Template:Uw-mos1/reasons

↑ To top of page

This page is a configuration page for {{uw-mos1}}. It provides the content added to the message emitted by {{uw-mos1}} when param |longissue= is used.

Introduction

This page contains brief summaries of about two hundred of the most frequently used shortcuts

of the Wikipedia:Manual of style. These MOS summaries may be added to the message emitted by the {{uw-mos1}} template via the |longissue= parameter in order to include detail about a specific MOS shortcut into the message placed on a User talk page.

Using an invocation like:

{{subst:uw-mos1|longissue=MOS:APOSTROPHE}}

will emit the standard text of the uw-mos1 message, along with the summary text from section § MOS:APOSTROPHE below inserted at the end of the message, right before the Thank you. An example:

Example showing result of {{subst:uw-mos1|longissue=MOS:APOSTROPHE}}:

Welcome to Wikipedia, and thank you for your contributions. Although everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia, please note that there is a Manual of Style that should be followed to maintain a consistent, encyclopedic appearance. Deviating from this style disturbs uniformity among articles and may cause readability or accessibility problems.

Use straight apostrophes ('), not curly apostrophes (’). Do not use accent marks or backticks (`) as apostrophes. For further style guidance about apostrophes see MOS:APOSTROPHE. For usage of the possessive apostrophe, see MOS:POSS. Please take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you.

The value of param |longissue= (or its alias, |long=) can be any MOS shortcut corresponding to one of the values in the boxed, compact table of contents below. Click any value in the box to see what would be inserted into the uw-mos1 message if you choose a shortcut corresponding to that value for param longissue.

Adding a new section

When considering adding a new section to the list, please beware of bloat: keep in mind that the § list of MOS issues shown below is not an exhaustive list of all MOS shortcuts, but only a small fraction of them. Entries in the list correspond to the MOS shortcuts most commonly used by editors in conjunction with a substed uw-mos1 message on user talk pages.

When adding a new section to this page or modifying an existing one, please note the following important point: the Manual of Style is a Wikipedia guideline and has a certain amount of community consensus behind it. This template subpage has no consensus (or at best, maybe WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, some day).

Therefore, anything you add here should either be copied word for word from portions of the Manual of style, or should very faithfully summarize content in a MOS page. This is not the place to add your interpretation of MOS, or how it ought to be. If in doubt about what wording may be used in a summary, you can always just punt and say, "The Wikipedia Manual of style has guidance on the use of Foo, Bar, and Baz; see [[MOS:FOO]] for details", otherwise, please raise your concerns at WT:WARN, the designated Talk page for this, and all user warning templates.

Keep in mind that the snippets below are appended to the message emitted by template {{uw-mos1}} on the user's Talk page. Snippets should provide enough information to explain to the user what they did wrong and what MOS principle applies, but not too long—a couple of sentences usually suffices. In most cases, the snippet should end with "See [[MOS:Shortcut]]", or the last sentence should include the unpiped link.

To create a new section, either copy an existing section (or the model in hidden text) and modify as needed, or use the blue button:

[Create new section] [Create duplicate section]

Clicking the blue button will open an edit window preloaded with a model you can modify, along with instructions for creating a new section for some MOS issue. Clicking the gray button is for adding a duplicate section for the case where two shortcuts identify the same content in MOS. For example, you might want to create duplicate section § MOS:IDIOM to emit the identical text as § MOS:CLICHE when you already have the latter. (You can consult a list of all MOS shortcuts, or a non-exhaustive list of wikicode snippets containing {{shortcut}} code.)

In either case, when you save a new or duplicate section, it adds it to the bottom of the page. You can move it into alphabetical order after you save it.

List of MOS issues

Note: This page is not part of the Manual of Style.

It is recommended (but not required) that subsections below be kept in alphabetical order for ease of use.

MOS:ABBR

Abbreviations, including acronyms, initialisms, and contractions may be used, but always consider whether it is better to write it out in full for clarity. (But abbreviations in quotations should always be written exactly as in the source.) Use no period after acronyms and initialisms (e.g., NASA, HTML), but use them after shortenings (Mrs, Inc., Feb.). See MOS:ABBR.

MOS:ACCESS

The MOS MOS Accessibility guideline covers accessibility issues about article structure, heaLings, text, other languages, links, color, lists, tables, images, and media. See MOS:ACCESS.

