.
   4. Correct grammar and spelling
   5. Large section of un wikified text
3. Punctuation
   1. Names of record albums, books, etc In italics
   2. Name of songs In quotations marks.
   3. Correction of punctuations.
4. Manual of style compliance
   1. Headings In sentence cap
   2. Numbers from zero to nine spelled as words.
   3. Photo captions do not end with a period unless the caption is a complete sentence.
   4. Sorting the sources alphabetically by the last name of author.
   5. Books used as sources must be capitalised.
5. Good and Featured article level
   1. Comma positions.
   2. Consistency of British/American spelling.
   3. Access dates must comply with usage In the article.
   4. Improvement of citation style (capitalization, ISBNs, publisher'S location).

Note that the tasks are in increasing order of difficulty.

Making the best use of your existing skills

Attaining "strategic distance"

It may seem counterintuitive, but the very closeness to a text that comes with working on it intensively can inhibit your ability to appraise it. This is why other people may immediately see problems and errors in your text that eluded you, even though you may be a superior writer. Editing a text as a stranger to it has distinct advantages—chiefly the ability to approach it with fresh eyes, unaffected by the intricacies of creating it in the first place.

You can attain what I call strategic distance from your own text by using techniques that allow you to see it afresh, more like the way that readers will see it. These techniques involve visual appearance, the editing process and the passing of time. Wikipedia provides one method for doing this: the Show preview function lets you see your text as a finished product on the monitor before you save it. The difference between this and what you see in the edit box distances you from the process of writing or editing the text, and highlights the need for further improvements. Beyond this, here are suggestions that work well for some people; try them and see for yourself.

• Change the visual appearance. Print out your text and mark up the hard copy (highlight the places that need improvement, by circling, underlining, and handwriting improved wording in the margins). Reading hard copy is very different from reading off a monitor: the resolution is better, and you can see more text at once (synoptically), grasp the product in your hands, and readily work on it in a different environment. Some writers use a four-stage cycle of printing out a draft, marking it up, keying in the changes and editing the new version on-screen—a cycle they repeat until no further changes are needed. Doing this repeatedly may not suit you, but consider going through the process at least once for each article.
• Take time out. Leave your text for a few days or more and return to it fresh; the longer the break, the more strategic distance you'll achieve.
• Change your normal sequence. Edit the paragraphs or even the sentences in reverse order. Scrutineers of parliamentary/congressional legislation have been known to read even the words backwards to force their minds to work differently.
• Read the text aloud. This can help you to identify where commas should be inserted or removed, and to check that the clauses run smoothly and grammatically.
• Alternate your work-flow. Conscientious people are used to working solidly on one task. However, when it comes to writing and editing, particularly of large articles, it pays to go against this and arrange to be working on more than one section, or more than one article at a time. That way, you can alternate between the locations when you feel your mind needs to freshen up. Choose sections or articles that present you with different material or tasks; for example, one text that is relatively easy, requiring more low-level, clerical activities, and another that requires higher-level conceptualisation, design, or copy-editing.

Some of these methods help us to edit because, ironically, they break the normal mechanisms that our brains use to make us more efficient readers and writers. Two of these mechanisms are:

• chunking—the way our brains save effort by processing small pieces of information (such as letters) as larger chunks (such as whole words); and
• automaticity—knowing how to do something so well that you don't have to think about it as you do it; this is usually the result of learning, repetition and practice. Remember how hard you had to concentrate on micro-managing the simultaneous subtasks of driving a car when you were a learner driver? Fortunately, automaticity soon sets in, and we can drive well even as we conduct a conversation.

These mechanisms enable you to raed tihs txet wtihuot mcuh torulbe at all, by cmboinng waht you see on the pgae wtih the fmailair, prcdeitalbe prtteans taht you sotre in your lnog-term meromy. (The preceding typos are an example.) It's little wonder that we let typos slip by, and the same applies to our tendency to gloss over higher-level problems in text. Ironically, suppressing the very mechanisms we use to increase our capacity for processing language can help us to scrutinise text for problems and to optimise our writing and editing skills. This is the essence of strategic distance.

Typewriters, in general use during the 20th century, made incremental editing laborious.

Longer-term self-training

Like any proficiency, skilled writing and editing comes from years of effort. Most people significantly improve their writing skills until early adulthood. At that point, the "near enough is good enough" frame often takes over; this can seduce us into relaxing the effort that has already brought us to a plateau of basic, everyday literacy. This is a pity, because writing excellent prose is within the grasp of most educated people, and can bestow considerable advantages in life.

There is strong evidence that sustained effort is more important to the acquisition of expertise than underlying talent, that expertise arises from fine-tuning structures in the long-term memory drawn on in performing a demanding task. It's a matter of programming an avoidance of common faults in prose so that the patterns of fine and poor prose become near-instinctive. After first becoming aware of the good and bad ways of connecting ideas in a sentence, with practice you'll come to see poorly constructed sentences in Wikipedia's articles almost automatically; by learning to consciously identify and weed out common redundancies, you'll start to become adept at turning the soggy into the crisp.

Being a Wikipedian involves close engagement with prose, whether through writing, editing or critiqueing. The "10-year rule" suggests that acquiring full expertise in these tasks is not a quick process; but don't be discouraged: your efforts will reap palpable rewards in a short time, as well.

Wikipedia as a training resource

Wikipedia is a rich and little-used resource for self-training, because it provides a huge reservoir of text at all stages of transformation (sometimes circuitous) from the raw and verbose into the stylish and easy to read. A good way of focusing your efforts on improving your prose is to compare two versions of a featured article. Here's how to do this:

• Look in the FA log for the featured-article candidacy discussion of an article that might interest you that was substantively criticised for failing Criterion 1a.
• Note the date and time of the nomination (the first message in the discussion).
• Click the title link to go to the article itself; do not read it.
• Click the "Page history" link.
• Locate the version that immediately preceded nomination. Click that link.
• Read this old version of the article, carefully. Think of all the changes it needs. Better, click "Printable version" and go through a printout with a red pen.
• Return to the "Page history" and use the "compare" function to compare that version with the version that was promoted to FA status. Compare your edits with those that were actually made during the FAC process.
• Remember that you may be able to make the current version of that article even better; please do so if that is the case.

Many Wikipedians have skills that would have placed them in the literary elite in medieval times.

See also

• Step-by-step Guide
• How to Guide
• The Guardian style guide. A good read, set out as short entries in alphabetical order!
• World Wide Words. Writer and lexicographer Michael Quinion writes about international English from a British viewpoint—indexed articles, Q&A, reviews, topical words, turns of phrase, weird words, funnies.
• After Deadline Notes from the New York Times newsroom on grammar, usage and style—a weekly column

Discussion

If you have any questions, ask them

Test

1. In your own words define strategic distance in writing?

   A:

2. How can copy editors learn to write better prose ?

   A:

3. What is copy editing?

   A:

1. When is the diffrence between than and then?

   A:

1. What is the issues with following list?

   the first,

   the second, or

   the third.

   A:

1. What is the issues with following list?

   some apples,

   oranges, or

   a mellon.

   A:

Improving Style

Wikipedia's Manual of Style (MoS) is one of the most important resources for shaping articles into a cohesive resource for our readers, and is an important driver of article improvement and the popularity of the site.

The MoS has grown large and complex. In the next few units we will cover almost all of it. This will be combined with hands on training to ensure you will soon become a master copy editor. The course is not authoritative.; please refer to the full MoS for the definitive guidelines. For your convenience, links are provided using asterisks* for access to greater detail. Where there are multiple asterisks, the first usually leads to the relevant part of the MoS.

General principles*

1. Consistency. Keep style and formatting consistent within an article (unless explicitly excepted).
2. Stability. Don't change an article from one guideline-defined style to another without a very good reason.
3. Quotations. Generally don't apply these guidelines to directly quoted text.

Article titles and section headings* *

Basic formatting

History of gene therapy, not The History of Gene Therapy.

Use:

• nouns or short noun phrases;
• sentence case, not title case, capitalizing only the first letter of the first word and any proper nouns, with rare exceptions (eBay);

Avoid:

• an opening A, An or The;
• slashes (/), ampersands (&) and other unusual symbols;
• links;
• a closing punctuation mark, unless part of a name (Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!) or an abbreviation (Inverness City F.C.), or a closing round bracket or quotation mark (John Palmer (schooner)).

To italicize a title, add the template {{italic title}} near the top of the article; the use of italics should conform to WP:ITALICS.

The MoS applies to all parts of an article, including the title. See especially punctuation, below. (The policy page Wikipedia:Article titles does not determine punctuation.)

• Section headings only.
  • Hierarchy. Use the hierarchy of section headings in other articles as a model (multiple equal signs are used). Make them unique within the article; they should preferably not refer to the subject of the article or of higher-level headings.*
  • Anchors and stability notes. Described here.
  • Daughter articles. If a section is covered in greater detail in a "daughter" article, flag this by inserting {{main| Article name }} just under the section heading.*
  • 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).
  • Appendix sections. Optional, but most articles have at least some. The order is (a) the subject's books and other works; (b) internal links to related Wikipedia articles; (c) notes and references; (d) recommended relevant publications not used as sources; (e) recommended websites not used as sources.*

Capital letters* *

• Generic versus title. Obama is a 21st-century American president (generic), Three prime ministers shook President Obama's hand (generic prime ministers but "President" is a title);* an exodus of refugees (generic), the Exodus (a title); South African universities, but Capetown University. Normally, prefer the over The mid-sentence, but whether the item is part of a title matters, as does common usage (the UK, but The Hague): speakers from both the UK and The Hague compared The Lord of the Rings with the Odyssey. For the use of titles and honorifics in biographical articles, see Honorific prefixes.
• Flora and fauna. Write common (vernacular) names in lower case (oak, lion).
• Religions. Christianity, Hinduism, the Koran, the Bible (but biblical), the Lord and his followers.*
• Other examples. The 18th century (not Century); north; summer; capitalism versus Marxism (since the latter derives from a person's name); the Moon orbits the Earth which orbits the Sun (proper nouns in an astronomical context), but the sun rose, a planet with four moons (generic usage). If uncertain whether to capitalize, don't.
• Redirects. Where there's an alternative capitalization for an article title, create a redirect.

Acronyms and abbreviations*

• First occurrence. Unless very well-known (BBC), write out in full version followed by the abbreviation in parentheses; thereafter, use the abbreviated form. Don't use initial capitals in the full name just because capitals are used in the abbreviation (We used digital scanning (DS) technology, not We used Digital Scanning (DS) technology, unless it's a commercial name).
• Plurals. Add -s or -es (DVDs; never DVD's).
• Dots. Don't dot acronyms (with a notable exception, the optional U.S., which should not be dotted when in the vicinity of other country initialisms such as UK). Avoid USA. Abbreviations are usually not dotted, although such usages as Hon. for Honorable and Dr. for Doctor are acceptable (less so outside North American English).
• Spacing. Don't space acronyms (N A S A, U. S.).
• Not too many. Don't use abbreviations unnecessarily, or invent acronyms or abbreviations.

Italics*

• Emphasis. Use italics sparingly for emphasis (avoid ALL-CAPS, underlining and boldface).*
• Titles. Use italics for the titles of works of literature and art, such as books, paintings, feature-length films, television series, and musical albums.*
• Mentioning a word. Use italics when mentioning one word or several: The term panning is derived from panorama. For a whole sentence or more, use quotes instead.
• Links. The opera ''[[:en:Turandot|Turandot]]'', not The opera [[''Turandot'']]; but piped text can be italicized (The [[USS Adder (SS-3)|USS ''Adder'' (SS-3)]].

Non-breaking spaces*

• A non-breaking space (hard space) is recommended to prevent the end-of-line displacement of elements that could be awkward at the start of a new line: 17 kg can be written as 17 kg, AD 565 as AD 565, 2:50 pm as 2:50 pm, C. elegans as C. elegans, and £11 billion as £11 billion.

Brackets and parentheses*

These rules apply to both (round brackets), often called parentheses, and [square brackets].

• Final "external" punctuation. Like quotation marks above, 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.)
• Spacing. Don't put a space next to ( the inner sides ) of brackets.
• Brackets within brackets. Use different types (for two levels, [it's usual for] square brackets [to] appear within round brackets).
• Adjacent brackets. Avoid if possible: Nikifor Grigoriev (1885–1919) (also known as Matviy Hryhoriyiv); use commas instead, or recast the sentence.
• Run-on lower case. A sentence that occurs within brackets in the course of another sentence doesn't generally have its first word capitalized just because it starts a sentence: Caesar demanded she ride (this was the only available transport), although consider rewording without the brackets.

Grammar*

Possessives* *

• Nouns
• For most singular nouns, add 's (my daughter's achievement, Cortez's, the boss's, Illinois's, Descartes's, Verreaux's). Exceptions: (for goodness' sake, for his conscience' sake).
• For singular nouns ending with just one s (sounded as /s/ or /z/), there are three practices:
  1. Add 's (James's house).
  2. Add just ' (James' house).
  3. Add either ' or 's according to the pronunciation:
     • Add just ' if the possessive isn't pronounced as another syllable (Sam Hodges' son);
     • Add 's if it is (Morris's works);
     • If there is disagreement over the pronunciation, negotiate the choice.
     • Possessives of certain classical and biblical names may have traditional pronunciations which may be deemed as taking precedence: Jesus' answer and Xerxes' expeditions, but Zeus's anger;
• Consistency. Whichever option is chosen, apply it consistently in an article.
• Common plural nouns. Where the final s is pronounced, add just ' (both my dogs' collars); where there is not a final, pronounced s, add 's (women's priorities), but where rewording is an option, this may be better.
• For inanimate objects, rewording may be an option (the location of Vilnius).
• Official names. Don't alter, even for consistency (St Thomas' Hospital, never St Thomas's Hospital).
• Its. The singular neutral possessive (the dog chased its tail) has no apostrophe.

Collective plurals* * *

Some words can refer to either a single entity or the members that compose it (army, company, crowd, fleet, government, majority, number). In British English, such words are commonly treated as singular or plural according to context. Names of towns and countries take plural verbs when they refer to sports teams but singular verbs when they refer to the actual place (or to the club as a business enterprise): in England played Germany, the word England refers to a football team. In North American English, these words are almost always treated as singular. The United States is normally treated as singular.

Other issues

• I and we. Never use them (quotations excepted), except that we in historical articles can be used to mean the modern world as a whole (The text of De re publica has come down to us with substantial sections missing).
• You. Outside quotations, generally avoid it: Visitors to the valley reported that the effects of the war were clear, not When you moved through the valley, the effects of the war were clear.
• Contractions. Do not use contractions: do not instead of don't, cannot instead of can't, is not instead of isn't (quotations excepted).
• Instructional and presumptuous language. Don't instruct the readers (remember that and note that). Don't presume readers' knowledge (of course, naturally, obviously, clearly, actually).*
• Subset terms. These identify a set of members of a larger class (including, such as, e.g.,, for example). Don't use two at once (Among the most well-known members of the fraternity include ...; The elements in stars include hydrogen, helium and iron, etc.). Don't use including to introduce a complete list, where comprising, consisting of or composed of would be correct.
• Ambiguous or. Wild dogs, or dingoes, inhabit this stretch of land. Are wild dogs and dingoes the same or different? For one case, wild dogs (dingoes) inhabit (meaning dingoes are wild dogs); for the other case, either wild dogs or dingoes.*
• Contested vocabulary. Avoid items that are either not widely accepted or of strained formality; e.g., thusly, overly, whilst, amongst, and as per.* * *
• Ampersands. Avoid the ampersand (&) in favor of and. Exceptions: retain & in titles of works or organizations, and use with consistency and discretion in tables, infoboxes, and other contexts where space is limited.*

Gender-neutral language* *

Use gender-neutral language where this can be done with clarity and precision. This does not apply to direct quotations or the titles of works (The ascent of man), or where all referents are of one gender, such as in an all-female school (when any student breaks that rule, she loses privileges).

Foreign terms* * * *

Use foreign words and phrases sparingly.

• Where not commonly used in English. Use italics.
• Where commonly used in English. Italics are not required for loanwords and borrowed phrases such as Gestapo, samurai, vice versa and esprit de corps. Rule of thumb: follow the major English-language dictionaries.
• Proper names. Not usually italicized, including place names.
• Romanization. Names not originally in a Latin alphabet—such as those adapted from Greek, Chinese, and Cyrillic scripts—must be romanized into characters generally intelligible to English-speakers. Don't use a systematically transliterated name if there's a common English form (Tchaikovsky, Chiang Kai-shek).
• Spelling. Normally spell a foreign name consistently in the title and throughout the article. Adopt the spelling most commonly used in English-language references for the article, unless those spellings are idiosyncratic or obsolete.* *
• Diacritics.* Usage is neither encouraged nor discouraged, and depends on whether they appear in verifiable reliable sources in English and on specialized Wikipedia guidelines. Place redirects at alternative titles, such as those without diacritics.

Identity*

• Subject's preference. Normally use the term the person uses for themself, and for a group, the terms it most commonly uses for itself. (For example, the article Jew demonstrates that most Jews prefer that term to "Jewish person".)
• Address disputes by reference to Verifiability, NPOV, and Naming conventions.
• Gender. Refer to any person whose gender might be at issue by using the gendered nouns, pronouns, and possessive adjectives that reflect that person's most recent expressed gender self-identification. This applies in a context referring to any phase of that person's life. Nevertheless, avoid confusing or seemingly logically impossible text (She fathered her first child).
• Avoid unnecessary vagueness. Ethiopian, for example, not African, especially where there may be a risk of stereotyping.
• Certain adjectives as nouns. Black people, not blacks, gay people, not gays, people with disability, not the disabled, and other such usage that may be sensitive.
• Arab. This refers to people and things of ethnic Arab origin, who don't necessary speak Arabic. Never to be confused with Muslim or Islamic.
• Exception. Direct quotations.

See also

• See also
• Further reading

Discussion

If you have any questions, ask them now! Or would you like to take the test?

User:OrenBochman/Basics of Style/Test

Punctuation*

• Spacing. Periods (full-stops), commas, semicolons (; ), colons (: ), and question and exclamation marks are normally spaced to the right and not to the left. There is no guideline on whether to use one space or two after the end of a sentence, but the difference is visible only in the edit window.
• Upper-case letters. Colons and semicolons don't normally force a capital letter in the subsequent word.
• Serial commas. A serial comma (also called an Oxford or Harvard comma) can be inserted before a conjunction in a list (ham, chips, and eggs), but can also be omitted (ham, chips and eggs). Where including or omitting the comma avoids ambiguity, this should be done.*
• Comma splices. They cause the reader to stumble: Oranges are an acid fruit, bananas are classified as alkaline. Correct these two independent statements to Oranges are an acid fruit; bananas are classified as alkaline, or use a comma plus a coordinating conjunction such as and or but.
• Semicolons. The converse to a comma splice is this: Although he had been here before; I did not recognize him. Use a comma, since the second statement depends entirely on the first (through Although).
• Colons. Use only one colon per sentence, and don't do this :- or this :– . A colon can introduce an inline list, after which use either semicolons or commas as boundaries between the items.
• Apostrophe glyphs. Straight ( ' ), not curly ( ’ ).
• Other signs. Use exclamation marks with restraint. Don't use clusters of question marks or exclamation marks.
• Punctuation and inline citations. Inline citations are placed after any punctuation such as a comma or period, with no intervening space; e.g., ... are venomous.<ref>The definition of this word depends on ...</ref>, yielding ... are venomous..*
• Leakage. Restrict formatting such as bold and italics to what should properly be affected by it, and not the punctuation that is part of the surrounding sentence.*
• Slashes. Avoid joining two words by a (forward) slash ( / ); in particular, and/or is often awkward and sometimes ambiguous. Reword if possible.* *
• Number signs. The album was Number 1 in the charts or No. 1 in the charts, not № 1 or #1.*

Discussion

If you have any questions, ask them now! Or would you like to take the test?

User:OrenBochman/Punctuation/Test

Improving your listing technique

The art of writing has been glorified through the ages. This scene was painted by a Middle-Eastern artist in 1287.

Much encyclopedic and academic text comprises lists. The items in a list range from the very long, such as paragraphs and sections, to the very short, such as the words in a sentence (e.g., "They treat dogs, cats and parrots"). Here, we'll focus on lists of shorter items, where the list has a discernible rhythm and contains standardised signals—punctuation and new lines—to help the reader through. Controlling the strength of the boundaries between the items is critical when constructing a list. This is achieved by manipulating the punctuation and line-formatting to achieve an optimal balance between allowing your readers to easily comprehend the list and providing them with a smooth, uninterrupted flow of words.

Lists are binary: they typically have (i) a lead, which introduces (ii) the items. (Occasionally, the order is reversed so that the listed items come first; e.g., "Limes, sugar and water are the only ingredients".)

Here are the basic questions that you'll need to answer when you construct a list.