MOS:ACRO1STUSE

The Manual of style has extensive guidance about the use and formatting of acronyms. Letters of acronyms should not be spaced. Plural acronyms are written with a lower-case s after the abbreviation, without an apostrophe. Do not apply special style (Small Caps, italics, bold) to acronyms. For capitalization, see MOS:CAPSACRS; for more details, see MOS:ACRO1STUSE.

MOS:ALLEGED

Watch out for words like supposed, apparent, purported, alleged, accused, so-called which can imply that a given point is inaccurate; see MOS:ALLEGED.

MOS:ALT

The alt text is a web accessibility feature that is not normally visible to readers; however, it may be displayed by web browsers when images are switched off, or read out loud by screen readers, and can be used by search engines to determine the content of the image. On Wikipedia, alternative text is typically supplied through a combination of the image caption and the text supplied for the image alt parameter in the MediaWiki markup. See MOS:ALT.

MOS:AMP

The Manual of style has guidance on the use and formatting of ampersand. In normal text and headings, use and instead of the ampersand (&): January 1 and 2, not January 1 & 2. But retain an ampersand when it is a legitimate part of the style of a proper noun, the title of a work, or a trademark, such as in Up & Down or AT&T. Elsewhere, ampersands may be used with consistency and discretion where space is extremely limited (e.g., tables and infoboxes). For more information, see MOS:AMPERSAND.

MOS:AMPERSAND

The Manual of style has guidance on the use and formatting of ampersand. In normal text and headings, use and instead of the ampersand (&): January 1 and 2, not January 1 & 2. But retain an ampersand when it is a legitimate part of the style of a proper noun, the title of a work, or a trademark, such as in Up & Down or AT&T. Elsewhere, ampersands may be used with consistency and discretion where space is extremely limited (e.g., tables and infoboxes). For more information, see MOS:AMPERSAND.

MOS:APOSTROPHE

Use straight apostrophes ('), not curly apostrophes (’). Do not use accent marks or backticks (`) as apostrophes. For further style guidance about apostrophes see MOS:APOSTROPHE. For usage of the possessive apostrophe, see MOS:POSS.

MOS:B

Wikipedia has style guidance on the use of boldface in article title terms in the lead and other uses, and also when to avoid boldface. See MOS:BOLD.

MOS:BADDATE

Wikipedia has a lot of date formats that are acceptable, but not every date format is. See MOS:BADDATE. For acceptable date formats, see MOS:DATE.

MOS:BADEMPHASIS

The Manual of style has guidance about how to apply emphasis (MOS:EMPHASIS, and how not to. Avoid various kinds of overemphasis which would distract from the writing; Exclamation points (!) should usually only be used in direct quotes and titles of creative works; bold type is reserved for certain uses; quotation marks for emphasis of a single word or phrase are incorrect; avoid ALL CAPS and small caps, underlining, or capitalalization merely for emphasis. See MOS:BADEMPHASIS.

MOS:BCE

Wikipedia supports both the BC–AD and the BCE–CE notation, and you may use either one consistently within the same article, but don't change an article's established era style without reasons specific to its content. BCE and CE or BC and AD are written in upper case, unspaced, without a full stop (period), and separated from the numeric year by a space (5 BC, not 5BC). It is advisable to use a non-breaking space. See MOS:ERA.

MOS:BIB

Many different section headings are used for a list of works or publications, depending on the subject matter. See MOS:BIB.

MOS:BIRTHDATE

The Manual of style has guidance about the lead section. The opening paragraph should usually have dates of birth and (when applicable) death. Birth and death places, if known, should be mentioned in the body. See MOS:BIRTHDATE.

MOS:BLOCKQUOTE

A long quotation (more than about forty words or a few hundred characters, or consisting of more than one paragraph, regardless of length) should be formated as a block quotation, using the {{blockquote}} template. The text presented in block quotations should not itself be enclosed in quotation marks. See MOS:BLOCKQUOTE.

MOS:BOLD

Wikipedia has style guidance on the use of boldface in article title terms in the lead and other uses, and also when to avoid boldface. See MOS:BOLD.