• Will it comprise a single sentence (Types 1–5 below) or multiple sentences (Types 6 and 7)?
• Will it be a "running" list within the paragraph (Types 1–3 and 6), or a "lined" list, in which each item occupies a new, bulletted or numbered line (Types 4, 5 and 7)?
• What kind of boundaries will you use between the items? (In other words, what combination of commas, semicolons, colons, full-stops, numbers and bullets will you use?)

First, we will review the manual of style, then show you some examples of the basic types of list, followed by brief advice on formatting. Then we deal, category by category, with the commonest problems in listing.

Bulleted and numbered lists* * *

Don't use a list if a passage reads easily in running prose.

• Blank lines between items. Avoid.
• Numbers. Use them rather than bullets only if:
  • you need to refer to the elements by number;
  • the sequence of the items is critical; or
  • the numbering has independent meaning, e.g., in a listing of musical tracks.
• Consistent grammar. Use the same grammatical form for all elements in a list; don't mix the use of sentences and sentence fragments as elements.
  • When the elements are complete sentences, format them using sentence case with a final period.
  • When the elements are sentence fragments, they are typically introduced by a lead fragment ending with a colon. When these elements are titles of works, they retain the original capitalization of the title; other elements are formatted consistently in either sentence case or lower case. End each element with a semicolon, and with a period instead for the last element. Alternatively (especially when the elements are short), no final punctuation is used at all.

Basic categories

We've prepared models and examples of the main types of list—single-sentence and multisentence lists, and within these categories, running and lined lists. This is not an exhaustive list, and the guidelines here arise at least partly from personal choice. For each type, we've used "LEAD" to stand for all of the words in the lead; this will run directly into a three-item list, in which the items are represented by A, B and C. Hit [Show] in the upper box to reveal the example and comments on it. Please widen your window if the display is distorted.

Single-sentence lists- Running lists

A running list is smoothly integrated into its paragraph, and will not be obvious at a glance. Occasionally, contributors to FACs are asked to change lined lists into running lists to provide greater flow and neater visual appearance. Running lists are almost ubiquitous, and we've all become skilled at reading them fluently—even when they're complex. Strictly speaking, the first two sentences in this paragraph are running lists, in which the lead–item boundaries fall after "list" and "provide", respectively. Let's revisit these two sentences, marking the lead–item boundary with / and colouring the items.

A running list / is smoothly integrated into its paragraph, and will not be obvious at a glance. Occasionally, contributors to FACs are asked to change lined lists into running lists to provide / greater flow and neater visual appearance.

Here are some of the common types of running list.

TYPE 1 (nothing + commas)
LEAD A, B and C

EXAMPLE

Macro-economics concerns the three policy goals of economic growth, price stability and full employment. This is a simple list: a short sentence with short items. Minimal punctuation and the lack of new lines allow the weakest possible boundaries between the items. Some people like to include an "Oxford" comma before the "and". We recommend it only where the list would be ambiguous; there are already many commas in most text.

TYPE 2 (colon + semicolons)
LEAD: A; B; and C.

EXAMPLE

Macro-economics concerns three policy goals: economic growth; price stability; and full employment. This is the "marked" version of the previous example: the lead is followed by a colon (a "drum roll") that firmly announces the list; the item boundaries are semicolons, which are stronger boundaries, but commas are acceptable where there are no commas within the items. The grammar has been changed so that the lead could function as a stand- alone sentence. The "Oxford" punctuation is always used. This version is unusual for such a short, simple list—it might be regarded as having a "choppy" effect. Use it if you want to emphasise the list, or where the individual items are: longer; or more complex—particularly if at least one item has internal commas (where semicolons will avoid confusion).

TYPE 3 (the addition of numbers to Models 1 or 2)
LEAD (1) A, (2) B, and (3) C. OR LEAD: (1) A; (2) B; and (3) C.

EXAMPLE

Macro-economics concerns the three policy goals of (1) economic growth, (2) price stability, and (3) full employment. OR Macro-economics concerns three policy goals: (1) economic growth; (2) price stability; and (3) full employment. This example is even more "marked" because the numbered boundaries are visually more intrusive. Numbers are useful if: the list is complicated; you want to distinctly separate the items for easier comprehension; you'll later need to refer back to the items by number; you want to emphasise the number of items in the list; or the sequence of the items is at issue. You can use other types of numbering (see "Alternative systems of numbering lists" below).

Single-sentence lists- Lined lists

Placing each item on a separate line provides even stronger boundaries, making the items visually distinct. This allows readers to digest the list easily, mentally "ticking off" each item line by line, and facilitates the re-reading and comparison of items. Lined lists allow readers to easily identify and focus on only the items that they need, which can be important in an organisation in which the same document is read by staff with very different roles and responsibilities. The white space that lined lists create can break up masses of grey paragraphs, which is more inviting to readers in many contexts. For all of these reasons, lined lists are much liked in corporate, government and administrative documents; although lined lists are less prevalent in academic (and encyclopedic) text, their use has been increasing.

Lined lists come at a cost: their very strong boundaries work against the flow of the text. This is why reviewers in the FAC room tend to object unless this formatting is used judiciously, especially at the top of an article where flow is of the essence to engage the readers. There are exceptions to this, but try to keep lined lists few in number and short, or your article will be seen as "listy" and thus more appropriate as a Featured List than a Featured Article.

TYPE 4 (colon plus semicolons, lined)
LEAD: A; B; and C.

EXAMPLE

Macro-economics concerns three policy goals: economic growth; price stability; and full employment. This list is still formatted as a single sentence, so each item starts with a lower-case letter (unless it would normally be upper case). Commas instead of semicolons are acceptable, unless there are commas within the items. Some people prefer to leave each item hanging without final punctuation. Some people feel that a lined list is so visually obvious that the "and" is unnecessary as a signal that the last item follows. However, a formally treated whole sentence (with the "and" signal) may flow better.

TYPE 5 (colon plus semicolons, lined and numbered)
LEAD: (1) A; (2) B; and (3) C.

EXAMPLE
Macro-economics concerns three policy goals: (1) economic growth; (2) price stability; and (3) full employment. As above, some people prefer a comma, or no punctuation and no "and", instead of the semicolons.

Multiple-sentence lists

These are appropriate when the items are long and complex, and/or contain more than one sentence or clause. FA Criteria 2 and 3 used to be cast as single sentences, and were changed to a multi-sentence format, because the items (now Criteria 1 and 2) were thought to be easier to read as stand-alone sentences. Multi-sentence lists can be running or lined; in this subsection, we treat both types.

TYPE 6 (running and numbered)
LEAD. First, A. Second, B. Third, C.

EXAMPLES

Macro-economics concerns three policy goals that have been the pre-occupation of many economists and policy-makers for decades. The first is economic growth, a key platform for moving people out of poverty. The second is price stability, or low levels of inflation; this is widely regarded as a prerequisite for a healthy economy. The third is full employment, which has the potential to reduce social problems. Here, the items are large enough to make each a stand-alone sentence. Item (2) comprises two segments separated by a semicolon (which could even be changed to a full-stop); this is another reason to use a multi-sentence list. The lead contains a strong forward-link: "three policy goals". This is necessary because the full-stops don't push the reader forwards as do colons, semicolons and commas. You could make each item a nominal group rather than a full grammatical sentence as follows, although it is typical to use a lined list for this. The lead still finishes with a full-stop. Macro-economics concerns three policy goals that have been the pre-occupation of many economists and policy-makers for decades. (1) Economic growth, a key platform for moving people out of poverty. (2) Price stability, in other words, low levels of inflation; this is widely regarded as a prerequisite for a healthy economy. (3) Full employment, which has the potential to reduce social problems.

TYPE 7 (lined and bulletted or numbered)
LEAD. A. B. C. OR LEAD. (1) A. (2)B. (3) C.

EXAMPLES

Macro-economics concerns three policy goals that have been the pre-occupation of many economists and policy-makers for decades. Economic growth, a key platform for moving people out of poverty. Price stability, or low levels of inflation; this is widely regarded as a prerequisite for a healthy economy. Full employment, which has the potential to reduce social problems. Numbering is possible instead of bullets, but only if there's a reason for doing this; here's an example. Macro-economics concerns three policy goals that have been the pre-occupation of many economists and policy-makers for decades. Economic growth, a key platform for moving people out of poverty<. Price stability, or low levels of inflation; this is widely regarded as a prerequisite for a healthy economy. Full employment, which has the potential to reduce social problems.

The model writing postcards (1906), by Swedish painter Carl Larsson (1853–1919), famous for his idyllic watercolours

Alternative systems of numbering lists

• Arabic numerals: (1) (2) (3)
• Roman numerals, lower case: (i) (ii) (iii)
• Roman letters, lower case: (a) (b) (c)—use if there are numerals within the items that may clash with the numbering system.
• Roman letters, upper case: (A) (B) (C)—less common.
• Any of the above, enclosed in square brackets—possible, but uncommon.
• Any of the above without parentheses or square brackets, followed by significantly indented text.
• English words plus comma: first(ly), second(ly), third(ly),—possible. There are variations on the spelt-out numbering system, among them:
  • First,... Second,... Third,...;
  • Firstly,... Secondly,... Thirdly,...
  • Firstly,... Second,... Third,....

Formatting Problems

Not recommended

• Closing parenthesis alone: 1) 2) 3)—this is not as neat as two parentheses, and slightly harder to read.
• Number/letter plus dot and space: 1. 2. 3.—this can cause tension with sentence boundaries.
• The bolding, italicising and other highlighting of numbers/letters—this can look messy.
• Substantial indents for lined lists; we recommend no indent or only a small indent for the bullets or numbers—visually, lined lists are already very distinct.

Subset terms

Subset terms frame the items of your list as part of a larger set of items. These terms need to be used with care. Common subset terms are:

• includes and including
• , such as (preferred to like in formal writing)
• , particularly and , in particular
• , especially
• , for example, or e.g.,
• among which are and among them ...
• most importantly,
• ..., etc. (avoid in encyclopedic text—it means "and the rest", and suggests that you can't be bothered to tell us)

Many writers get into a habit of automatically using a subset term to introduce lists—especially the term "includes". This signals to the reader that the list is incomplete—that there are other items aside from those in the list. If the list is complete (which is usually the case), use terms such as comprises or consists of instead. Here's an example.

Natural numbers include positive integers and non-negative integers.

No, that indicates that natural numbers can be other things as well; they can't. This is correct:

Natural numbers comprise positive and non-negative integers.

or you could indicate the relationship of the items to the set and to each other more precisely:

Natural numbers are either positive or non-negative integers.

If your list is incomplete, take care not to double up on subset terms. Here, there's one subset term before and one after the items:

The most important biographies are on Graham Greene, Patrick White and Ernest Hemingway, among others.

"The most important" indicates that you're drawing on a larger set; telling us twice will weaken the text. This is better:

The most important biographies are on Graham Greene, Patrick White and Ernest Hemingway.

Vagueness in the lead

Rather than using a vague term, such as several or various, specify the number of items in the lead. For example, instead of:

The company's land-mines are produced in a variety of colours—grey, dark-green, light-green and tan—for optimal camouflage.

make it:

The company's land-mines are produced in four colours—grey, dark-green, light-green and tan—for optimal camouflage.

In any case, it's usually unnecessary to tell us how many items we're about to read.

The house of Noah Webster (1758–1843), the great American lexicographer, textbook author, spelling reformer and editor.

Formatting errors

Check the formatting where running lists are long and/or complex, especially where you've removed or pasted in items. Remember the basic formulas, which hold no matter how long or complex the items:

• A and B.
• A, B and C.
• A, B, C and D.

The 1973 oil crisis had significantly increased the cost of living, domestic industry was weakening from a lack of cost-competitiveness.

This is wrong (A, B); the writer has removed the C item without checking the residual formatting. Here's the original sentence.

The 1973 oil crisis had significantly increased the cost of living, domestic industry was weakening from a lack of cost-competitiveness, and government revenues were waning.

Unnecessary repetition

Hanging hyphens

These can turn a hedgehog sentence into something more manageable. Full repetitions such as this:

Their new technology produced all of the required sounds, including two-voice, three-voice and eventually four-voice music samples.

can be reduced to:

Their new technology produced all of the required sounds, including two-, three- and eventually four-voice music samples.

Relocate clause-initial repetitions to the lead

Where every item of a single-sentence list starts the same way, relocate the repeated text up to the lead. For example:

To help strengthen the US democratic process:

• you can lobby for the tighter regulation of political donations;
• you can lobby for the creation of a uniform national voting process for Congressional representatives and the President; and
• you can vote for representatives who pledge their support for the establishment of a national, independent body to determine the boundaries of congressional districts.

would be easier to read as:

To help strengthen the US democratic process, you can:

• lobby for the tighter regulation of political donations;
• lobby for the creation of a uniform, national voting process for Congressional representatives and the President; and
• vote for representatives who pledge their support for the establishment of a national, independent body to determine the boundaries of congressional districts.

A medieval depiction of a monk at work in a scriptorium, showing his materials and equipment. Until the 20th century, many people devoted their lives to copying text.

"And" and "or"

There's a tendency among some writers to use "or" between the second-last and last items in a list, where they mean "and". A, B or C means EITHER A OR B OR C. "And" is the default for lists in English: A, B and C. Using "and" doesn't necessarily mean that all items in a list apply all of the time; it can still mean that only one item applies on any one occasion. For example:

Alternative terms for herbal tea that avoid the misleading word "tea" are tisane or herbal infusion.

should be:

Alternative terms for herbal tea that avoid the misleading word "tea" are tisane and herbal infusion.

English may be idiosyncratic in this respect, because we've noticed that many non-native speakers, particularly those who come from East Asian languages, over-prefer "or" in lists.

Category problems

Check that the semantic and conceptual boundaries between the items are distinct and logical. The most common category problem arises when one item is a subset of another. Here's an example:

He was responsible for the contents and comic strip in Megatokyo.

At first glance, the reader is justified in asking: "Isn't the comic strip part of the contents?" It may be that the writer is trying to distinguish between the graphics and the linguistic text in the bubbles; it's hard to know.

Manhattan has many famous landmarks, tourist attractions, museums and universities.

Museums are tourist attractions, so already the boundaries are unclear. The writer resolved the problem here by replacing "tourist attractions" with a more focused item.

Another problem arises when the categories are too different, usually conceptually:

The Mayans widely believed that tobacco has magical powers, and used it in divinations and talismans.

Divination is the practice of seeking knowledge of the future or the unknown by supernatural means. A talisman is an object, typically an inscribed ring or stone, that is thought to have magic powers and to bring good luck. It would have been better to treat these two uses in separate clauses or even sentences.

Consistent grammar and formatting

Keep the grammar and formatting consistent. The following list mixes two common grammatical constructions.

Preparing a FAC involves (i) copy-editing the text many times, (ii) the checking of all points of view to ensure that they are neutral, (iii) justifying the copyright of the images, and (iv) the organisation of the material into logical sections.

Two of the four items start with a nominalisation (the checking of and the organisation of) and two start with straight "-ing" verbs (copy-editing and justifying). Either way is fine, but you need to choose one and stick to it throughout the list. Here, we've chosen to nominalise the verb at the start of each item, which gives it a more formal, steady-state feel, rather than the active, dynamic, "doing" sense conveyed by the straight "-ing" verbs:

Preparing a FAC involves (i) the copy-editing of the text many times, (ii) the checking of all points of view to ensure that they are neutral, (iii) the justification of the copyright of the images, and (iv) the organisation of the material into logical sections.

Now your readers don't have to rejig their mental idea of the grammar to read each new item: much easier.

Here's an example of an elaborate list from a FAC—a list of lists, in fact—that is littered with parentheses and quote marks and is illogically formatted and inconsistent. During the FAC process, this example was significantly improved; see how many areas for improvement you can identify, then hit Show to see the hints.

Hit [Show] in the top box to view hints. Hit [Show] in the bottom box to view the improved version.

QUESTION

The vector consists of several components: The object to which the term refers (the object individuated by the chemical formula H2O, for example) A set of typical descriptions of the term (referred to as the "stereotype") such as "transparent", "colourless", "hydrating", etc. The semantic indicators that place the object into a general category (e.g., "natural kind", "liquid", etc.) and The syntactic indicators (including "concrete noun", "mass noun").

HINT

Let's specify the number of items (four), rather than the vague several. There appears to be no reason to number the items. It appears to be a single-sentence list, but is not formatted as such; while it's elaborate enough for a multi-sentence format, let's format it properly as a single-sentence list. Let's remove the parentheses, which make it complex and difficult to read; as well, there's tension between their use for a different purpose in the second item (providing an equivalent term) compared with their role in marking off examples of each item. The language needs to be consistent (for example, such as, etc and including—we've chosen to replace these with the single term e.g., because it's short and this list is already long and complex).

SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENT

The vector consists of four components: the object to which the term refers, e.g., the object individuated by the chemical formula H2O; a set of typical descriptions of the term, referred to as "the stereotype", e.g., "transparent", "colourless" and "hydrating"; the semantic indicators that place the object into a general category, e.g., "natural kind" and "liquid"; and the syntactic indicators, e.g., "concrete noun" and "mass noun". This is slightly shorter for the same information, and is much easier to read because each item is consistent in language and formatting.

Discussion

Any questions or would you like to take the test?

User:OrenBochman/Lists/Test

Quotations*

• Quotation marks. Use "doubles"; make them "straight", not “curly”. We use the term (also known as "quotes") to include their use (as distinct from italics) in marking the titles of articles, chapters, songs, television episodes, short films, and other short works, and as scare quotes.
• Final punctuation. Place it inside the quotes if part of the quoted material, and outside if not. "Don't place a final comma inside like this," unless it is in the source and relevant to the meaning. If a quote ends mid-sentence, "don't place a final dot inside like this." (This is different from the practice of many US publications and some non-US publications.)*
• Minimal change. Preserve the original text, spelling and punctuation. Where there is a good reason not to do so, place the altered text within square brackets. If there is a significant error in the original statement, use [sic] to show that the error was not made in transcription. Normally, correct trivial spelling or typographical errors silently (harasssment to harassment).
• Attribution. Name the author of a quote of a full sentence or more, in the main text and not in a footnote. When preceding a quotation with its attribution, take care to be neutral.
• Sourcing. Cite sources clearly and precisely to enable readers to find the original text.*
• Ellipses. Use them to indicate where you have omitted text from a quotation. Don't omit text that conveys essential context or in a way that alters the meaning. Ellipses are indicated by three unspaced dots. Space them on both sides, with a hard-space on the left side where necessary, except that there should be no space between an ellipsis and:
  • a quotation mark, a parenthesis or a bracket, where the ellipsis is on the inside;
  • sentence-final punctuation, or a colon, semicolon, or comma (all rare), following the ellipsis but not on the left side if they come immediately after ("... until the unification.... After the collapse ... there was chaos.". Ellipses should not normally be bracketed [...] unless the distinction between ellipsis in the original text and Wikipedia's insertion of an ellipsis needs to be made (usually with an explanation straight after the quotation). *
• Square brackets. Use them to indicate editorial replacements and insertions within quotations. Square-bracketed wording should never alter the intended meaning of a quotation. 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.
  • 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".)
• Allowable typographical changes.
  • Italics within quotations. If WP uses italics for emphasis, put an editorial note [emphasis added] at the end: "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's desirable to stress that WP has not added the italics, write [emphasis in original] after the quote.
  • Mid-sentence case. 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".
  • Styling of dashes. Use the style chosen for the article: unspaced em-dash or spaced en-dash (see Dashes below).
  • Curly quotes (and apostrophes). Make them "straight". In quoting foreign-language text, replace foreign typographical elements such as guillemets (« ») with their English-language equivalents (i.e., with straight quotation marks).
  • Foreign spacing. Any spacing before such items as colons : remove it.
  • Faces. Generally preserve bold and italics, but don't put whole quotations in italics just because they're quotations.
  • Quotations within quotations. "Use double quotes outermost, and 'singles' within". If this results in a jostling of adjacent quote marks ("'"), consider kerning them apart slightly with CSS templates (in edit space, {{" '}}, {{' "}} and {{" ' "}}).
• Linking. Don't link from within quotes unless there is an overriding reason to do so.
• Block quotations. Format a long quote (more than four lines or one paragraph) as a block quotation, without enclosing it in quotation marks. Click on the edit-tool below the edit window (tab to "Wikimarkup"). Type <p> to force a paragraph space within.

Discussion

If you have any questions, ask them

User:OrenBochman/Quoatations/Test

Improving Prose

This article is primarily aimed at nominators of featured article candidates, but may be useful for editors of other Wikipedia articles.

Wikipedia's featured article criteria are demanding requirements to ensure that featured articles (FAs) are of the highest quality. The criteria have a powerful effect on Wikipedia, because FAs set the standards for all articles. Criterion 1a states that FAs are "well written"—that the prose is "engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard".

For many contributors, this is the most challenging part of preparing an article. Identifying and fixing suboptimal prose requires skill and experience typically acquired only after years of writing and editing. Wikipedia flourishes from the input of your expertise, yet the review process to determine whether nominated articles are promoted to featured status shows that the prose of many articles does no justice to that expertise. You can follow three strategies to satisfy 1a.

• Respond to the reviewers at the featured article candidate (FAC) page. Improving your article in direct response to the comments of FAC reviewers sometimes works, but it's hard to achieve significant improvements in the short time allowed for the review process. Reviewers are under no obligation to specify every problem in the prose of a FAC, or to edit a FAC themselves.
• Network with other editors. Locating editors who are interested in the topic and skilled at editing prose will be the foundation for future collaborations. Wikipedia comprises numerous communities of like-minded users. List yourself in one or more categories relevant to your own fields, and research the talk pages and contribution lists of other users in those categories. Aim to build a circle of friends through discussion and mutual assistance. Becoming active in one of Wikipedia's many subject-based projects may help you find contributors who can assist you by copy-editing your article during peer review and before FAC nomination. Alternatively, research the FAC archives and the history pages of worthy articles in the field; scan through the edit summaries and use the "Compare selected versions" to identify the key writers and copy-editors. Posting a polite message requesting help on those users' talk pages can work wonders. In your message, show that you're familiar with their work; but remember, there will always be a shortage of good copy-editors on Wikipedia. More detailed advice on locating copy-editors is here.
• Improve your own writing and editing skills. This is the concern of the current article, which offers general advice on how to improve your writing and editing skills, lists the common problems that reviewers identify in the prose of FACs, and discusses strategies for avoiding those problems. The tutorial pages listed in the box at the top are one of the most important ways of improving your writing skills.

This article is aimed at both native and non-native speakers of English. Although each group faces different challenges in writing and editing English, most issues we cover are relevant to many languages. At the end of the article, we provide useful external links for writing and editing, aimed at both natives and non-natives.

Although most criteria for good writing in English are widely accepted, advocates may differ on particular technical and stylistic matters. Please take this into account here: some of our advice and suggested solutions may be debatable. Feedback on how to improve this article is welcome at the talk page. We acknowledge the assistance of Hoary in the copy-editing of this article.

Computers have transformed the writing process by facilitating continual editing; this frees writers from the need to produce a succession of entire versions on a typewriter or by hand.

Eliminating redundancy

Redundant wording is common in Wikipedia's articles: removing redundancy will not damage the meaning, and in most cases will strengthen it. Crisp, elegant writing demands the elimination of redundancy.

It takes concentrated practice to identify redundancy, but after a while you'll learn to test every word subconsciously against its context. Ask yourself: "Will the text lose meaning if I remove this?" and "Is there already a word in this sentence that provides the meaning?" Take this sentence:

While the journal had relatively low circulation numbers for its day, it still influenced popular opinion and was feared by the conservative administration.

Did alarm bells ring as you read it? Here, the redundancies are struck through:

While the journal had relatively low circulation numbers for its day, it still influenced popular opinion and was feared by the conservative administration.

"Low" is already relative to some norm, which here is explicitly clarified as being "for its day"; thus, "relatively" adds no useful meaning. "Still" has the sense of "all the same" or "nevertheless"; coming after "while" (= "although"), it is totally redundant.

As you strengthen your ability to tighten prose, you'll find many types of redundancy. Here are six:

• Additive terms—"also", "in addition", "moreover" and "furthermore". Every sentence is additional to its predecessors, but most of us, including otherwise good writers, have got into the habit of sprinkling these terms through our writing, because they give us a vague feeling of adding to the cohesion of the text (the strength with which it all hangs together). However, only occasionally are these additive words required for textual cohesion; the flow is usually stronger without them.
• Temporal terms—"over the years", "currently", "now", "from time to time", "to this day". Although these are more likely to be required than the additive terms, they usually add nothing to the sense, or are too vague to be useful. "They planned their future response". (Try the converse: "They planned their past response".) Often, the tense of the verb is sufficient to convey the temporal sense; e.g., "Mumbai is currently India's leading financial centre". Here, the present tense of "is" says it all. Similarly, in "After The Kroonland's fitting out was completed, the ship sailed on its maiden voyage", the first word conveys the temporal fact, so "was completed" can be removed.
• Vague terms of size, number and proportion—"some", "a variety of", "a number of", "several", "a few", "many", "any", "all". These items are often too vague to add useful meaning, or their meaning is already conveyed in the rest of the text; e.g., "All seawater is salty", "The highway expands to four lanes as it passes some built-up areas of strip development", and "The scheme does not remove any government-funded programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid". Sometimes whether these terms are redundant depends on the larger context.
• Words for which the meaning is already conveyed in another word. For example, "Born the youngest child of a Mexican immigrant couple, she was singing on television while still a junior high school student." Here, "Born" is assumed in the word "child"; therefore the sentence works better without the first word. "Each weapon has its own advantages and disadvantages." Here, "its own" repeats the meaning of "each", and thus clutters the sentence. The first three words in the next example can be removed, because they're already covered by the word "when": "In those instances when requests for assistance fall outside Tahirih's scope, staff members attempt to locate other consultants." Another temporal item—an elaborate one—obstructs the middle of this sentence: "Iridion was released in North America on 29 May 2001, and subsequently in Europe on 21 September 2001." Similarly, tweaking the grammar allows us to dispense with two words in "The Centre has worked to protect women who come from abroad." Women from abroad have clearly "come" from there, unless there might be confusion with the Centre's operation from abroad to protect women in a country.
• Words for which the meaning is easily recoverable from the context or from general knowledge. For example, "The cigar smoker burns the dried leaves of the tobacco plant but does not inhale the resulting smoke". We already know that smoke results from the burning of dried tobacco leaves.
• Words that should be removed in favour of ellipsis. For example, "Although not the first scheme of its kind, it was the largest when it was introduced to South Africa, and it remains one of the largest in the world." Its ... it was ... it was ... it. "It" and "was" are annoying repetitions and are easily understood through the process of ellipsis; both words hover over the subsequent clauses and are simply slotted into the gaps by the reader. Ironically, not stating a word is one of the key methods of textual cohesion, because it makes the reader assume this continuing presence of a previously stated item.

You may wish to undertake the series of graded exercises we have prepared to sharpen your ability to identify redundancy. These exercises use sentences taken from FACs.

Achieving flow

Main article: User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a: exercises in textual flow

When you explain something in writing rather than orally, many aspects of language are removed, such as your intonation, pitch, speed, rhythm and bodily gestures. In writing, you need to make up for the absence of those speech signals, so that your readers will be just as engaged with your message as they are when they listen to you: optimising the flow of your writing is an important way of doing this. Flow comprises a number of aspects, from the smallest punctuation mark to the cohesion of the text on a large scale. Flow can make your writing smooth, clear and easy to read; a lack of flow can make it bumpy and disjointed.

Ironically, flow is achieved by manipulating the breaks in the continuity of the text, controlling the structure of your language—the mortar between the bricks large and small. While some aspects of the flow of a particular text will be the subject of widespread agreement by language experts, flow can often be achieved in more than one way; thus, there's a strong element of personal style in this aspect of writing. Inevitably, the advice that we offer here on flow will be less definitive than our advice for other characteristics of good writing.

Eight centuries ago, writing was such a rare and elaborate skill that it was displayed with great artistry. This Apocalypse manuscript shows St John writing to the seven churches of Asia.

Paragraphing

Apart from writing your Wikipedia article in sections, paragraphing is the largest scale on which you'll need to structure your text. A paragraph break allows your readers to tie up the idea that they've just read about—to "download" it more deeply into their memory—and to start afresh on a new idea or a new aspect of the same idea. Aim for paragraphs of roughly equal size, although some variation in size is often appropriate.

Over-long paragraphs make it harder for your readers to stay interested; a mass of grey text will force them to work hard to keep an ever-increasing amount of information active in their working memory as they wade through. Where it's starting to be too much of a mental juggling act for the readers, try to identify a sentence around the middle of the paragraph that appears to be a departure—to step out into new territory, so to speak: make it the first sentence in a new paragraph.

Similarly, short, "stubby" paragraphs tend to break up the prose, interrupting the flow: give your readers the chance to link a number of sentences into a cohesive whole; that will usually be the easiest way for them to absorb your message. Stubby paragraphs are all too common in Wikipedia articles, and reviewers in the FAC room are apt to object to them. Apart from the psychological effect on the readers, one-sentence paragraphs can result in a fragmented visual appearance. A stubby paragraph should typically be either expanded into full ideas or merged smoothly with another paragraph (most often the previous one). Very occasionally, a single-sentence paragraph might be appropriate to emphasise or summarise an idea.

You may wish to try your hand at our exercise in manipulating paragraph length.

Sentences

Chopping up snakes

Your readers will also want to "tie up" the information on a more frequent, smaller scale: the sentence. Sentences that are too long are too demanding on readers' working memory: give them opportunities to download what you've just told them in convenient chunks. Here's an example:

The need for a stronger central government with a unified currency and the ability to conduct the affairs of state, such as foreign policy (and that could bind all of the states under negotiated treaties and agreements rather than be undermined by a single state's refusal to agree to an international treaty) led to the stronger federal government that was negotiated at the Convention.

It is too long and complex; while there are too many ideas to be expressed in one masterful sentence, this sentence has at least three problems:

• The comma before "such as" looks like the first of a pair surrounding an example; readers scan what follows in vain for the second comma and its announcement of the end of the example.
• The parenthetical remark is so long that when it finishes readers have forgotten where they were when it started.
• It's not obvious what's modified by the relative clause between the parentheses.

The sentence bends disconcertingly, and readers trying to follow it lose their bearings. It's what some people call a "snake", and it needs to be chopped up into manageable portions.

How do we fix this sentence? The first step is to isolate the ideas. There are usually a number of places where we may erect boundaries between these ideas; here's one attempt.

The need for a stronger central government with a unified currency and the ability to conduct the affairs of state, such as foreign policy (and that could bind all of the states under negotiated treaties and agreements rather than be undermined by a single state's refusal to agree to an international treaty) led to the stronger federal government that was negotiated at the Convention.

Each of these ideas could stand alone as a sentence. (Since the middle two ideas are particularly close, we could separate them by a semicolon rather than a full-stop.) Let's try doing this. In our chopped-up snake, the four ideas are coloured as above. We've added extra bits in black—either through simple deduction to fill in the context (e.g., "the delegates identified") or to make the sentences cohere (e.g., connectors such as "In particular" and "This" that link back to previous clauses).

The delegates identified the need for a stronger central government with a unified currency and the ability to conduct the affairs of state. In particular, they saw federal control of foreign policy as a way of binding all of the states under negotiated treaties and agreements; until then, foreign policy had frequently been undermined by a single state's refusal to agree to an international treaty. This led to the negotiation of a stronger federal government at the Convention.

We started with one sentence of 64 words. We've transformed this into three sentences that are slightly longer in total: 77 words. The reader has places to pause and consider the ideas, and the text is much easier to read even if it's a little longer.

We've prepared exercises along the same lines, in case you want to practise chopping up long sentences.

The power of writing has changed the world. Here, Mahatma Gandhi writes at Birla House, Mumbai in August 1942, five years before India gained independence from Britain.

Smoothly integrating ideas into a sentence

Just as snakes require too much working memory to read, stubby sentences limit readers to far less than the full capacity of their working memory; they usually interrupt the flow of the text, resulting in a stop-start effect. Sentences of comfortable length are typically constructed from more than the simplest idea. These ideas need to be integrated smoothly and logically into the sentence. One of the commonest problems in FACs is sentences in which the ideas are poorly connected.

To integrate ideas into a sentence, we need to ask ourselves whether their relationship is additive, contrastive or causal. Causal relationships are usually obvious, so we'll deal with these first.

Causal links

There are two types of causal links: forward and backward.

In a forward link, the first statement causes or leads to the second. Typical forward connectors are therefore and thus. They're largely interchangeable, although thus is more at home in technical contexts. Here are examples:

Wikipedia needs to raise the standards of its prose; therefore, we should create infrastructure that encourages contributors to improve their writing skills.

Researchers have identified the three genes responsible for this disease, thus paving the way for the development of gene therapy.

Other forward links are accordingly and for this/these reason(s). Being longer, they're usually better avoided.

In a backward link, the first statement is caused by or led to by the second. The standard backward connector is because. Two others—since and as—are often used instead of because, but they need extra care. Since can refer to time down to the present, and as can mean "at the same time as". Take the following sentence:

Dr Gupta was unaware of the underlying complexities, as she moved with her extended family to Mumbai in 1999.

It's unclear whether she was unaware because she moved to Mumbai, or whether she was unaware during the move. It's safer to use because as your causal connector unless the context disambiguates.

The typical placement of the comma is in the direction of causality: after for forward causality; before for backward causality. Although punctuation is usual here in more formal registers such as that used in an encyclopedia, this can vary. For example, the following sentence is short and punchy, and thus needs no comma:

The President lost the election because he's a fool.

But lengthen the sentence and a comma may make it easier to read:

The President won the election, because many African-Americans were not permitted to vote and the Supreme Court endorsed the injustice.

A comma is usually unnecessary if the causal link is in the middle of a clause. For example:

Thus, the surveys failed to reveal the problem.

could be changed into:

The surveys thus failed to reveal the problem.

Sometimes the causality is obvious; you may be able to dispense with an explicit connector altogether, using a semicolon instead:

This FAC suffers from faulty prose throughout; therefore, the nominator should first have called in good copy-editors.

If you don't need a word, don't use it!

Contrastive links

Typical contrastive links are:

• but (avoid at the start of a sentence in formal registers)
• however,
• although (usually better than though in formal registers)
• nevertheless/nonetheless, (less common)
• in/by contrast, (very pointed)

Additive links

The typical additive link is:

• and

Usually avoid the following additive links:

• while (ambiguous)
• as well/as well as, (usually too strong—an amplified version of "and")
• not only ... but also (usually too strong—an amplified version of "and"; if you must use it, drop the "also" if possible)
• moreover, (tired and usually redundant)
• furthermore, (tired and usually redundant)
• additionally, (ungainly and usually redundant)
• in addition, (tired and usually redundant)

Academics and technical writers seem to love the last four items in this list; they should know better.

Two poorly used additives on WP

While is a particular problem on Wikipedia. For example:

"Planning" expenditure is allocated to development schemes outlined in the federal government's plans, while "central" expenditure is allocated to the state governments.

Does the writer want to emphasise that both spending categories occur at the same time? Surely not—here, while is a poor substitute for and; it's better just to use a semicolon:

"Planning" expenditure is allocated to development schemes outlined in the federal government's plans; "central" expenditure is allocated to the state governments.

Consider that few readers are likely to suppose that the former schemes will be outlined in the federal government's cemeteries, canals or chimneys: there's no need to state the obvious. English grammar allows much duplication to be cut, as well. The result:

"Planning" expenditure is allocated to development schemes outlined by the federal government, "central" expenditure to the state governments.

With as an additive link is another common problem on WP; it's usually awkward. For example:

There are 10 chapters in the protocol, with the third chapter ("International money laundering") discussing the financing of terrorism.

Far too much ing (and unnecessary repetition). Rewrite as:

There are 10 chapters in the protocol; the third ("International money laundering") discusses the financing of terrorism.

Here's another example:

Coronation Street is known for its light humour and comic characters, in the vein of the traditions of northern variety shows, with many of the show's actors having previously worked in repertory theatre, notably the Oldham Rep.

Uncomfortable to read? It should appear so to you: the sentence is rather too long, and the "with" clause is, strictly speaking, ungrammatical (an apostrophe is required in actors', which is itself a little clumsy nowadays). Let's get rid of the troublesome "with" connector and give our poor readers a rest in the middle, using a semicolon:

Coronation Street is known for its light humour and comic characters, in the vein of the traditions of northern variety shows; many of the show's actors had worked in repertory theatre, notably the Oldham Rep.

Had you noticed the redundant "previously", which is covered by the past tense? And yes, a semicolon is better than a period, since the two halves are so closely linked.

Confusion between additive and contrastive links

This is surprisingly common in FACs. Take the following sentence, which connects two ideas with the commonest contrastive link, but.

She was raised in London and Manchester, but went on to live in Hong Kong.

The second idea doesn't contradict the first; it just provides additional information. While Hong Kong may be a very different location from London and Manchester, it's perfectly possible to live in Hong Kong having been raised in the UK. But is wrong here, because it introduces a statement that contradicts the previous statement or that is surprising or unexpected coming after the previous statement. Here, replacing the contrastive link with the most common additive link—and—will fix the problem:

She was raised in London and Manchester, and went on to live in Hong Kong.

Spelling at its worst

Additive relationships: how close are the ideas?

When you're adding ideas together—rather than contrasting them or showing that one leads to the other—the way you integrate them will depend on how close and long they are. There are three basic ways of linking them.

• A link with and—very close ideas; when combined, the resulting sentence should not be too long.
• A link with a semicolon—reasonably close ideas; length is not as important.
• A link with a full-stop—less close ideas, neither of which should be stubby.

The use of these methods is partly a matter of personal style, although there are cases where most readers would prefer one method over the others. Here's an example of two relatively short ideas:

(1) Most emu species have a grey-brown plumage of shaggy appearance. On close inspection, the shafts and tips of the feathers are black.

Both ideas concern the visual appearance of the birds, specifically that of their feathers. By integrating them into a single sentence, we're making this closeness obvious to the readers, and avoiding the stop–start effect of two short, successive sentences:

(2) Most emu species have a grey-brown plumage of shaggy appearance; on close inspection, the shafts and tips of the feathers are black.

In (2), the semicolon keeps the readers' minds focused on the same issue: the feathers. In (1), The full-stop suggested that the next sentence would take a different direction, but in (1), it didn't. The next example shows a good use of the full-stop—the second sentence addresses a different issue, food:

(3) Most emu species have a grey-brown plumage of shaggy appearance. They eat a variety of native and introduced plant species, depending on seasonal availability.

The sentences are still close enough to juxtapose, but the common theme is much broader than feathers or food: it's "most emu species" ("they"). The full-stop warns readers to prepare for something different, although they'll still expect it to flow smoothly from what they've just read.

This next example is satisfactory:

In 1996 and 2000, he was the nominee of the Green Party; Winona LaDuke was his vice-presidential running mate.

However, the ideas are so closely connected that we might consider joining them with a comma plus and:

In 1996 and 2000, he was the nominee of the Green Party, and Winona LaDuke was his vice-presidential running mate.

You may wish to try our exercises in correcting sentences with poorly integrated ideas.

Misplaced formality

Wikipedia needs to appeal to a wide range of native and non-native speakers, many of whom are time-poor. Writing plain English is a good way to achieve this. Many writers want to write text with an air of authority, and use longer-than-necessary and/or old-fashioned forms in the hope of appearing more formal. In most cases, you'll get your point across more effectively by avoiding the following words and phrases (suggested replacements appear after the arrows):

• whilst —> while
• amongst —> among
• upon —> on
• within —> in (unless you really need to stress "insideness")
• in order to and in order for —> just to and for (very occasionally, the "in order" is required to avoid ambiguity, and of course the negative requires all words: "in order not to", and "so as not to" )
• hitherto —> until now
• thereupon —> then
• notwithstanding (yuck) —> despite or another construction
• utilise —> use (scientists should get this ugly duckling out of their system)
• prior to —> before
• the majority of —> most (unless "more than 50%" is intended)
• multiple —> many (unless you mean "having or involving several parts, elements or members", especially when it's not always the case, e.g., multiple occupancy, multiple birth; but not "cited in multiple articles")
• due to the fact that —> because

THE REMAINDER OF THIS ARTICLE IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION.

Commas

"In 1989, the SkyBridge, along with Scott Road Station was built."

"Early Dutch missionaries faced strong opposition especially among elite Torajans as the abolishment of their profitable slave trade angered them."

"The family was arrested and imprisoned first in their home at Tsarskoye Selo and later at residences in Tobolsk and Yekaterinburg in Siberia."

"All members of the program are Scouts, youth are referred to as Boy Scouts and adults as Scouters." The comma is grammatically wrong; use a colon, semicolon or em dash.

Redundant commas: "Between December 1960, and March 1961"

Notwithstanding marketing hype and commercial success, critics expressed mixed responses to the launch of Moi... Lolita, Alizée's first single.

Each colossus is located in a unique lair, and it is often necessary for the environments in which they are fought to be fully utilized in order to reach or reveal a colossus' weak spots.

Simba's move to Leyton Orient came about as a result of training with the club in order to keep fit whilst on holiday in London.

Using repetition strategically

Sometimes required for cohesion; sometimes undesirable.

"and before it grew too late he would burst into the back room and loudly order George home. The courtship lasted almost seven years, but George grew tired of waiting"—Ungainly repetition of "grew".

The game received critical praise,[3][4] later being hailed as a major innovator in its genre,[5] and placing on multiple hall of fame lists.[5][6][7] Despite its technological feats and critical praise, System Shock was outsold by its contemporaries.[5]

it uses the world's longest mass transit-only bridge, the SkyBridge. It uses the

"and before it grew too late he would burst into the back room and loudly order George home. The courtship lasted almost seven years, but George grew tired of waiting"—Ungainly repetition of "grew".

"Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is an American public corporation, and is currently the world's largest retailer as well as the world's largest corporation." "is ... is" is clumsy. "the world's" x 2. "as well as" is a marked version of "and"; why is everything emphasised? Try: "Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., an American public corporation, is currently the world's largest retailer and largest corporation

By 1967, critics were suggesting that the programme no longer reflected life in 1960s Britain, but reflected how life was in the 1950s

Avoiding unnecessary intensification

English has a number of devices for "marking" meanings, that is, by choosing wording that is emphatic rather than the default "unmarked" choice.

Most of these devices are grammatical. Here are common examples:

I blame you for this mess. (Unmarked)

You I blame for this mess. (Marked, by the less usual word order)

Improve your grammar! (Unmarked)

You improve your grammar! (Marked)

Do improve your grammar! (Marked)

I need breakfast. (Unmarked)

What I need is breakfast. (Marked, with the added meaning that breakfast is all I need)

Then there are the more lexical methods of marking, such as marked additives:

The event was covered by radio and television. (Unmarked)

The event was covered by both radio and television. (Marked, as though this was an unexpected duality)

She ordered eggs and bacon. (Unmarked)

She ordered eggs as well as bacon. (Marked—the rest of us ordered only eggs; she was greedy)

She ordered not only eggs, but bacon. (Yet more strongly marked—we were surprised at her greed)

Marked "insideness":

A wider view of the community is presented in the novel. (Unmarked)

A wider view of the community is presented within the novel. (Marked, stressing "insideness"; but why?)

Within this molecule are dozens of particles (Marked, stressing "insideness", and probably necessary)

We find personal solace and inspiration from our own and others' individual interpretations within those dimensions. (Marked and typical for expressions of abstract positioning)

The insertion of intensifiers:

The slopes drop steeply, but not precipitously" (Unmarked)

The slopes drop very steeply, but not precipitously (Marked, and weakens the contrast between steeply and precipitously—remove "very")

The climate and, as a result, the flora and fauna of Pinkham Notch vary with elevation. (Unmarked)

The climate and, as a result, the flora and fauna of Pinkham Notch vary greatly with elevation. (Marked—probably unnecessary.)

The imagination and adventure that these spaces inspire result from environmental conditions that are both familiar and orderly

(in addition to)

Wikipedia is littered with unnecessary lexical emphasis. This has two disadvantages: (1) it "bleaches" the text so that readers get used to, and unconsciously discount, the continual emphases; paradoxically, this weakens rather than strengthens the text, and when it is appropriate to emphasis a meaning, the marked version has little effect; and (2) most marked wordings are longer than the unmarked equivalent, sacrificing brevity and plainness."

Unmarked (marked)

• in (within)
• both
• very

a wider view of the community is presented within the TV series

• She was born in 1909 (It was in 1909 that she was born)

Here are examples of how text can be strengthened by removing the emphasis.

Marked: "Not only did the video become a cultural sensation in Hong Kong, it inspired vigourous debate and discussion on lifestyle, etiquette and media ethics." Unmarked: "The video become a cultural sensation in Hong Kong, and inspired vigourous debate and discussion on lifestyle, etiquette and media ethics."

While it is very uncommon for storms with large eyes to become very intense

"was marked both by cultural explosion, as well as military and natural disasters."—Talking of "marked", this is marked grammatically twice, in "as well as" (= strong "and") and "both" (= unexpected duality); is either required?

The joint sitting of all 187 parliamentarians was held over two days on 6 and 7 August. The event was covered by both radio and television.

Avoiding common grammatical weaknesses

Unclear referents

As elevations increase on the walls of the notch, climate and ecosystems change to those of increasingly northern occurrence.

Becoming Prime Minister of the Federation in 1957, Welensky opposed British moves towards African majority rule, and used force to suppress politically-motivated violence in the territories. With the advent of African rule in two of the Federation's three territories, it collapsed in 1963.

Noun plus gerund

During the 20th century, this grew to be one of the most problematic aspects of English grammar.

He would not agree to the nuclear power station being built there.

He would not agree to the nuclear power station's being built there.

He would not agree to the building of the nuclear power station there.

His observations led to him proposing the boundary known as "the Wallace line".

The gunfire prevented him leaving the airport.

The gunfire prevented his leaving the airport.

"due to Black being cast in Peter Jackson's big budget remake"

along with Chinese farmers producing abundant yields of food beyond self-sufficiency, hence their ability to sell greater amount of food for the market."—"farmers producing" is ungrammatical; why not use "through" by ellipsis and nominalise ("production")? And who else but Chinese farmers would be at issue? "This came about through expanded rice cultivation in central and southern China, and farmers' production of abundant yields of food beyond self-sufficiency

he attempted to re-enter politics and prevent Rhodesia (formerly Southern Rhodesia) declaring itself unilaterally independent.

Any

"it did not win any awards"—no, "it won no awards".

"This article or section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. (help, get involved!) Any material not supported by sources may be challenged and removed at any time." (WP's "Unreferenced" template)

they did not enjoy any significant commercial success until 1996's Electriclarryland, their only gold record to date.

but were not based on any actual knowledge of the continent

but were based on no actual knowledge of the continent

But sometimes "any" is required:

A NAC meeting was held outside Blantyre on January 25, with detailed planning for the overthrow of the territorial government and the massacre of the territory's whites and any blacks who collaborated with them.

Welensky was opposed to any talk of succession, and the Monckton Report suggested it in writing when it stated that the territories should have the option after five years under a new federal constitution.

False equivalents

"his championing of the common man's causes, like railroad regulation, won him just as many friends"

he wishes of Welensky, he travelled to the United Kingdom, where he took part in the Nyasaland constitutional talks. The outcome was a constitution which, through a voting system that was equally as complex as that of the federation itself, amounted to black majority rule for the territory.

Such practices provide opportunities for experiences that educate, as much by the method of delivery as in the content of the text

Two Wikipedian diseases: startitis and woulditis

While not breaching technical rules for writing English, there's a marked tendency by some contributors to express a large proportion of actions and processes as starting rather than just as happening or occurring, particularly in historical and narrative accounts:

This is what some Wikipedians have dubbed "startitis".

In Britain, Labour grew more critical, and African nationalists in the federation itself began to become more vocal

Another so-called disease also occurs in historical and narrative registers: the use of the conditional mood where a plain indicative mood is preferable, such as:

"It may have been the first time that the men would play active roles."

Better as:

"It may have been the first time that the men played active roles."

"As a result, the Mint began to test alternate metals,"—why not "As a result, the Mint tested alternate metals,"

Woulditis, a Wikipedian disease: "which would in turn often influence"—why not just plain past tense? "which in turn often influenced"?

Politically, only three years after its founding, the federation was to begin to decline.

Same for "were to":

Barlow entered the storyline as a young radical, reflecting the youth of 1960s Britain, where figures like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and the model Twiggy were to re-shape the concept of youthful rebellion.

Rationalising short lists

"the first employee of the Government of Australia and the first Solicitor-General of Australia"—rationalise and pipe as "the first employee of the Government of Australia and its first Solicitor-General"

"on the west as well as the east side of"—no, this is ungrammatical (s) and verbose: "on the west and east sides of".

an urban Advanced Rapid Transit system operating on two lines, the Expo Line and the Millennium Line

Exist(s)

A Dutch colonial presence existed"—awkward; try "There was a Dutch colonial presence"

Other technical points

The word order for "only" Megatokyo is only available in English

• • "and only played 25 games over two seasons"—Place "only" as late as possible in a clause. "and played only 25 games over two seasons".

Ambiguity

"it moves over 220,000 people a day "—Do you count the people it moves over? ("More than", please.)

"As a marketing strategy, SEO considers how search algorithms work and what people search for in order to increase a site's relevancy." Do you mean "As a marketing strategy for increasing a site's relevancy, SEO considers how search algorithms work and what people search for."

"The" for second-language editors

Many languages have very different systems of deixis from that in English. Deictic elements have a "pointing out" function; they indicate whether a specific subset of a thing is intended, and if so, which subset. They are either specific or non-specific. "The" is a specific deictic that means "the subset in question is identifiable; but this (i.e., "the") won't tell you how to identify the subset—the information is somewhere around, where you can recover it". So whereas "this train" means "you know which train: the one near me", and "my train" means "you know which train: the one I own", "the train" means simply "you know which train" (from the immediate context or perhaps even from general knowledge). So "the" is usually accompanied by another element that supplies this information. "The long train" means "you know which train: you can tell it by its length".

English is one official working language of the United Nations.

English is the one official working language of the United Nations.

References

Discussion

If you have any questions, ask them

User:OrenBochman/Improve prose/Test

"Ministry of Works" says it all! You wonder whether ten words could be six or five (or fewer, if you want it to be what functional grammar calls "a short text". Removing words could make the sign more direct and the font-size bigger.

Redundancy, rather than poor grammar and spelling, is the biggest source of problems in prose. Here are sets of exercises to sharpen your ability to identify redundancy. The exercises tend to get harder as you progress through the page. Remember, you're trying to develop the habit of scrutinising the need for every word in a text. Undertaking these exercises can be the start of a longer project to tighten up your prose.

"Unfolding" design. The exercises are designed to be done in your head, without writing. On purpose, each unfolds in stages: first, the problem text, then a succession of hints to help you along; then a solution; finally an explanation. You'll get the most out of the exercises by thinking carefully about each stage before clicking on the next. Stop before you've had enough, and plan to return each day to take up where you left off. "Distributed" ("spaced out") practice rather than "massed" (all at once) will have a more lasting effect on your writing style.

But of course you're welcome to do the exercises without registering.

Starting out: removing a single word

Let's start with straightforward tasks. The following six examples can be improved by striking just one word. First, try to identify this word in each of these cases; then hit [Show] to view the suggested solution.

Problem A
Last month, more than 40% of featured article nominations successfully passed.

Hint
You pass or you fail; you're successful or unsuccessful.

Solution
Last month, more than 40% of featured article nominations successfully passed.

Explanation
Try the opposite ("unsuccessfully passed") to see how useless "successfully" is in this role.

Problem B
The vectors—green and yellow—follow the average rainfall pattern for each region (see Figure 2).

Hint
The role of the parentheses, among other things, makes one word redundant.

Solution
The vectors—green and yellow—follow the average rainfall pattern for each region (see Figure 2).

Explanation
The parentheses are quite enough to tell the reader that Figure 2 illustrates what is being explained.

Problem C
They invaded the coast and brought along European diseases.

Solution
They invaded the coast and brought along European diseases.

Explanation
"Along", in this context, is one of a number of redundant prepositions that have crept into spoken English.

Problem D
The manager has plans to accept the offer.

Hint
A slight change in the grammar of the sentence is required to remove the word.

Solution
The manager has plans to accept the offer.

Explanation
Changing the grammar ("plans" is now the verb, instead of a noun) allows one word to be dropped.

Problem E
The least accessible forested areas were the last ones to be cleared.

Hint
Use ellipsis, where you leave out a back-reference and the reader effortlessly reinserts it in their mind as they slide over it.

Solution
The least accessible forested areas were the last ones to be cleared.

Explanation
Through ellipsis we can avoid the repetition of a noun ("forested areas") or a pronoun that refers to it ("ones").

Problem F
Both the parents chose to educate their children in Beijing. [That is, the mother was initially in favour of Shanghai.]

Hint
This might cause non-native speakers a problem!

Solution
Both the parents chose to educate their children in Beijing.

Explanations
"The" is optional because "Both" already qualifies the noun "parents". Because the specific parents are clearly already identifiable to the readers, it's better without "the". Knowing where to insert "the" and "a", and where not to, can be a major problem for many non-native speakers. It's very important to conquer this subtle part of basic English grammar.

Removing a single word: more exercises

More straightforward tasks.

Problem A
This sudden recognition led to keen competition for Handel's future services.

Hint
The logic already tells you about the timing.

Solution
This sudden recognition led to keen competition for Handel's future services.

Explanation
Try the opposite: "This sudden recognition led to keen competition for Handel's past services."

Problem B
The orbiter project, cancelled in 2005, would have specifically targeted Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

Hint
The meaning of the redundant word is already conveyed by another word.

Solution
The orbiter project, cancelled in 2005, would have specifically targeted Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

Explanation
Targeting is specific.

Problem C
These two species are both members of the equine family.

Solution
These two species are both members of the equine family.

Explanations

Either "two" or "both" is required: one of these words must be removed. If you want to emphasise (grammatically mark) the fact that the two species are in the same family—for example, because it's unexpected or unusual—retain "both" and remove "two". "Both" is an amplifier—it makes the reader attend to the coupling as a special case. Compare with the unmarked version: "These two species are both members of the equine family."

Problem D
After 1731 the opera was not staged again for more than 200 years.

Solution
After 1731 the opera was not staged again for more than 200 years.

Explanation
The logic of "after".

Problem E
There are three established methods available for the delignification of lignocellulosic biomass.

Solution
There are three established methods available for the delignification of lignocellulosic biomass.

Explanation
*"Available" is redundant because its meaning is already contained in "There are". Alternatively, you could keep "available" and bin "There are", like this: "There are Three established methods are available for the delignification of lignocellulosic biomass." Hint: "There are ..." is sometimes a sign that redundancy is lurking.

Problem F
Bruckner's Symphony No. 3 was a turning point for the composer. However, in the years following the work's premiere, he revised it several times.

Solution
Bruckner's Symphony No. 3 was a turning point for the composer. However, in the years following the work's premiere, he revised it several times.

Explanation
What else would a premiere be in this context but of the symphony?

How many did you get right?

• All correct: excellent—consider moving straight to More difficult exercises.
• One or two wrong: fair—consider skipping the next exercise and moving straight to Removing or replacing one word or more (1).
• More than two wrong: this skill needs attention—consider undertaking all of the exercises below.

Vermeer's Lady writing a letter with her maid (1670); nowadays, the relative ease and speed of written communication have resulted in a move towards plainer, less formal structures, including simpler, shorter sentences. But we know from looking at the text of the great writers that redundancy has always been intuitively avoided in good writing, even when more elaborate sentence structures were common.

Removing one or two words

Problem A
This question rarely arises outside of the soccer league.

Solution
This question rarely arises outside of the soccer league.

Explanation
The "of" in "outside of" and "inside of" is useless and should be avoided, even in speaking. It's easy to slip into this redundant usage.

Problem B
The field trips identified potential hot-spots in typical rolling mills, and the researchers have made some initial contacts with companies to gain permission for trials of their new cooling system.

Hint
See the plural "contacts"?

Solution
The field trips identified potential hot-spots in typical rolling mills, and the researchers have made some initial contacts with companies to gain permission for trials of their new cooling system.

Explanation
"Some" adds nothing to the already-pluralised "contacts". "Some" is useful when it contrasts with what might otherwise be "all" ("They made available only some of the information we requested.")

Problem C
The B41 gold-nib fountain pen was originally released in 1966 and is still in production today.

Hint
Think of the tense of the verbs (past/present/future).

Solution
The B41 gold-nib fountain pen was originally released in 1966 and is still in production today.

Explanations

*"Still" and "today" carry virtually the same meaning here. "Today" makes your reader momentarily ponder whether the meaning is "this very day" so it's probably a better candidate for removal. You could probably remove "originally", since "was" is past tense and a product is normally launched only once. In Wikipedia articles, we're supposed to avoid vague references to "now" ("... and as of 2009 is still in production").

Problem D
The coastal region is an exception and it enjoys a flourishing tourist industry.

Hint
There is an opportunity for an ellipsis here.

Solution
The coastal region is an exception and it enjoys a flourishing tourist industry.

Explanation

Ellipsis can involve, as here, the omission of one word or more that the reader will easily understand anyway. Here, the use of the pronoun "it" avoided the repetition of the full "the coastal region". This is better, but not as neat as it could be: even the pronoun is unnecessary. "The coastal region" is understood easily as the subject of both claims (In cumbersome fullness: "The coastal region is an exception and the coastal region enjoys a flourishing tourist industry.")

Problem E
Longer tonicisations may also include other secondary chords.

Solution
Longer tonicisations may also include other secondary chords.

Explanations
*Even without the larger context, it's obvious that "also" is idle here; "other" is quite sufficient for the sense. "Also", an additive connector, is almost always redundant.

Problem F
This involves the provision of a reference section, complemented by inline citations for quotations and any material that is likely to be challenged.

Hint
Well, the word at issue may have meaning in special circumstances, but in many larger contexts it is lazily inserted where it adds nothing.

Solution
This involves the provision of a reference section, complemented by inline citations for quotations and any material that is likely to be challenged.

Explanation
"Any" adds the sense that there will not be much material, if any, of this type. Without "any", the reader will sense that material that is likely to be challenged is not uncommon in Wikipedia's articles. It may be difficult to decide, and not always worth worrying over.

Problem G
Cystic fibrosis is a common hereditary genetic disorder that affects many different parts of the body.

Hint
Similar parts?

Solution
Cystic fibrosis is a common hereditary genetic disorder that affects many different parts of the body.

Explanation
"Many" is sufficient for the sense; the reader will assume that "parts of the body" are different unless you state otherwise. As often, trying the opposite test reveals the wastage.

Problem H
This relationship had already existed before Adobe purchased the company.

Hint
Timing.

Solution
This relationship had already existed before Adobe purchased the company.

Explanation
The past tense in "existed" does the work of "had already".

Problem I
Although Ottawa is one of the Ojibwe dialects that has undergone the most linguistic change, it is still mutually intelligible with other dialects.

Hint
The errant word could be explained either as (1) a double-up with another word that indicates the logical relationship before and after the comma, or (2) an unnecessary "timing" word.

Solution
Although Ottawa is one of the Ojibwe dialects that has undergone the most linguistic change, it is still mutually intelligible with other dialects.

Explanation
"Still" is unnecessary whether it means (a) right up to this day (in which case it should be "as of [year]"), or (b) all the same, despite the high degree of change (in which case, "although" has already done the job).

How did you go in those two sets of exercises? Remember that you're trying to train your eyes and mind to be like a radar, asking whether removing each individual word will change the meaning. With practice, this will become automatic.

Redundancy renovations (1)

Replacement wording may be required, but just do it in your head—no typing please!

Problem A
These findings posed a great number of problems.

Hint
Why use four words when one will do?

Solution
These findings posed a great number of many problems.

Problem B
Recent analyses of available historical records show why the European settlement of Greenland failed.

Hint
Try the "opposite" test.

Solution
Recent analyses of available historical records show why the European settlement of Greenland failed.

Explanation
"Unavailable historical records"? However, if the larger context is that only some of the historical records are available (i.e., "we know there are others, but can't locate or access them"), it may not be redundant to use the word.

Problem C
After the punch-up at the grand final, the NCAA took measures to prevent major brawls from happening again.

Hint
The expression of timing has doubled up.

Solution
After the punch-up at the grand final, the NCAA took measures to prevent major brawls from happening again.

Explanation
Try the opposite as a thought experiment: would the NCAA try to prevent brawls in the past?

Problem D
In the year of 1988, there were renewed efforts to boost the government's popularity.

Solution
In the year of 1988, there were renewed efforts to boost the government's popularity.

Explanation
1988 is a year; your readers don't need to be told.

Problem E
These aspects serve to distort some of the elements of the architecture, such as structure and envelope.

Hint
Think of sets and subsets.

Solution
These aspects serve to distort some of the elements of the architecture, such as structure and envelope.

Explanations

*Serve whom? The more direct wording loses little or no meaning. Both "some" and "such as" are subset terms; you don't need both. There's a temptation to use "some" to convey the sense of "not all" elements of a set. But there's no need, because if you did mean "all of the elements", you'd write it explicitly. Thus, "some", as usual, is redundant: just writing "elements" (the plural of "an element") means "more than one element, but not all of them".

Redundancy renovations (2)

Problem A
As a result of making such decisions, poker players are able to maximise their odds and win more money.

Hint
There's a possible grammatical change at the start that would yield neater, shorter wording. A second change would remove an unnecessary emphasis on ability in favour of what actually happens.

Solution
As a result of By making such decisions, poker players are able to maximise their odds and win more money.

Explanation
It might just be that the larger context concerns players' ability, or the challenges they must overcome to make money, and that you might want to retain that nuance ("are able to"); but that would be unusual.

Problem B
More than 300 million Led Zeppelin albums have been sold worldwide, including 109.5 million sales in the US alone.

Hints
*Two words are very similar. Another improvement could be made by removing a word that is probably an unnecessary amplification.

Solution
More than 300 million Led Zeppelin albums have been sold worldwide, including 109.5 million sales in the US alone.

Explanations
*"Sold" doesn't need to be reinforced here by "sales"; this is an "ellipsis", where Led Zeppelin album sales is assumed, because we've just read "300 million Led Zeppelin albums have been sold". "In the US" is already contrasted with "worldwide"; adding "alone" seems unnecessary.

Problem C
Apart from the poets mentioned in the Kavirajamarga, later Kannada writers have referred to three poets as being eminent among their predecessors.

Hint
There's an ellipsis opportunity and an unnecessary verb.

Solution
Apart from the poets mentioned in the Kavirajamarga, later Kannada writers have referred to three poets as being eminent among their predecessors.

Explanations
*The second occurrence of "poets" can be omitted as an ellipsis. "Being" is unnecessary; the grammar has now shifted to referring to something as X; this requires no verb be, since "as" does the job of equating.

Problem D
Due to problems with some of the more novel features of Bulleid's design, all members of the class were subsequently rebuilt by British Railways during the late 1950s, losing their air-smoothed casings in the process. A third of the class avoided the scrapper, and they can be seen on heritage railways throughout Great Britain.

Hint
Remove two separate words.

Solution
Due to problems with some of the more novel features of Bulleid's design, all members of the class were subsequently rebuilt by British Railways during the late 1950s, losing their air-smoothed casings in the process. A third of the class avoided the scrapper, and they can be seen on heritage railways throughout Great Britain.

Explanations
*""Subsequently" is redundant because the sequence of events is clear without it. In the process reiterates when they were rebuilt. Replacing losing with and lost would remove a comma. "They" can be removed and understood "silently" by the reader (ellipsis). "Some of" seems to be necessary here as a subset term.

Problem E
He contributed to research that led to the finding of a cure for malaria.

Hint
Too many links in the chain of meaning?

Solution
He contributed to research that led to the finding of a cure for malaria.

Further difficult exercises

These examples will require varying amounts of recasting in your head.

Problem A
The end of ship-building had an enduring effect throughout the existence of imperial China.

Hint
It's another time issue: "end", "enduring", "throughout", "existence".

Solution
The end of ship-building had an enduring effect throughout the existence of on imperial China.

Explanation
Your readers will assume that imperial China had an existence that spanned time, so there's no need to say that explicitly.

Problem B
The majority of critics gave the film negative reviews.

Hint
Try to replace three words with one.

Solution
The majority of Most critics gave the film negative reviews.

Explanation
*"The majority of" is unnecessarily precise here, unless you really want to emphasise "more than half". Yes, English does have the potential to be ugly.

Problem C
The territory's path of evolution has been a challenge for the government.

Hint
Two consecutive words could easily be removed.

Solution
The territory's path of evolution has been a challenge for the government.

Explanation
Evolution follows a path in any case, so "path" should not be specified. One reader suggested further shrinkage: "The territory's path of evolution has challenged the government." Exactly the right thinking, but always check that you haven't changed the meaning, which, here, may now have been made stronger than the writer intended.

Problem D
Sport is a compulsory activity for all students; teams usually have training two times a week.

Hint
Sport is an activity, isn't it. Remove two isolated words, and replace four consecutive words with one. (Six words could be removed, and two inserted.)

Solution
Sport is a compulsory activity for all students; teams usually have training two times train twice a week.

Explanations
*Sport is an activity, so there's no need to tell us that. "Have training" is a loose expression, analogous to "have classes"; in writing, something neater and simpler is required. Where possible, use one word for two ("twice" for "two times").

Problem E
During a complex history, four local communities have tried to become the capital over the years.

Hint
"History" says it already.

Solution
During a complex history, four local communities have tried to become the capital over the years.

Explanation
"Over the years" adds nothing to what we already know is a historical context.

The longest geographical name in the UK: I switch off after the first three syllables. Removing redundant words may stop your sentences from feeling like this.

Longer examples

Redundancy occurs not only because your intended meaning is already conveyed by other words in the sentence; the wider context you've established in the text can make wording redundant. Picking out redundant wording from longer windows of text brings us closer to the actual editing experience on Wikipedia.

At the end of each "problem", we tell you how many incidences of redundancy the text contains. See if you can mentally tick them off as you read through, before hitting the Show Hint button to reveal the general location of each redundancy.

Problem A

The eye of a storm is a region of mostly calm weather found at the centre of a tropical cyclone. Typically 30–65 km in diameter, the eye is surrounded by the eyewall, where the most severe weather of a cyclone occurs. A cyclone's lowest barometric pressure occurs in the eye, and can be as much as 15% below the atmospheric pressure outside of the storm. The distance between the centre of the eye and eyewall defines the radius of maximum wind for a tropical cyclone. [Five incidences of redundancy]'

Hint

The eye of a storm is a region of mostly calm weather found at the centre of a tropical cyclone. Typically 30–65 km in diameter, the eye is surrounded by the eyewall, where the most severe weather of a cyclone occurs. A cyclone's lowest barometric pressure occurs in the eye, and can be as much as 15% below the atmospheric pressure outside of the storm. The distance between the centre of the eye and eyewall defines the radius of maximum wind for a tropical cyclone.

Solution

The eye of a storm is a region of mostly calm weather found at the centre of a tropical cyclone. Typically 30–65 km in diameter, the eye is surrounded by the eyewall, where the most severe weather of a cyclone occurs. A cyclone's The lowest barometric pressure occurs in the eye, and can be as much as 15% below the atmospheric pressure outside of the storm. The distance between the centre of the eye and eyewall defines the radius of maximum wind for a tropical cyclone.

Explanations
*"Of a storm" and "of a cyclone" are readily recoverable from the wider context; "a cyclone's" can go for the same reason. "Found" is like "situated": fluff. We just don't need to visualise the meteorologist staring at the radar monitor "finding" the eye of the storm. "Outside of" is a lapse into looseness; the "of" should be binned even in speech.

Problem B

Coronation Street is Britain's longest-running television soap opera, first broadcast on Friday 9 December 1960 in the Granada region of ITV. The program has consistently been the most highly rated program on British television. Since its launch, Coronation Street has been broadcast in many countries worldwide, including Canada, Australia, Belgium and Holland, and has also been translated into five languages. Its storylines have covered diverse topics and themes, including death, marriage, divorce and murder. [Five incidences of redundancy]

Hint

Coronation Street is Britain's longest-running television soap opera, first broadcast on Friday 9 December 1960 in the Granada region of ITV. The program has consistently been the most highly rated program on British television. Since its launch, Coronation Street has been broadcast in many countries worldwide, including Canada, Australia, Belgium and Holland, and has also been translated into five languages. Its storylines have covered diverse topics and themes, including death, marriage, divorce and murder.

Solution

Coronation Street is Britain's longest-running television soap opera, first broadcast on Friday 9 December 1960 in the Granada region of ITV. The program has consistently been the most highly rated program on British television. Since its launch, Coronation Street has been broadcast in many countries worldwide, including Canada, Australia, Belgium and Holland, and has also been translated into five languages. Its storylines have covered diverse topics and themes, including death, marriage, divorce and murder.

Explanations

*The second "program" can be removed through ellipsis. "Since its launch" is logically assumed. "Worldwide" doesn't say much after "In many countries"; it implies that these countries are widely spread around the world, but this is obvious from the subsequent list. "Also", as usual, is idle. "Topics" is logically assumed from the context; the list is of themes, not topics, so the sentence is improved by the removal.

Problem C

After a recommendation from Dutch admirals saying that the Koninklijke Marine should be bolstered, the Minister of Defence ordered the Navy to prepare designs for a battlecruiser class. A preliminary plan by Dutch designers was completed in July 1939, but as they had never designed any sort of modern capital ship (the battleships of 1913 having been of foreign design), the plans did not reflect any of the advances in warship design that had come about after the First World War; in particular, the armour protection was totally outmoded. [Four incidences of redundancy]

Hint

After a recommendation from Dutch admirals saying that the Koninklijke Marine should be bolstered, the Minister of Defence ordered the Navy to prepare designs for a battlecruiser class. A preliminary plan by Dutch designers was completed in July 1939, but as they had never designed any sort of modern capital ship (the battleships of 1913 having been of foreign design), the plans did not reflect any of the advances in warship design that had come about after the First World War; in particular, the armour protection was totally outmoded.

Solution

After a recommendation from Dutch admirals saying that the Koninklijke Marine should be bolstered, the Minister of Defence ordered the Navy to prepare designs for a battlecruiser class. A preliminary plan by Dutch designers was completed in July 1939, but as they had never designed any sort of a modern capital ship (the battleships of 1913 having been of foreign design), the plans did not reflect any of the advances in warship design that had come about after the First World War; in particular, the armour protection was totally outmoded.

See also

• The Cut the clutter list – a useful list of fluffy groups and phrases. I haven't checked out the rest of their site, which is affiliated with The New York Times, a good sign. Beware its potential as a commercial hook to funnel you towards pay-sites.
• Jprof, for teaching journalism – looks ok, but remember that journalism is quite a different register from that required in Wikipedia articles and research text. Again, it's a teaser to draw you into forking out money.
• David McMurray's examples – front page worth reading through.
• Oh, how flattering – here's a google-powered site that links to this Wikipedia page; the "Word doc" just below that link is worth downloading.
• Writing concise sentences – another list of flabby-turned-concise examples.

Discussion

Any questions or would you like to take the test?

User:OrenBochman/Concsise and to the point/Test

Numbers*

Numbers as figures or words*

In the body of an article, generally spell out single-digit whole numbers from zero to nine; write those greater than nine as numerals, but spelling them out is acceptable if they are expressed in one or two words (16 or sixteen, 84 or eighty-four, 200 or two hundred, but 3.75, 544, 21 million). This also applies to ordinal numbers (16th or sixteenth). Exceptions:

• Limited space. Use numerals in tables, infoboxes, and other places where space is limited, but numbers in a table's explanatory text and comments should be consistent with the rules above.
• Comparable quantities. 5 cats and 32 dogs or five cats and thirty‑two dogs, not five cats and 32 dogs.
• Adjacent quantities that are not comparable. thirty-six 6.4-inch rifles, not 36 6.4-inch rifles.
• Sentence openings. Spell out the number or recast the sentence.
• Centuries. the 5th century CE; 12th-century manuscript.
• Simple fractions. Normally spell them out; use the fraction form if they occur in a percentage or with an abbreviated unit (⅛ mm or an eighth of a millimeter), or if they are mixed with whole numbers. Decimal fractions are never spelled out.
• Mathematical quantities, measurements, stock prices. Normally state them in numerals.
• Proper names, idioms, formal numerical designations. Comply with common usage (Chanel No. 5, 4 Main Street, 1-Naphthylamine, Fourth Amendment, Seventeenth Judicial District, Seven Years' War).

Large numbers*

• Decimal separators. Use commas to break the sequence every three places: 2,900,000.
• Default approximation. Large rounded numbers are generally assumed to be approximations: the population is 2 million, not the population is approximately 2 million; qualify only where the approximation could be misleading. By contrast, 2,000,000 is assumed to be exact.
• Over-precise values. Avoid where they are unlikely to be stable or accurate, or where the precision is unnecessary in the context. The speed of light in a vacuum is 299,792,458 metres per second is often appropriate, but The distance from the earth to the sun is 149,014,769 kilometres and The population of Cape Town is 2,968,790 would usually not be, because both values are unstable at that level of precision, and readers are unlikely to care in the context.
• Scientific notation. Preferred in scientific contexts (6.02 × 10²³).
• Abbreviation for million. Where values in the millions occur a number of times through an article, upper-case M may be used, unspaced, but spell it out on first occurrence.
• Billion. A thousand million (10⁹). After the first occurrence in an article, it can be abbreviated to unspaced bn ($35bn).* *

Decimal points*

• Not a comma. 6.57, not 6,57.
• Consistency. Make the number of decimal places consistent within a list or context (41.0 and 47.4 percent, not 41 and 47.4 percent), unless the items were measured with unequal precision (unusual).
• Leading zero. (0.02, not .02); exceptions are performance averages in sports where a leading zero isn't commonly used, and common usage such as .22-caliber.

Percentages*

• Word or symbol. Percent or per cent are commonly used to indicate percentages in running prose; % is more common in scientific or technical articles, and in listings, and should be used in tables and infoboxes.
• Spacing. 71%, not 71 %.
• Repetition. Normally 22–28%, not 22%–28%.
• Change of rates. Use percentage points, not percentages, to express a change in a percentage or the difference between two percentages; for example, The agent raised the commission by five percentage points, from 10 to 15% (if the 10% commission had instead been raised by 5%, the new rate would have been 10.5%). A basis point is a hundredth of a percentage point.

Units of measurement*

General

• Conversions. When different parts of the English-speaking world use different units for the same measurement, use a "primary" unit in the text followed by a conversion in parentheses: the Mississippi River is Template:Convert long; the Murray River is Template:Convert long. Use the following rules to decide what the primary unit is:
• Default primary units: SI. Generally use SI and associated units (sometimes loosely called "metric units"). However, in topics strongly associated with places, times or people, make the units most appropriate to them primary. In particular:
  • US-related articles. Normally use United States customary units.
  • UK-related articles. Use either SI (generally preferred) or imperial units as primary. [Unstable guideline.]
• Consistency. Choose primary and converted units consistently in an article unless there is a good reason to diverge from this. (For example, UK-related articles in which SI units are primary may use imperial primary units for items where metric units have not yet been adopted in the UK.)
• Exceptions to the need to convert:
  • Scientific articles. Conversions to customary or imperial units may be dispensed with if there is consensus to do so; in these cases, spell out or link the first occurrence of each unit.
  • Idiom. In some cases, inserting a conversion would be awkward (the four-minute mile).
• Symbols or words? In the main text, give the primary units as words and use unit symbols or abbreviations for conversions: 100 millimetres (4 in) or 4 inches (100 mm). However, where there is consensus, abbreviate the main units too, but name them fully on their first occurrence.
• Levels of precision. Converted values should use a level of precision similar to that of the source value, so the Moon is 380,000 kilometres (240,000 mi) from Earth, not (236,121 mi). Convert small numbers to a higher level of precision where rounding would cause a significant distortion, so one mile (1.6 km), not one mile (2 km).
• Be precise if possible. Not Wallabies are small, but The average male wallaby is 1.6 metres (63 in) from head to tail.; not Prochlorococcus marinus is a tiny cyanobacterium., but The cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus marinus is 0.5–0.8 micrometres across.*
• Direct quotations. Put Wikipedia's conversions for units within square brackets.
• Clarify ambiguous units.* In a few cases, different units share the same name. Specify:
  • US gallon or imperial gallon, rather than just gallon.
  • nautical mile or statute mile, rather than mile in nautical and aeronautical contexts.
  • long ton or short ton, rather than just ton (the metric unit—the tonne—is also known as metric ton).
• Spelling. American English uses -er endings for metric units: liter, kilometer; all other varieties, including Canadian, use -re: litre, kilometre.
• Conversion templates. These templates—including start-convert-end, which inserts a non-breaking space—can be used to convert and format many common units.

Unit symbols and abbreviations*

• No dots. Standard abbreviations and symbols for units are undotted (m, not m. for metre/meter; ft, not ft. or ′ for foot).
• Plurals. Don't append an s for the plurals of unit symbols: kg, not kgs.
• Hard spaces. Always insert ( ) between numeric values and unit symbols (25&nbsp;kg, not 25kg). Exceptions: the symbols for percent (25%) and for degrees, minutes and seconds of plane angle (5° 24′ 21.12″ N, and a 90° angle).
• Hyphens. When values and spelled-out units form a compound adjective, hyphenate them: 10-kilometer beach, but 10 km beach.
• Ranges. Preferably 5.9–6.3 kg, not 5.9 kg – 6.3 kg).* *
• Temperatures. Always accompanied by °C for degrees Celsius, °F for degrees Fahrenheit, or K (never °K) for kelvin. Insert a hard-space ( ) between value and temperature symbol: 35 °C, 62 °F, and 5,000 K.
• Degree symbol. ° (&deg;), not º or ˚.*
• Squared and cubic units. Metric: use a superscript exponent (5 km², 2 cm³). Imperial and US: 15 sq mi, 3 cu ft. Use <sup>2</sup> and <sup>3</sup> to produce the superscripts ² and ³; don't use the Unicode ² and ³.
• Limited space. In tables and infoboxes, use symbols and abbreviations, not words.
• Familiar versus technical. Use generally familiar units unless the article is highly technical and the sources use specialized units. For specialized situations, see MOSNUM

Currencies*

• Country-specific articles. Use the currency of the country; e.g., Economy of Australia.
• Non-country-specific articles. Use US dollars; e.g., Economics.
• Full or short form? Use the full name on its first appearance (52 Australian dollars), and thereafter the symbol (just $88), or the full abbreviation (AU$) if necessary to distinguish from other currencies that use the same symbol. The exception to this is in articles related entirely to US-, UK- or Eurozone-related topics, in which the first occurrence may be shortened ($34, £22 and €26) if clear.
• Shortage of space. Use the short forms in tables, infoboxes and parenthetical notes.
• Order of elements Don't invert (123$, 123£, 123€), unless a symbol is normally written as such. Don't write $US123 or $123 (US).
• Spacing. Currency abbreviations that come before the number are unspaced if they consist of or end in a symbol (£123), and spaced if alphabetic (R 75).
• Default to ISO. If there is no common English abbreviation or symbol, use the ISO 4217 standard.
• Ranges. Preferably format with one rather than two currency signifiers ($250–300, not $250–$300).
• Conversions. Less familiar currencies may be converted to more familiar currencies in parentheses after the original currency, rounding to avoid false precision and noting the conversion as approximate, with at least the year given; e.g., Since 2001 the grant has been 10,000,000 Swedish kronor (about US$1.4M Template:As of).
• Obsolete currencies. If possible, provide a conversion in the modern replacement currency (e.g., decimal pounds for historical pre-decimal pounds-and-shillings figures), or at least a US-dollar equivalent where there is no modern equivalent.
• Linking. If possible, link the first occurrence of lesser-known currencies (146 Mongolian tögrögs).
• Lower case. Don't force capital letters on the names of currencies, currency subdivisions, coins and banknotes.
• Pound sterling. The symbol is £, with one horizontal bar. For non-British currencies that use a pound symbol, use the conventional symbol for that currency.

Common mathematical symbols* *

• Minus sign. For a negative sign or subtraction operator, use a minus sign (−) by clicking on the edit tool under the edit window or by typing − (don't use a hyphen (-) unless writing code).
• Multiplication sign. Between numbers, use ×, input by clicking on it in the edit toolbox under the edit window, or by typing ×. Don't use an w:asterisk (*) unless writing code). Don't use the letter "ex" (x, although this is acceptable as a substitute for by in such terms as 4x4.
• Spacing. Symbols for w:binary operators and relations are spaced on both sides: + − ± × ÷ = ≠ ≈ < ≤ > ≥
• Exponential notation. aⁿ (typed as a<sup>n</sup>), not a^n. Don't use E notation.

Discussion

If you have any questions, ask them now! Or would you like to take the test?

User:OrenBochman/Numbers/Test

Lets start by reviewing what the the MoS has to say on linking!

Links* *

Wikilinks* * * *

• Make links only where they are relevant to the context. It is not useful and can be very distracting to mark all possible words as hyperlinks. Links should add to the user's experience; they should not detract from it by making the article harder to read. A high density of links can draw attention away from the high-value links that you would like your readers to follow up. Redundant links clutter the page and make future maintenance harder. However, ensure that the high-value links are provided.
• Adjacent links. Avoid where possible (often one will "chain-link" to the other, anyway).
• Be specific where possible. Link to a target page section using the pound (hash) sign where it is more focused ([[Guitar#Types]], usually piped for ease of reading thus: [[Guitar#Types|Types of guitar]]).
• Piped links. Linking can be either direct ([[History of Johannesburg]]) or piped for the linguistic context ([[History of Johannesburg|Johannesburg's rich history]], displayed as Johannesburg's rich history).
• Check the target. Ensure the destination is the intended article and not a disambiguation page.
• Initial capitalization. The first letter should be capitalized only where this is normally called for, or when specifically referring to the linked article by name: Cane toads are poisonous, but lizards are typically not (see Venom).

External links* *

• Placement. Articles can include an external links section at the end to list links to websites outside Wikipedia that contain further information, as distinct from citing sources. External links are not normally used in the body of an article.
• Rationing. Avoid listing an excessive number of external links; Wikipedia is not a link repository.
• Formatting. The standard format is a primary heading === External links === followed by a bulleted list of links. External links should identify the link and briefly indicate its relevance to the article subject. For example:
  

*[http://history.nih.gov/exhibits/history/index.html History of NIH]
*[http://www.nih.gov/ National Institutes of Health homepage]

The first gap triggers the boundary between link and pipe, so these will appear as:

• History of NIH
  
• National Institutes of Health homepage

Build your linking skills

High-quality linking is a skill like writing. Skilled wikilinking is central to achieving good articles on Wikipedia. It is only over the past few years that we have begun to realise the potential for refining wikilinking—how sophisticated decision-making is required to achieve a high standard of linking: what to link, what not to link, how and when to research more focused links, and how to integrate links smoothly into the text. In this respect, linking deserves attention just as does the prose in our articles. Please keep in mind two things:

• your readers rely on you to guide them towards the best links;
• it is highly likely that readers click on links much less than we think they do, especially if there is dense linking.

Overlinking. Generally, there has been an increasing realisation that overlinking damages the linking system through dilution of high-value links in the vicinity, and that sprinkling low-value links through a text degrades its professional appearance and undermines readers' confidence that links will take them somewhere relevant. Thus, there is a trade-off in linking, in which increased utility needs to be balanced against the disadvantages of diluting other links in the vicinity and of crowding the text with blue. While few editors would disagree that certain items should not be linked, and certain items should be linked, there is a grey area in the middle in which the decision to link or not link is an art rather than a laid-down, universally accepted decision.

Underlinking. We believe this is less of an issue than overlinking; it is nevertheless important to provide readers with links to target articles (or article-sections) that are likely to be focused, relevant and useful. This is particularly the case in highly technical topics, and topics that naturally refer to many closely related items, such as songs, albums, bands, artists and styles in popular music articles.

Four key tests. Applying these tests will help you to make decisions about linking:

• Relevance: Is the link-target sufficiently relevant and useful to link? (See WP:LINK.)
• Specificity: Does the link lead to the most focused appropriate target? (Search for daughter articles and sections at the proposed target article.)
• Uniqueness: Is the linked topic reachable—directly or indirectly—through another link in the vicinity? (If so, consider not linking.)
• WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get): Is the link-target clear and obvious to the reader?

The exercises: unfolding design. Each exercise below will present you with a portion of text in which you can improve the linking. They are designed to be done in your head, without typing. Each one unfolds in stages that you control: first, the problem text, then a hint to help you along; then a solution; and finally an explanation. The underlying syntax is provided in coloured text where necessary. Where an item has been linked or unlinked in a solution, it is underlined to show this. The examples are taken from existing Wikipedia articles, from which reference numbers have been removed to avoid clutter.

Pace yourself. Before attempting these exercises, we recommend acquaintance with WP:LINK, the style guide that contains advice about linking, internal and external. Feedback on how to improve the exercises is welcome on the talk page. You'll get the most out of the exercises by thinking carefully about each stage before clicking on the next one. These tasks are concentrated, so expect to stop when you've had enough, and plan to return to take up where you left off. "Distributed" practice (that is, spaced over time) will have a more powerful effect than attempting all of the exercises at once ("massed" practice). Monitor your performance for fatigue.

Part I

Andy Warhol

The problem text
In 1979, Warhol was commissioned by BMW to paint a Group 4 Race Version of the elite supercar BMW M1 for the fourth installment in the BMW Art Car Project.

Hint
There's "chain linking" here: click on one (or two) of the links and you'll arrive at an article that in turn links to one of the others. Better to give the readers just one option, usually the narrower in scope.

A solution
In 1979, Warhol was commissioned by BMW to paint a Group 4 Race Version of the elite supercar BMW M1 for the fourth installment in the BMW Art Car Project.

Explanation
Click on either BMW M1 or BMW Art Car Project and you'll immediately find a chain link to BMW. Even if the reader chooses not to follow the second link in the chain, the two specific links provide an explanation of what BMW is: a prestige German car manufacturer.

City of Manchester Stadium

The problem text
Entry is gained by RFID smart card. Entry is gained by [[:en:radio-frequency identification|RFID]] smart card. (Underlying syntax)

The issue
A cryptic pipe. Piping should not require readers to hit the link to learn what the item means.

A solution
Entry is gained by radio-frequency identification (RFID) smart card. Entry is gained by [[:en:radio-frequency identification|radio-frequency identification (RFID)]] smart card.

Explanations
Or if there's a lot of linking in the vicinity, minimise the blue: Entry is gained by radio-frequency identification (RFID) smart card. Entry is gained by radio-frequency identification [[:en:radio-frequency identification|(RFID)]] smart card.

Lisa the Vegetarian

The problem text
The episode features several references to the Beatles and McCartney's solo career. The episode features several references to the Beatles and McCartney's [[:en:Paul McCartney (solo)|solo career]].

Hint
Is there an easy way to make the pipe more explicit?

A solution
*The episode features several references to the Beatles and McCartney's solo career. Underlying syntax: The episode features several references to the Beatles and [[:en:Paul McCartney (solo)|McCartney's solo career]].

Comment
Now it's clear that the link goes to a page on McCartney's solo career, and not to a page on solo career in terms of the Beatles all.

Fatboy Slim

The problem text
Cook then formed Freak Power with horn player Ashley Slater and singer Jesse Graham. They released their debut album Drive thru booty in 1994, which contained the single "Turn on, tune in, cop out". The cut was picked up by the Levi's company for use in a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign. In 1996, Cook re-joined Freak Power for the second album More of everything for everybody.

Hint
This is a mixed bag: there's serious underlinking and there's irritating overlinking. You may have to type a few items into the search box to determine whether there's an article on them.

A solution
Cook then formed Freak Power with horn player Ashley Slater and singer Jesse Graham. They released their debut album Drive thru booty in 1994, which contained the single "Turn on, tune in, cop out". The cut was picked up by the Levi's company for use in a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign. In 1996, Cook re-joined Freak Power for the second album More of everything for everybody.

Explanation

So you searched for and found articles on "Freak Power", "Ashley Slater", and the song "Turn on, tune in, cop out" (great title!). These need to be linked. Underlinking. And you searched for and did not find articles on "Jesse Graham", "Drive thru booty", and "More of everything for everybody". You can go ahead and link these items to create "red links" for them; this may encourage an editor to subsequently create real articles on those topics, but has the disadvantage of looking cruddy in the text. Certainly to be avoided near the top, or go create a stub to turn red to blue. Overlinking. The link for "advertising" needs to be shot down on sight: your readers are expected to speak English, and the term is not technically important or that target article helpful for understanding this topic of Fatboy Slim. Shift the blue to guide your readers towards the valuable targets. More elegant option? Just one thing I noticed by going to Levi's: the real name of the article to which this redirects is Levi Strauss & Co. so you might consider whether this is more elegant than "the Levi's company". Up to you.

Carabane

The problem text
The Jola are very distinct from other major ethnic groups in Senegal by their language, egalitarian society, freedom from political hierarchy, and lack of slavery.

Hint
One of these links is piped so the readers know it's a specific target; the other is not.

A solution
The Jola are very distinct from other major ethnic groups in Senegal by their language, egalitarian society, freedom from political hierarchy, and lack of slavery.

Explanation
Moving "their" into the pipe signals that the link is not just to a dictionary term, but a specific article apposite to the topic.

Link tip. Red links can turn blue (when an article is started); blue links can turn red (when a target article is deleted); the wording of target section-titles can be changed without editors' realising the effect this may have on links that are anchored to it. Link maintenance is an important part of keeping our article standards high.

Among the most valuable editorial work performed by WPians is referred to as "gnoming"—useful incremental edits behind the scenes, tying up loose ends and making articles read more smoothly. We would be delighted if more people considered doing a little link-gnoming. It can be very satisfying to choose a category of articles you like and to work through them systematically. Gnoming can involve (1) clicking on some or most of the links to check that they're optimal; (2) looking out for over- and underlinking; and (3) applying the WYSIWYG test to pipes.

Part II

Greengage

Link to article

The problem text

Soon after, Greengages were cultivated in the American colonies, and were even grown on the plantations of American presidents George Washington (1732–99) and Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826). However, the cultivation of greengages in North America has declined significantly since the 18th century. Soon after, Greengages were cultivated in the [[:en:Colonial America|American colonies]], and were even grown on the plantations of [[:en:President of the United States|American presidents]] [[:en:George Washington|George Washington]] (1732–99) and [[:en:Thomas Jefferson|Thomas Jefferson]] (1743–1826). However, the [[:en:cultivation|cultivation]] of greengages in [[:en:North America|North America]] has declined significantly since the [[:en:eighteenth century|18th century]].

The issues
Overlinking: check the relevance, focus and utility of each link, the guideline on chronological items, and one or two rules at WP:LINK about the locating of links in the text.

Partial hint
Apart from overlinking, there's the "don't jam links together" rule and the "link the first occurrence" rule.

A solution
Probably none of the links is justified. Was that your conclusion? Soon after, Greengages were cultivated in the American colonies, and were even grown on the plantations of American presidents George Washington (1732–99) and Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826). However, the cultivation of greengages in North America has declined significantly since the 18th century.

Explanations

*"Cultivated/ation" is a common word, and should not be linked. If it were going to be linked, the first rather than the second occurrence would be correct. Relevance test: The articles "American presidents", "Washington" and "Jefferson" are almost certainly irrelevant to this vegetable. If there's a section in either article about one of the president's passion for gardening, and it adds to readers' understanding, perhaps a section-link might be appropriate. However, a link in the other direction might be more appropriate (Greengage within the "Jefferson" article). "Adjacency: American presidents" and "George Washington" are jammed up against each other. Well-known geographical term: "North America" is a well-known geographical entity, and WP:LINK says they should not normally be linked. "American colonies" (piped from "Colonial America") is a well-known entity; perhaps there is a more focused section there on domestic agriculture, although it's unlikely. Chronological item: "18th century" is a chronological item—a huge one at that—and should not normally be linked.

Donnchadh, Earl of Carrick

Link to article

The problem text
As a result of his father's conflict with Uhtred and the Scottish king William the Lion, Donnchadh became a hostage of King Henry II of England. As a result of his father's conflict with Uhtred and the Scottish king [[:en:William I of Scotland|William the Lion]], Donnchadh became a hostage of King [[:en:Henry II of England|Henry II of England]].

Hint
There's something awkward about one of these links; read the sentence aloud and think of the titles.

A solution
As a result of his father's conflict with Uhtred and the Scottish king William the Lion, Donnchadh became a hostage of King Henry II of England. As a result of his father's conflict with Uhtred and the Scottish king [[:en:William I of Scotland|William the Lion]], Donnchadh became a hostage of [[:en:Henry II of England|King Henry II of England]].

Explanation
The generic "king", with a small k, is not part of the first compound title that is linked (as though, "the Scottish king, William the Lion"); but "King", with upper-case K, is part of the title "King Henry II of England": it is awkward to see part of the title black and part of it blue.

Voting age

Link to article

The problem text

A voting age is a minimum age established by law that a person must attain to be eligible to vote in a public election. The vast majority of countries in the world have established a voting age, with the implication that those of an age lower than the chosen threshold lack the necessary capacity to independently decide how to cast a vote. The voting age is sometimes considered to be of such importance that it is set by constitutional provision.

The issue
Overlinking. Ask yourself how relevant each link is to increasing the understanding of this topic by most readers. Editors may differ as to the final solution.

A solution

A voting age is a minimum age established by law that a person must attain to be eligible to vote in a public election. The vast majority of countries in the world have established a voting age, with the implication that those of an age lower than the chosen threshold lack the necessary capacity to independently decide how to cast a vote. The voting age is often of such importance that it is set by constitutional provision.

Explanations

*The relevance test: The first four of the five linked items should probably not be linked ("law", "vote", "public" and "election"). If there is doubt, check the destination articles, which are far too general to assist all but readers who need an English dictionary at their side. "Public" was the stand-out useless link. We allowed the fifth link, to "Constitution", because it is more technical and less likely to be commonly understood as a concept (i.e., statute versus constitution). Some editors may not have linked it. Adjacent links: "public election" ("[[:en:public|public]] [[:en:election|election]]"). Aside from the question of their relevance, the reader should not have to hover their cursor over this patch of blue to learn whether it is one or two links. WP:LINK says: "When possible, avoid placing links next to each other so that multiple links look like a single one,... Consider rephrasing the sentence, omitting one of the links, or using a more specific single link." However, we concede that sometimes it's very hard to avoid adjacency. Suffix: Note the use of adjectival syntax in [[constitution]]al; you can always see this displayed in the edit mode. Such abbreviated syntax is easier to write and edit than the full piped version ([[constitution|constitutional]]), and is preferred to piping.

Tasmania

Link to article

The problem text (both links are piped)
Through war, persecution and the introduction of infectious diseases to which they had no immunity, by 1833 the indigenous population dwindled to just 300.

The issue
Totally misleading pipes. You may need to click on the links to work out how to fix this. Fortunately, it's not yet a long sentence, so there's room for explanation.

A solution
Through the "Black War" between 19th-century European colonists and the indigenous people, the forced removal of those people beyond a "Black Line" drawn around European settlements and the introduction of infectious diseases to which they had no immunity, by 1833 the indigenous population had dwindled to just 300.

Explanations
This is a good example of the subtle interaction between wikilinking and prose. "War" and "persecution" are probably misleading, even in summary style. Readers should not have to hunt down the meaning by travelling to those "hidden" links. Now that these links are more explicit, readers are more likely to want to find out more by clicking on them.

World War I

Link to article

The problem text
More than 15 million people were killed, making it one of the deadliest conflicts in history. More than [[:en:World War I casualties|15 million people]] were killed, making it one of the [[:en:list of wars and disasters by death toll|deadliest conflicts]] in [[:en:history|history]].

The issues
(1) Unusual, "cryptic" pipe; (2) overlinking.

Hint
"15 million people"—is there a slightly better part of the sentence you could use as the pipe to World War I casualties?

A solution
More than 15 million people were killed, making it one of the deadliest conflicts in history. More than 15 million people [[:en:World War I casualties|were killed]], making it one of the [[:en:list of wars and disasters by death toll|deadliest conflicts]] in history.

Template:Quote box2

Part III—Let's look at popular entertainers

John Denver

The problem text

Denver became outspoken in politics in the mid-1970s. In 1976, he campaigned for the election of Jimmy Carter, who became a close friend and ally. Denver was a supporter of the Democratic Party, and a number of charitable causes for the environment, the homeless, the poor, the hungry, and the African AIDS crisis. He founded the charitable Windstar Foundation in 1976 to promote sustainable living. His dismay at the Chernobyl disaster led to precedent-setting concerts in parts of communist Asia and Europe. Denver became outspoken in politics in the mid-1970s. In 1976, he campaigned for the election of Jimmy Carter, who became a close friend and ally. Denver was a supporter of the [[:en:Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]], and a number of [[:en:Charitable cause|charitable]] causes for the [[:en:Environmentalism|environment]], the [[:en:homelessness|homeless]], the [[:en:poverty|poor]], the hungry, and the [[:en:HIV/AIDS in Africa|African AIDS crisis]]. He founded the charitable [[:en:Windstar Foundation|Windstar Foundation]] in 1976 to promote [[:en:sustainable living|sustainable living]]. His dismay at the [[:en:Chernobyl disaster|Chernobyl disaster]] led to precedent-setting concerts in parts of [[:en:communism|communist]] [[:en:Asia|Asia]] and [[:en:Europe|Europe]].

The issues
(1) The linking of common words; (2) a misleading pipe-link; (3) underlinking.

A solution

Denver became outspoken in politics in the mid-1970s. In 1976, he campaigned for the election of Jimmy Carter, who became a close friend and ally. Denver was a supporter of the Democratic Party, and a number of charitable causes for the environment, the homeless, the poor, the hungry, and the African AIDS crisis. He founded the charitable Windstar Foundation in 1976 to promote sustainable living. His dismay at the Chernobyl disaster led to precedent-setting concerts in parts of communist Asia and Europe. Denver became outspoken in politics in the mid-1970s. In 1976, he campaigned for the election of [[:en:Jimmy Carter|Jimmy Carter]], who became a close friend and ally. Denver was a supporter of the [[:en:Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]], and a number of charitable causes for the environment, the homeless, the poor, the hungry, and the [[:en:HIV/AIDS in Africa|African AIDS crisis]]. He founded the charitable [[:en:Windstar Foundation|Windstar Foundation]] in 1976 to promote [[:en:sustainable living|sustainable living]]. His dismay at the [[:en:Chernobyl disaster|Chernobyl disaster]] led to precedent-setting concerts in parts of communist Asia and Europe.

Explanation

*"Jimmy Carter", the 1976 presidential candidate, probably needs to be linked, the more so because some readers will not be aware of his prominent role in US public life at the time. Trivial dictionary-type links that drown out the important ones are "charitable", "environment", "homeless", "poor", probably "communist", and certainly the common geographical terms "Asia" and "Europe". The other items seem well-judged as links.

Janis Joplin

The problem text
During this period, she used other intoxicants and was a heavy drinker throughout her career; her trademark beverage was Southern Comfort. During this period, she used other [[:en:psychoactive drug|intoxicants]] and was a [[:en:alcoholism|heavy drinker]] throughout her career; her trademark beverage was [[:en:Southern Comfort|Southern Comfort]].

The issues
(1) Presumptuous piping (a serious matter of accuracy); (2) possibly common-enough terms not to require linking.

Hint
Is any information lost or introduced by the pipes? If so, this should be thought about carefully.

A solution
During this period, she used other psychoactive drugs and was a heavy drinker throughout her career; her trademark beverage was Southern Comfort.

Explanations

"Intoxicants" could be anything from magic mushrooms to cocaine; "psychoactive drugs", the link target, is more specific and should be explicit in the text. It is hardly an obscure term, so probably doesn't need linking here. Heavy drinking is not necessarily alcoholism; Wikipedia could conceivably be sued for libel for the confusion in this pipe. Do be careful: check the sources, and if she was an alcoholic through her heavy drinking, explain it, probably without linking. The link to "Southern Comfort" is probably necessary, even though it is clear from the context and the upper-case initials that it is a brand of alcoholic beverage. The target article does put the product into temporal context, and describes its taste and high alcohol content.

Bessie Smith

The problem text
Smith's career was cut short by a combination of the Great Depression and the advent of "talkies", which spelled the end for vaudeville. While the days of elaborate vaudeville shows were over, Smith continued touring and occasionally singing in clubs. In 1929, she appeared in a Broadway flop called Pansy, a musical in which, the top critics agreed, she was the only asset.

The issues
(1) Again, the close relationship between the prose and the linking is at issue (the word for one link needs to be changed); (2) underlinking; and (3) probably one case of overlinking.

A solution
Smith's career was cut short by a combination of the Great Depression and the advent of sound films, which spelled the end for vaudeville. While the days of elaborate vaudeville shows were over, Smith continued touring and occasionally singing in clubs. In 1929, she appeared in a Broadway flop called Pansy, a musical in which, the top critics agreed, she was the only asset.

Explanations

Clearer linking word. "Talkies" is possibly a little informal for this context, and many readers will need to hit the link to find out what it means, which is undesirable. In any case, Talkies redirects to "Sound film", which is a much easier term for readers to understand: it should be used instead, and you can drop the quotation marks, since it's an obvious reference. Underlinking. We chose to link Great Depression, although some editors may prefer not to, particularly in a densely linked passage. "Vaudeville" is a specific genre that is probably worth linking, unlike the well-known term "musical" (straight after the link to "Broadway theatre").

Whoopi Goldberg

The problem text

Goldberg performed the role of Califia, the radiant Queen of California, for a theater presentation called Golden Dreams at Disney's California Adventure, the second gate at the Disneyland Resort, in 2000. The show, which explains the history of the Golden State (California), opened on February 8, 2001. Goldberg performed the role of [[:en:Califia|Califia]], the radiant Queen of [[:en:Island of California|California]], for a theater presentation called ''[[:en:Golden Dreams|Golden Dreams]]'' at [[:en:Disney's California Adventure|Disney's California Adventure]], the second gate at the [[:en:Disneyland Resort|Disneyland Resort]], in 2000. The show, which explains the history of the [[:en:Golden State|Golden State]] ([[:en:California|California]]), opened on February 8, 2001.

The issues
What a mess. There are three issues: (1) one pair of links is "chained", and therefore only one of the pair needs to be linked; (2) there is one case of deceptive piping; (3) one link goes to a disambiguation page, which is bad practice.

A solution

Goldberg performed the role of Califia, the radiant Queen of the mythical Island of California, for a theater presentation called Golden Dreams at Disney's California Adventure, the second gate at the Disneyland Resort, in 2000. The show, which explains the history of California, "the Golden State", opened on February 8, 2001. Goldberg performed the role of [[:en:Califia|Califia]], the radiant Queen of the mythical [[:en:Island of California|Island of California]], for a theater presentation called ''[[:en:Golden Dreams|Golden Dreams]]'' at [[:en:Disney's California Adventure|Disney's California Adventure]], the second gate at the Disneyland Resort, in 2000. The show, which explains the history of California, "the Golden State", opened on February 8, 2001.

Explanations

Chained links. Disney's California Adventure, needless to say, links to its location, "Disneyland Resort" in its first sentence. One link is quite sufficient if a reader wants to divert to these articles. Deceptive piping. [[Island of California]] was reduced to a quite misleading pipe, [[:en:Island of California|California]]. By visiting the article, you'll see that it needs to be explained in the text here. Bad redirect. The Golden State goes to a whole group of articles, and the reader will have a hard time working out the intended one. In fact, there's no article specifically for this nickname of California, and the state is so well-known it is hardly worth the dilution. Don't link; instead, clarify the meaning in the text. Conclusion. The sentence looks visually tidier, the important links stand out more, and the confusion introduced by the links has been clarified.

Link tip. OK, here's the deal with popular culture articles: they typically need to link to the many items that refer to musical output (songs, tracks, albums), other musicians, and bands. It is therefore of great importance that common terms not be linked unless absolutely necessary, to avoid diluting these many valuable links. Unfortunately, articles on popular culture tend to indulge in the significant overlinking of trivial terms (I've seen "roses", "suicide", "divorce" and "high school" recently, which detracted from the useful links).

In popular culture articles, generally don't link these items:

• American/US/U.S.; British/English/UK; Canada/Canadian; Ireland/Irish; Australia(n); New Zealand(er); France, Germany, Italy, Europe, China, India, Asia, etc.
• New York (City); Los Angeles; London
• actor/actress; comedian; singer(-songwriter); writer/author; film producer; record producer; television producer (and specify which, please); entrepreneur; businessman
• guitar; bass guitar (don't abbreviate to "bass"); synthesizer; keyboard; drum (kit); percussion
• film; cinema; television; radio; CD; DVD; documentary; theater/re
• née (woman's surname before marriage); stage name; autobiography; divorce; libel; cancer; heart attack (or other common diseases)
• game show; talk show; host
• dates, decades, centuries
• heroin; drug addiction; alcoholism; rape; homosexual

Discussion

If you have any questions, ask them now! Or would you like to take the test?

User:OrenBochman/Linking Secrets/Test

Hyphens*

Hyphens (-) indicate conjunction. There are three main uses.*

1. To distinguish between homographs (to re-dress means to dress again, but to redress means to set right).
2. To link certain prefixes with their main word (non-Western, mid-year). NB There is a clear trend to join both elements, particularly in American English in all varieties of English (subsection, nonlinear). A hyphen is more likely when the adjacent letters are the same or are both vowels (non-negotiable, pre-industrial), or where a word is uncommon.
3. To link related terms in compound adjectives and adverbs: (face-to-face discussion, hand-fed turkeys).
   • Disambiguation. (little-celebrated paintings isn't a reference to little paintings).
   • Before versus after the noun. Many compound adjectives are hyphenated before the noun (a light-blue handbag), but not after (the handbag was light blue), but where it might be unclear, the hyphen may be used after the noun: the turkeys were hand-fed).
   • -ly adverbs. Normally don't use a hyphen after an -ly adverb (a wholly owned subsidiary).
   • Hanging hyphens. two- and three-digit numbers.
   • Units versus symbols. Hyphenate values and units used as compound adjectives only where the unit is given as a whole word: a 9-millimetre gap, but a 9 mm gap.
   • Multi-hyphenated items. Often you can avoid multi-word hyphenated adjectives by rewording, particularly where converted units are involved (the 12-hectare-limit (29.6-acre-limit) rule might be possible as the rule imposing a limit of 12 hectares (29.6 acres)).

• Spacing. Normally don't put a space before or after a hyphen, except when it's "hanging" (see above).
• Double hyphens. Don't use -- as a substitute for em or en dashes.*

En dashes*

En dashes (–) have three distinct roles.

1. To indicate disjunction, with several applications.
   • To convey the sense of to or through, particularly in ranges (pp. 211–19, 64–75%, the 1939–45 war, May–November) and where movement is involved (Dublin–Belfast route); but (−3 to 1, not −3–1). Spell out to when the nearby wording demands it: he served from 1939 to 1941, not he served from 1939–1941; similarly, between 1939 and 1941, not between 1939–1941.
   • To substitute for to or versus (4–3 win in the opening game, male–female ratio).
   • To substitute for and between independent elements (Canada–US border, blood–brain barrier, time–altitude graph, diode–transistor logic, Lincoln–Douglas debate; but a hyphen is used in Sino-Japanese trade, in which Sino-, being a prefix, lacks lexical independence.) If the elements operate in conjunction, rather than independently, use a hyphen.
   • To distinguish joint authors from a double-barreled (hyphenated) name: (the Smith–Hardy paper has two authors, but the Jones-Martinez paper has one.
2. In lists, to separate distinct information within points—for example, between track titles and durations, and between musicians and their instruments, in articles about music albums. In this role, en dashes are always spaced.
3. As a stylistic alternative to em dashes (see below).

• Spacing. All disjunctive en dashes (Category 1, above) are unspaced, except when there is a space within either one or both of the items: the New York – Sydney flight; the New Zealand – South Africa grand final; June 3, 1888 – August 18, 1940, but June–August 1940.
• Redirects. Article titles with dashes should have a corresponding redirect from the title with hyphens (W:Michelson-Morley experiment redirects to Michelson–Morley experiment). For technical reasons, en dashes are not used in image filenames.*

Em dashes*

Em dashes (—) indicate interruption in a sentence. They are used in two roles.

1. Parenthetical (WP—one of the most popular web sites—has the information you need). A pair of em dashes for such interpolations is more arresting than a pair of commas, and less disruptive than parentheses (round brackets).
2. As a sharp break in the flow of a sentence—sharper than is provided by a colon or a semicolon.

In both roles, em dashes are useful where there are already several commas; em dashes can clarify the structure, sometimes removing ambiguity. Use them sparingly—they are visually striking.

• Spacing. Em dashes should not be spaced.
• Regular alternative to em dashes. Spaced en dashes – such as here – can be used instead of unspaced em dashes. One style should be used consistently in an article.

Minus signs*

• No alternatives. Don't use an en dash (–) or hyphen (-) for a negative sign or subtraction operator; instead, use the Unicode character for the minus sign (−, keyed in as &minus;).

• Exception. In code, a hyphen may be used.

• Spacing. Negative signs (−8 °C) are unspaced; subtraction operators (42 − 4 = 38) are spaced.* *

Clearly, they haven't read Wikipedia's Manual of Style.

Hyphens and dashes are basic to stylish writing in English. Even if your readers aren't quite sure of the precise rules that govern their use, their reading will be easier and their comprehension aided by your systematic use of these punctuation marks. The Manual of Style clearly sets out how to use all three punctuation symbols: hyphens (-), en dashes (–) and em dashes (—). If these three symbols are hard to distinguish visually (- – —), you may need to change your font or browser to a standard one that renders them properly.

If you're unsure how to key in en and em dashes, please see this.

Here, we present texts in which hyphens and/or dashes may be either wrongly used or wrongly absent; in other words, some of the examples are wrong, and some are right. Remember, it's mostly a matter of:

• whether to use a symbol at all;
• if so, whether to use a hyphen or en dash; and in a few cases
• whether the symbol should be spaced or unspaced.

Em dashes are a quite separate beast, and much easier to use. Many writers don't use them at all; they use spaced en dashes – like this – instead of unspaced em dashes—like this—for their "interrupters". It's up to you.

The exercises: unfolding design. Each exercise below will present you with a portion of text in which you can correct the (mis)usage of hyphens and dashes. They are designed to be done in your head, without typing. Each one unfolds in stages that you control: first, the problem text, then a hint to help you along; then a solution; and finally an explanation.

Feedback is welcome on the talk page. For each exercise, decide on the answer in your mind before clicking on the solution. You may find this video on hyphens and dashes useful in conjuction with the exercises. User:Tony1/Writing exercise box

Science lab

Example
Lady Featherstone-Morley carelessly ashed her cigarette on the butanol sample.

Hint
Lady Featherstone-Morley carelessly ashed her cigarette on the butanol sample. Does the hyphen indicate conjunction (joining together) or disjunction (the separateness of both elements)?

Solution
The hyphen as given is correct.

Explanation

"Featherstone" and "Morley" are joined together here into a compound surname. Replacing the hyphen with a space (Lady Featherstone Morley) would be wrong by convention. So would an en dash (Lady Featherstone–Morley): there's no opposition or particular relationship between the names here, other than their coming together into someone's compound name. An em dash (Lady Featherstone—Morley) would look really gawky.

Nice inflation

Example
During the period 2005-07, the number of articles on the English Wikipedia quadrupled.

Hint
During the period 2005-07, the number of articles on the English Wikipedia quadrupled.

Solution
The hyphen is incorrect. Here, there's a year range, requiring an en dash, which stands for "to": During the period 2005–07,...

Explanations
*If the reader is already familiar with what you're saying, you might even drop "the period". Many people prefer just two closing digits, as here, to the full expression ("2005–2007"). MOSNUM says that one and three closing digits are unacceptable.

Nasty inflation

Example
From 2005–07, house prices in Capetown rose by a third.

Hint
From 2005–07, house prices in Capetown rose by a third. There's something inconsistent in the coloured text. Say it aloud.

Solution
The example is incorrect; this is what you need: From 2005 to 2007, house prices in Capetown rose by a third.

Explanation
*The en dash stands for "to", and that's how you'll vocalise it in reading it aloud. We need both prepositions spelled out: "from ... to", not "from ... –", which is awkward. Either that, or recast it: In (or "During") the period 2005–07.

Supreme Court

Example
The case was upheld by the Supreme Court in a 4–3 judgement.

Hint
What word could be substituted for the symbol?

Solution
The en dash is correct.

Explanation
An en dash can stand for "to", "against" or "versus"—these functions are all disjunct (indeed, adversarial) relationships between the items, so a squashy little hyphen (a 4-3 judgement) would be wrong. It's the same for sports scores: "The Vancouver Canucks massacred the New York Islanders in an 11–2 victory" (not "an 11-2 victory").

Canadian weather

Example
By mid-afternoon, the low pressure area had moved east into Ontario.

Hint
Double adjectives often require hyphenation; and there's another issue. No en dashes this time.

Solution
By mid-afternoon, the low-pressure area had moved east into Ontario.

Explanations

*The presence of the first hyphen is correct, and the absence of a hyphen from the second double adjective is incorrect. "Mid-" anything is usually hyphenated by convention, probably because "mid" itself isn't a whole word, yet doesn't jam into the noun nicely the way some prefixes do. "Low-pressure area"—the noun is "area", qualified by a double adjective. There's no such thing as a "pressure area", which could be low or high. Same for "upper-level jet stream"; it's not a "level jet stream" that happens to be the upper one of two. What about "the area of low pressure over the coast"—shouldn't it be "an area of low-pressure"? Nope. There's no double adjective, so no hyphen should be used: here, "low" is an adjective; "pressure" is a noun.

Coloured balls

Example
The introduction of contrasting red and blue–striped balls transformed the game.

Hint
Two things wrong: the type of symbol, and the need for it in another place as well. Think of the nominal group (that is, the compound noun): "contrasting red and blue-striped balls".

Solution
The introduction of contrasting red- and blue-striped balls transformed the game.

Explanation

There were two problems: Hyphen, not en dash. An en dash was being used to conjoin two adjectives; this job is reserved for hyphens. Hanging hyphen. Not just "blue", but "red" requires a hyphen to link it to the coupled word "striped"; there are two double adjectives (qualifying "balls"). The hanging hyphen added to "red" is useful for making this double compound expression neater. It's a rare case in which a hyphen is followed by a space. See MoS.

Wikipedia Prize

Example
Five classes–comprising more than 100 students–will compete against each other to win a prize for the best Wikipedia collaboration on an article on their chosen suburb of Seattle.

Hints
*Five classes–comprising more than 100 students–will compete against each other to win a prize for the best Wikipedia article on a suburb of Seattle. These en dashes are "interrupters", like very strong commas; they usually occur in pairs to mark off explanatory text.

Solution
Five classes – comprising more than 100 students – will compete against each other to win a prize for the best Wikipedia article on a suburb of Seattle.

Explanation
The en dashes are required, but their formatting is incorrect; as interruptors, they must be spaced. The alternative is unspaced em dashes, like this: Five classes—comprising more than 100 students—will compete against each other to win a prize for the best Wikipedia article on a suburb of Seattle.

Distance

Example
The 16-kilometre (10-mi) distance between the centres has been a major impediment to economic development.

Hint
There's nothing wrong with the choice of units or the fact of the conversion per se.

Solution
The example is incorrect: there should be no hyphen where a unit abbreviation is used. The 16-kilometre (10 mi) distance between the centres has been a major impediment to economic development.

Explanation
Sure, both main unit and conversion are used as double adjectives, describing "distance". But the ISO rules, which WP agrees with in this case, are that a hyphen must be used to connect a value and a fully named unit ("30-kilogram weights"), but must not connect a value and an abbreviated unit ("30 kg weights"). Fussy, isn't it.

Trade agreement

Example
Australia–New Zealand Free Trade Agreement

Hint
Yep, an en dash is required, since a relationship is indicated where "and" could be substituted. But it's all in the spacing.

Solution
The example is incorrect. The Australia – New Zealand Free Trade Agreement.

Explanation
If either of the items has an internal space (here, "New Zealand") the en dash needs to be spaced as well. This is particularly important in full date ranges, which often appear at the start of Wikipedia articles: "August 3, 1979 – November 30, 1980", not "August 3, 1979–November 30, 1980", ouch.

Seats at the game

Example
The season was fully-subscribed months before the first game.

Hint
What is the hyphen trying to do? Is "fully", as an adverb, always going to be clearly and easily connected with a subsequent verb? (Yes.)

Solution
The hyphen is incorrect: "The season was fully subscribed months before the first game."

Explanation
Please memorise: "No hyphen after "-ly". Why? you might ask. Because an "-ly" word, as an adverb, always qualifies a verb (an action), so your readers will already be expecting it to be joined grammatically to the next word. It's not rocket science. This is one of the most common hyphen glitches on Wikipedia.

Killing fields

The example
The Franco–Prussian War (19 July 1870—10 May 1871) resulted in a complete victory for the Prussians and foreshadowed the unification of Germany.

Hint
Both dashes are wrong; why?

The answer
The Franco-Prussian War (19 July 1870 – 10 May 1871) resulted in a complete victory for the Prussians and foreshadowed the unification of Germany.

Explanation

*Word particle. A hyphen should be used in favour of an en dash between two items if one item (or both) is just a word particle; "Franco-" is such a particle – a mere prefix – whereas "French" would be the full-word equivalent ("the French–Prussian War", with an en dash; but by convention this is not the expression). Same for "Sino-Russian War", as opposed to "Chinese–Russian trade agreement". An acronym or abbreviation in this context would count as a full word ("the recent UK–Iceland spat over financial matters"). Range. The em dash in the date was wrong: ranges require an en dash, and if either item has an internal space, as in both dates here, the en dash must also be spaced, on both sides. Many editors use a non-breaking space on the left side of the en dash when it's spaced ("... July 1870 – 10 May ...").

Hot town

The example
At -25°C, it was unseasonably warm in Yellowknife.

Hint
There are two things wrong.

Solution
At −25 °C, it was unseasonably warm in Yellowknife.

Explanation

*Minus sign. First, you may think this is an en dash, but it's a minus sign, which mathematicians are fussy about. Until early 2008, MOS used to allow en dashes for negative signs (−3.5) and subtraction operators (4 − 1 = 3); not any more. A minus sign is very subtly different from an en dash—something to do with lying higher on the line. Squint and ... you won't see it. Here they are: hyphen, minus sign, the en dash, and the em dash: - − – — . As a superior race, these mathematicians have the run of the place. Hmmmph. Value–unit space. Second, MOS insists on a space between all values (−25) and units (°C), with two minor exceptions (angular degrees and geographical coordinates); so it's −25 °C, not −25°C. There's no space between the minus sign and the value (never − 25) Keying it in. Take a look at how you should key it in: "At −25 °C, it was unseasonably warm in Yellowknife."

Discussion

If you have any questions, ask them now! Or would you like to take the test?

User:OrenBochman/Hyphens and dashes/Test

Miscellaneous

Formatting issues

• Generally avoid specifying. Formatting issues such as font size, blank space and color are issues for the Wikipedia site-wide style sheet and usually should not be specified. If you absolutely must specify a font size, use a relative size (font-size: 80%), not an absolute size (font-size: 8pt).
• Custom font styles. Use judiciously, since they reduce:
  • consistency—the text will no longer look uniform;
  • usability—people with custom stylesheets (for accessibility reasons, for example) may have difficulty in overriding them, and they might clash with a different skin.*
• Color coding. Generally don't use it alone to convey information. Many colors are not accessible to people with color blindness or on black-and-white printouts. Avoid using shades of red and green in the same display. Viewing with Vischeck can help to improve the use of colors in this respect.* *
• Keep markup simple. Use the simplest markup to display information in a useful and comprehensible way. Markup may appear differently in different browsers. Use HTML and CSS markup sparingly and only with good reason. Minimizing markup in entries allows easier editing. Don't use the CSS float or line-height properties, because they break rendering on some browsers when large fonts are used.*
• Scrolling lists. Scrolling lists and boxes that toggle text-display between hide and show are acceptable in infoboxes and navigation boxes, but should never be used in article prose or references because of issues with readability, accessibility, and printing.*
• Invisible comments. Editors use them to communicate with each other within article text in edit mode. They are useful for flagging an issue or leaving instructions about part of the text, where this is more convenient than raising the matter on the talk page. Don't use them so much that they clutter, and check that they don't change the formatting, such as by introducing unintended white space in display mode. To enter an invisible comment, enclose it within <!-- and -->; e.g., <!--If you change this section title, please also change the links to it on the pages ...-->.*
• Tables. How to construct them is explained here and here.

Pronunciation* *

Use the IPA. For ease of understanding across varieties of English, fairly broad IPA transcriptions are usually provided for English pronunciations.* * *

Discussion

If you have any questions, ask them now! Or would you like to take the test?

User:OrenBochman/Style Odds and Ends/Test

Images* * *

General

• Lead. Start with a right-aligned lead image or infobox.*
• Placement. Multiple images in the same article can be staggered right-and-left (for example: Timpani). Images should be laid out so they work well with browser windows as narrow as 800 pixels and as wide as 2000 pixels. See this tutorial for how to group images and avoid "stack-ups". Place images inside the section they belong to (after the heading and any links to other articles), and not straying above the heading.
• Direction of face. It's usually preferable to place images of faces so the face or eyes look toward the text.
• Alteration. An image should be reversed or substantially altered only if this clearly assists the reader (for example, cropping a work of art to focus on a detail discussed in the text). Note any such alteration in the caption. Don't reverse an image just for the sake of layout preferences.
• Text as image. Avoid entering textual information as an image solely for graphic utility. Such text should also appear in the image's alt text, caption, or other nearby text.
• Commons links. Use {{Commons}} to link to more images on Commons, wherever possible.
• Galleries. The use of galleries should be in keeping with Wikipedia's image use policy.

Size

Most pictures should be displayed so they are between 100 and 400 pixels wide. The maximum should generally not exceed 500 pixels in height or 400 pixels in width, so the image can be comfortably displayed within the text on the smallest displays in common use.

• Thumbnails. The thumbnail option ([[(The file name)|thumb|(Your caption)]]) results in a default width of 180 pixels, although logged-in users can set a different default in their user preferences. [Thumbnail size currently under review.]
• Why resize? An image may benefit from a size other than the default. Typical reasons for resizing include the following:
  • A small region is the focus of interest, but cropping to that region would reduce the coherence of the image (enlarge).
  • There are important details, including maps, diagrams, and charts containing important text that would be unreadable at the default size (enlarge).
  • Detail is relatively unimportant, such as some national flags (make smaller).
  • The aspect ratios are extreme or otherwise distort or obscure the image (make smaller).
  • It is the lead image, which should usually be no wider than 300px.
• How to resize. Either:
  • specify pixel width (e.g., [[(The file name]|thumb|240px|(Your caption)]]); or
  • use the upright option ([[(The file name)|upright=1.67|(Your caption)]]) or the frameless option ([[(The file name)|frameless|upright=1.67|(Your caption)]]). A setting of 1.67 resizes a plain picture to about 300 pixels in width (the 180-pixel default × 1.67).
• Centering. The width can be even wider if the image is centered ([[(The file name)|center|450px|(Your caption)]]).
• Templates. {{Wide image}} and {{Tall image}} display images that would otherwise be too wide or tall.

Captions*

• Role. Use captions to explain the relevance of an image to the article. Photographs and other graphics should always have captions unless they are "self-captioning" (such as reproductions of album or book covers) or when they are unambiguous depictions of the subject of the article.
• Complete sentence or fragment. Most captions are not complete sentences, but merely nominal groups (sentence fragments) that should not end with a period. If a complete sentence occurs in a caption, end that sentence, and any sentence fragments, with a period. Regardless, normally start captions with a capital letter.
• Succinctness. Make captions succinct; more information about the image can be included on its description page, or in the main text.
• Italics. Don't italicize a caption just because it's a caption.

Alt text*

Alternative text describes the image for readers who cannot see the image, such as visually impaired readers or those using web-browsers that do not download images. By contrast, captions are intended to explain or supplement an image that is visible. Images need not have alt text; editors should ask themselves how much sighted readers would lose if the picture were blanked, and how easily it can be described verbally. Alt text should not merely repeat the caption or the main text of the article. Instructions on adding alt text to equations and images is here. The Altviewer tool displays an article's alt text.

Discussion

If you have any questions, ask them now! Or would you like to take the test?

User:OrenBochman/Images and Captions/Test

Here are four sets of exercises: in paragraphing, the control of sentence length, and the use of commas (two sets).

Exercise in paragraphing

Here’s a fat, grey paragraph that was the lead in a FAC. It needs to be broken up into, let’s say, four manageable portions. There are a number of ways of dividing it, so we can offer only a suggested solution.

Your task is to identify three statements in the paragraph that appear to take a fresh direction. Check that each of these statements can function as a “theme”—that is, as a logical, cohesive subsidiary topic within the lead. To perform this function, each statement that you identify must be followed by extensions or enhancements of the idea that it introduces.

The Sun is the star at the centre of our solar system. The Earth and other matter (including other planets, asteroids, meteoroids, comets and dust) orbit the Sun, which by itself accounts for more than 99% of the solar system’s mass. Energy from the Sun—in the form of sunlight, supports almost all life on Earth via photosynthesis, and, via heating from insolation—drives the Earth’s climate and weather. About 74% of the Sun’s mass is hydrogen, 25% is helium, and the rest is made up of trace quantities of heavier elements. The Sun is about 4.6 billion years old and is about halfway through its main-sequence evolution, during which nuclear fusion reactions in its core fuse hydrogen into helium. Each second, more than four million tonnes of matter are converted into energy within the Sun’s core, producing neutrinos and solar radiation. In about five billion years, the Sun will evolve into a red giant and then a white dwarf, creating a planetary nebula in the process. The Sun is a magnetically active star; it supports a strong, changing magnetic field that varies from year to year and reverses direction about every 11 years. The Sun’s magnetic field gives rise to many effects that are collectively called solar activity, including sunspots on the surface of the Sun, solar flares, and variations in the solar wind that carry material through the solar system. The effects of solar activity on Earth include auroras at moderate to high latitudes, and the disruption of radio communications and electric power. Solar activity is thought to have played a large role in the formation and evolution of the solar system, and strongly affects the structure of Earth’s outer atmosphere. Although it is the nearest star to Earth and has been intensively studied by scientists, many questions about the Sun remain unanswered; these include why its outer atmosphere has a temperature of over a million degrees K when its visible surface (the photosphere) has a temperature of just 6000 K. Current topics of scientific enquiry include the Sun’s regular cycle of sunspot activity, the physics and origin of solar flares and prominences, the magnetic interaction between the chromosphere and the corona, and the origin of the solar wind.

Perhaps you’d like a hint as to what the “theme” of each of the four new, shorter paragraphs might be?
Including the start, the four themes of the lead might be: introduction; evolution/energy production (i.e., introduced by the first fresh statement that you’ve identified); magnetic and other solar activity; and unanswered questions. Before you hit “suggested solution”, go back to the exercise and see if you’ve chosen the same boundaries.

suggested solution

The Sun is the star at the centre of our solar system. The Earth and other matter (including other planets, asteroids, meteoroids, comets and dust) orbit the Sun, which by itself accounts for more than 99% of the solar system’s mass. Energy from the Sun—in the form of sunlight, supports almost all life on Earth via photosynthesis, and, via heating from insolation—drives the Earth’s climate and weather. About 74% of the Sun’s mass is hydrogen, 25% is helium, and the rest is made up of trace quantities of heavier elements. The Sun is about 4.6 billion years old and is about halfway through its main-sequence evolution, during which nuclear fusion reactions in its core fuse hydrogen into helium. Each second, more than four million tonnes of matter are converted into energy within the Sun’s core, producing neutrinos and solar radiation. In about five billion years, the Sun will evolve into a red giant and then a white dwarf, creating a planetary nebula in the process. The Sun is a magnetically active star; it supports a strong, changing magnetic field that varies from year to year and reverses direction about every 11 years. The Sun’s magnetic field gives rise to many effects that are collectively called solar activity, including sunspots on the surface of the Sun, solar flares, and variations in the solar wind that carry material through the solar system. The effects of solar activity on Earth include auroras at moderate to high latitudes, and the disruption of radio communications and electric power. Solar activity is thought to have played a large role in the formation and evolution of the solar system, and strongly affects the structure of Earth’s outer atmosphere. Although it is the nearest star to Earth and has been intensively studied by scientists, many questions about the Sun remain unanswered; these include why its outer atmosphere has a temperature of over a million degrees K when its visible surface (the photosphere) has a temperature of just 6000 K. Current topics of scientific enquiry include the Sun’s regular cycle of sunspot activity, the physics and origin of solar flares and prominences, the magnetic interaction between the chromosphere and the corona, and the origin of the solar wind.

Jane Austen (1775–1817) is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language. Her unfailingly elegant prose depicted middle- and upper-class moral dilemmas with powerful irony.

Exercise in sentence length

When you see a sentence that is too long, ask yourself the following questions:

• Where to split the sentence?
• Why does the excessive length make it unclear?
• How to reword the part more effectively?

In the follwing excercises have a sentence which is too long. Typically, the author has tried to cram too many related ideas into the sentence. For each exercise, identify where and how to split the sentence for easier reading. The “where” is easy enough—aim for roughly equal parts either side of the split; the “how” is more challenging—sometimes you’ll have to change the grammar a little.

For each question, hit “[Show]“ in the lower box to reveal the solution. If you'd like a hint before displaying the solution, first hit “[Show]“ in the upper box to reveal it.

QUESTION
Gregorian chant is the best-known repertory of plainchant, a form of monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song, which was developed in the Catholic Church, mainly in the Frankish lands during the 9th and 10th centuries, with later additions and redactions.

HINT

A good location for a break is about half-way through (see the red text below). You could start your new, second sentence with “This ...”. However, being singular, “this” could refer back to any of the four singular items in the first sentence: “Gregorian chant”, “best-known repertory”, “plainchant”, or “a form of monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song”. That would be fuzzy. To make it clear, you’ll probably need to restate one of these items at the start of your new sentence. Gregorian chant is the best-known repertory of plainchant, a form of monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song, which was developed in the Catholic Church, mainly in the Frankish lands during the 9th and 10th centuries, with later additions and redactions.

SOLUTION
Gregorian chant is the best-known repertory of plainchant, a form of monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song. Plainchant was developed in the Catholic Church, mainly in the Frankish lands during the 9th and 10th centuries, with later additions and redactions.

QUESTION
However, ardent debate ensued between political factions known as the Federalists and anti-Federalists over the balance between strengthening the nation’s government and weakening the rights of the people who just 10 years earlier had rebelled against the perceived tyranny of George III of England, particularly his unwillingness to change the taxation regime.

HINT

Here, again, you’ll need to tweak the grammar and repeat an item in the new sentence, preferably not straight after the previous occurrence. However, ardent debate ensued between political factions known as the Federalists and anti-Federalists over the balance between strengthening the nation’s government and weakening the rights of the people who just 10 years earlier had rebelled against the perceived tyranny of George III of England, particularly his unwillingness to change the taxation regime.

SOLUTION

However, ardent debate ensued between political factions known as the Federalists and anti-Federalists over the balance between strengthening the nation’s government and weakening the rights of the people. Just 10 years earlier, the same people had rebelled against the perceived tyranny of George III of England, particularly his unwillingness to change the taxation regime. We inserted "same" ("the same people") to retain the writer's emphasis.

QUESTION
As such, the comic strip holds a unique place in British football folklore, demonstrated most clearly by the phrase “real Roy of the Rovers stuff”, which is typically used by football writers and commentators to describe displays of great skill or results that go against the odds, as a reference to the dramatic storylines that became the trademark of the comic strip.

HINT

This is long enough to split in several ways; our solution is just one. We opted to repeat the main item ("the phrase") some way into the second sentence. See if you can work out where. As such, the comic strip holds a unique place in British football folklore, demonstrated most clearly by the phrase “real Roy of the Rovers stuff”, which is typically used by football writers and commentators to describe displays of great skill or results that go against the odds, as a reference to the dramatic storylines that became the trademark of the comic strip.

SOLUTION

As such, the comic strip holds a unique place in British football folklore, demonstrated most clearly by the phrase “real Roy of the Rovers stuff”. Typically used by football writers and commentators to describe displays of great skill or results that go against the odds, the phrase is a reference to the dramatic storylines that became the trademark of the comic strip. Like "the same people" in the previous exercise, the key back-reference here ("the phrase") is in the middle of the second sentence. This sometimes works well.

QUESTION
Originally developed for racing cars to prevent the foaming of the engine oil by the crankshaft, which created a serious drop in oil pressure, the system circulated 12 litres of oil between the storage tank—mounted inside the right-front fender—and the engine, as opposed to the usual four or five litres that circulated in V8s with a standard oil pan and pump.

HINT
Bring the subject of this long sentence back to the start; and make two stand-alone sentences, each starting with the (same) subject.

SOLUTION

The system was originally developed for racing cars to prevent the foaming of the engine oil by the crankshaft, which created a serious drop in oil pressure. The system circulated 12 litres of oil between the storage tank—mounted inside the right-front fender—and the engine, as opposed to the usual four or five litres that circulated in V8s with a standard oil pan and pump. You might consider avoiding the repetition of the subject ("the system") by using a semicolon at the same boundary, instead of a full-stop. The magic of a semicolon is that you can use "it" to refer right back to the start of the statement. If the second section is still too long for your liking, you could split off the last part into a third, final sentence. The text would then look something like this: The system was originally developed for racing cars to prevent the foaming of the engine oil by the crankshaft, which created a serious drop in oil pressure; it circulated 12 litres of oil between the storage tank—mounted inside the right-front fender—and the engine. This compared favourably with the usual four or five litres that circulated in V8s with a standard oil pan and pump.

The writing desk of Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961), an American novelist whose distinctive writing style is characterised by economy and understatement.

Exercise in smoothly integrating ideas into a sentence

Although the title here says "sentence", learning how to integrate ideas effectively can involve the relationship between sentences, as well as within them. Some of the exercises thus involve two sentences.

Try to determine how the ideas in these exercises might be better integrated. This may involve using a more appropriate link (e.g., an additive rather than a contrastive word, or a semicolon or full-stop instead of "and").

For each question, hit [Show] in the lower box to reveal the solution. If you'd like a hint before displaying the solution, first hit [Show] in the upper box to reveal it.

Please widen your window if the display is distorted.

QUESTION
The Earth's atmosphere has no definite boundary, slowly becoming thinner until it fades into outer space. Three-quarters of the atmosphere's mass, however, is contained within the first 11 kilometres of the planet's surface.

HINT
How does the second sentence grow out of the first—by: contradicting it? causing it, or being caused by it? or just adding further information to it?

SOLUTION
The Earth's atmosphere has no definite boundary, slowly becoming thinner until it fades into outer space. Three-quarters of the atmosphere's mass, however, is contained within the first 11 kilometres of the planet's surface. The second sentence just adds more information, so "however", with its commas, should be removed.

QUESTION
He is the elder brother of Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher and they are well-known as squabbling siblings.

HINT
How close are the two ideas in this sentence?

SOLUTION

He is the elder brother of Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher; they are well-known as squabbling siblings. In most contexts, announcing that they're brothers and telling us that they squabble will be too different to belong in the one sentence, particularly a short one. Inserting a comma before "and" would be better than nothing, but a semicolon instead of "and" provides a more distinct boundary between the ideas.

QUESTION
The accusations were largely directed towards senior civil servants, particularly in the Home Office, but also included officers of the diplomatic corps.

HINT
What's the relationship between the last clause ("but also included ...") and the previous statement? There's a redundant word here, too.

SOLUTION

The accusations were largely directed towards senior civil servants, particularly in the Home Office, but also and included officers of the diplomatic corps. The relationship is additive, not contrastive. "Largely" already indicates that the accusations were directed at other people as well. Therefore "and", not "but" should link to what is simply additional, expected information. As usual, "also" adds nothing and should be removed.

QUESTION
The ranges of L. raniformis and L. castanea overlap with that of the Green and Golden Bell Frog, and the general body shape and coloration of the three species are similar.

HINT
> Are the two ideas close enough to be glued together like this?

SOLUTION
The ranges of L. raniformis and L. castanea overlap with that of the Green and Golden Bell Frog; the general body shape and coloration of the three species are similar. Again, the two clauses are too different to be linked with a comma + and.

QUESTION
He formed several bands while at high school: the first, The Shadow Blasters, was short-lived, but the second, The Golden Chords, lasted longer.

HINT
How are the two clauses related?

SOLUTION
He formed several bands while at high school: the first, The Shadow Blasters, was short-lived; the second, The Golden Chords, lasted longer. Since the second clause in no way contradicts the first, comma + "and", or a semicolon will do the trick.

Exercise in using commas

• needs explanations hints and solutions checks

QUESTION
It is sponsored by Canonical Ltd (owned by Mark Shuttleworth) and the name of the distribution comes from the South African concept of ubuntu—roughly, "humanity towards others".

HINT
(Not close enough for "and"—use semicolon)

SOLUTION
It is sponsored by Canonical Ltd (owned by Mark Shuttleworth) and the name of the distribution comes from the South African concept of ubuntu—roughly, "humanity towards others".

QUESTION
Ubuntu packages have generally been based on packages from Debian's unstable branch: both distributions use Debian's deb package format and, APT/Synaptic to manage installed packages.

HINT
Replace and,

SOLUTION
Ubuntu packages have generally been based on packages from Debian's unstable branch: both distributions use Debian's deb package format; APT/Synaptic to manage installed packages.

QUESTION
Kombi, however, is not only the name of the passenger variant, but is also the Australasian and Brazilian term for the whole Type 2 family in much the same way that they are all called VW-Bus in Germany, even the pickup truck variations

HINT
Hint 1 Hint 2

SOLUTION
solution text

QUESTION
Candler's successful marketing, continued by his successors such as Robert Woodruff, established Coke as a major soft drink first in the United States and later around the world.

HINT
Hint 1 Hint 2

SOLUTION
solution text

QUESTION
During the breeding season males experience hormonal changes including an increase in luteinizing hormone and testosterone levels and their testes double in size.

HINT
Hint 1

SOLUTION
solution text

QUESTION
It was one of the first true assault rifles, and remains the most widely used.

HINT
Remove comma

SOLUTION
It was one of the first true assault rifles and remains the most widely used.

Discussion

If you have any questions, ask them now! Or would you like to take the test?

User:OrenBochman/Grammar Drills 2/Test

National varieties of English* *

The English Wikipedia does not prefer any major national variety of the language, and editors should recognize the differences between them as superficial. Cultural clashes over spelling and grammar are avoided by using the following four guidelines.

Strong national ties to a topic

• Basic principle. An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation uses the English of that nation. For example:
• The Lord of the Rings (British English)
• American Civil War (American English)
• Institutions of the EU (British or Irish English)
• Vancouver (Canadian English)
• AC/DC (Australian English)
• Cook Strait (New Zealand English)
• Nelson Mandela (South African English)
• Subject's variety. In a biographical article, it may be best to use the subject's variety of English.
• Ownership. Do not use this guideline to claim national ownership of an article.

Existing variety

Where there are no strong national ties to the topic and an article has evolved using predominantly one variety, it should conform to that variety. In the early stages of writing an article, the variety preferred by the first major contributor to the article should be used. Where an article that is not a stub shows no signs of which variety it is written in, the first person to make an edit that disambiguates the variety is equivalent to "the first major contributor".

Consistency

Each article should consistently use the same conventions of spelling, grammar and punctuation. There are three exceptions:

• Quotations. Retain the original variety, although the precise styling of punctuation marks such as dashes, ellipses, apostrophes, and quotation marks should be made consistent with the surrounding article.
• Proper names. Use the original spelling (United States Department of Defense, Australian Defence Force).
• Meta-comparisons. Explicit comparisons of varieties of English.

Opportunities for commonality

• Common across the language. Try to find words that are common to all varieties of English, especially in article names: fixed-wing aircraft is preferred to the national varieties aeroplane (BrEng) and airplane (AmEng). Avoid ambiguity (alternative or other route, not alternate, which may mean alternating in some varieties.
• Redirects. If one variant spelling appears in an article name, redirect pages are made to accommodate the other variants, as with Artefact and Artifact, so that all variants can be used in searches and in linking.
• Gloss uncommon items. Terms that are uncommon in some varieties of English, or that have divergent meanings, may be explained to prevent confusion.
• Other resources. Articles such as English plural and American and British English differences provide information on the differences between the major varieties.

Discussion

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Chronological items*

Precise language*

Avoid statements that will age quickly (recently, soon, now) unless their meaning is fixed by the context; avoid relative terms such as currently (usually redundant), and in modern times. Instead, use either (i) more precise and absolute expressions (since the start of 2005; during the 1990s); or (ii) an as of phrase (as of August 2007).*

Times*

Context determines whether the 12- or 24-hour clock is used; in both, use colons as separators (1:38:09 pm, 13:38:09).

• 12-hour clock. 2:30 p.m. or 2:30 pm, spaced, preferably with &nbsp;. Noon and midnight, not 12 pm and 12 am; specify whether midnight refers to the start or the end of a date unless it is clear.
• 24-hour clock. No am, pm, noon or midnight suffixes. A leading zero is optional (08:15 or 8:15). 00:00 is midnight at the start of a date, and 24:00 at the end.

Dates*

• Day-month or month-day? The rules for choosing between these two standard formats are here.
• Linking and autoformatting. Chronological items are not normally linked (not 1990s or 20th century), and autoformatting links for dates are now deprecated (not October 5, 2006).
• Suffixes, articles and commas. Don't use ordinal suffixes or articles, or put a comma between month and year: 14 February, not 14th February or the 14th of February; October 1976, not October, 1976 or October of 1976.
• Ranges. Minimize repetition, using an unspaced en dash where the range involves numerals alone (5–7 January 1979 or January 5–7, 2002) or a spaced en dash where opening and/or closing dates have internal spaces (5 January – 18 February 1979 or January 5 – February 18, 1979).
• Slashed. the night of 30/31 May—use rarely.
• Yearless. March 5—give the year unless it's obvious (March 5, 1956).
• ISO dates. Generally avoid ISO 8601 format (1976-05-13) in running prose. However, it may be useful in long lists and tables for conciseness.* [Under discussion, MOSNUM]

Longer periods*

• Months. Write as whole words (February, not 2). Use abbreviations such as Feb only where space is extremely limited, such as in tables and infoboxes.
• Seasons as dates. The seasons are reversed in each hemisphere; use neutral wording (in early 1990, in the second quarter of 2003, not summer 1990 or Spring 2003), with obvious exceptions such as the autumn harvest and mid-spring migration.
• Years
  • Redundancy. Not the year 1995, but 1995, unless it would be unclear.
  • Ranges. Like all ranges, separate with an en dash, not a hyphen (2005–08, not 2005-08). A closing CE/AD year is normally written with two digits (1881–86) unless in a different century (1881–1912). The full closing year is acceptable, but abbreviating it to one digit (1881–6) or three (1881–886) is not. Closing BCE/BC years are given in full (2590–2550 BCE). While one era signifier at the end of a date range still requires an unspaced en dash (12–5 BC), use a spaced en dash when the range crosses the eras (5 BC – 29 AD).
  • Slash. A slash can indicate regular defined yearly periods that don't coincide with calendar years (the financial year 1993/94).
• Eras
  • Which system? AD and BC are traditional, although CE and BCE are increasingly common. WP has no preference, but don't (i) mix the systems in an article, (ii) use them unless the era would be unclear, or (iii) insert conversions.
  • Formatting. Upper case, undotted and spaced (usually a hard-space): 2500 BCE.
  • Placement. Either AD 106 or 106 AD, but the other abbreviations appear after (106 CE, 3700 BCE, 3700 BC).
  • Long ago. On first occurrence, spell out and link abbreviations such as BP (before present), ka (kiloannum), kya (thousand years ago), Ma (mega-annum), Mya (million years ago), and Ga (giga-annum or billion years ago).
  • Approximations. c. and ca. indicate around, approximately, or about. They are spaced (c.&nbsp;1291). Use a question mark instead (1291?) only if the date is questioned by the sources, rather than approximate.
• Decades. No apostrophe (the 1980s, not 1980's); use the two-digit form (the 80s, the '80s) only where the century is clear.
• Centuries. Use ordinal numbers, without superscripts: the 19th century, 19th-century opera (not 19^th).

Discussion

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