MOS:BOLDAVOID

The Manual of style has guidance about the lead sentence. When the article title appears verbatim in the first sentence, it should be in bold. If the article title does not lend itself to being used easily and naturally in the first sentence, the wording should not be distorted in an effort to include it. Instead, simply describe the subject in normal English, without bolding. See MOS:BOLDAVOID.

MOS:BOLDLEAD

The Manual of style has guidance about the lead sentence. When the article title appears verbatim in the first sentence, it should be in bold. In articles where the article title does not appear verbatim in the first sentence, boldface is not used. See MOS:BOLDLEAD.

MOS:BOLDLINK

Links should not be placed in the boldface reiteration of the title in the first sentence of the lead. Use the top example, not the bottom one:

The Babe Ruth Award is given annually to the Major League Baseball (MLB) player with...

See MOS:BOLDLINKAVOID.

MOS:BOLDLINKAVOID

Links should not be placed in the boldface reiteration of the title in the first sentence of the lead. Use the top example, not the bottom one:

The Babe Ruth Award is given annually to the Major League Baseball (MLB) player with...

See MOS:BOLDLINKAVOID.

MOS:BOLDTITLE

The Manual of style has guidance about the lead sentence. When the article title appears verbatim in the first sentence, it should be in bold. In articles where the article title does not appear verbatim in the first sentence, boldface is not used. See MOS:BOLDLEAD.

MOS:BRACKET

Sentence punctuation goes outside parentheses or brackets (as shown here). (But if they contain an entire sentence, the punctuation goes inside, like this.) More details about parentheses and brackets, including how to use bracketed expressions inside a wikilink, is available at MOS:PARENS.

MOS:CAPS

Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization. Capitalization is primarily needed for proper names, acronyms, and for the first letter of a sentence. For details and some exceptions, see MOS:CAPS.

MOS:CAPTION

Media files should have captions, unless they are unambiguous depictions of the subject of the article or are "self-captioning" (such as album or book covers). In biographies, a caption is not necessary for a portrait of the subject pictured alone, but one might be used to give the year, the subject's age or name, or other circumstances of the portrait. Captions normally start with a capital letter, and do not end with a period unless the caption is a complete sentence.See MOS:CAPTION.

MOS:CLAIM

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on Words to watch. To say that someone asserted or claimed something can call their statement's credibility into question, by emphasizing any potential contradiction or implying disregard for evidence. See MOS:CLAIM.

MOS:CITELEAD

The presence of citations in the lead is neither required nor prohibited. Because the lead usually repeats information that is in the body, editors should balance the desire to avoid redundant citations in the lead with the desire to aid readers in locating sources. The lead section must conform to all Wikipedia policies, and "all quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged" should be cited, even in the lead. See MOS:CITELEAD.

MOS:CLICHE

Clichés and idioms should generally be avoided in favor of direct, literal expressions. Lion's share is often misunderstood and a landslide victory is imprecise; instead use a term such as all, most, two-thirds, or whatever matches the context. Other clichés to avoid: tip of the iceberg, white elephant, take the plunge, ace up the sleeve, twist of fate, at the end of the day. See MOS:CLICHE.

MOS:COLON

Except in technical usage (a 3:1 ratio), no sentence should contain multiple colons, no space should precede a colon, and a space (but never a hyphen or dash) should follow the colon. See MOS:COLON.

MOS:COLOR

Colors are used in Wikipedia articles in images, templates, and tables to enhance usability and esthetic appeal. When using color, editors should keep accessibility in mind for users with vision impairments and color blindness. Color should not be the sole visual means of conveying information, or for distinguishing elements such as links, templates, or table rows. Always provide an alternative method—such as an accessible symbol and/or text. The Manual of style has extensive guidance on color; see MOS:COLOR.

MOS:COMMA

The Wikipedia Manual of style has extensive guidance on the proper use of commas. A common question concerns the serial comma (sometimes also known as an Oxford comma or Harvard comma) – a comma used immediately before a conjunction (and, or, nor) in a list of three or more items. Editors may either use or skip the serial comma convention so long as each article is internally consistent. Beware of the incorrect use of a comma between two independent clauses, known as a comma splice. See MOS:COMMA.

MOS:CONTENTIOUS

Value-laden labels – such as calling an organization a cult, an individual a racist, sexist, terrorist, or freedom fighter, or a sexual practice a perversion – may express contentious opinion and are best avoided. See MOS:CONTENTIOUS.

MOS:CONTEXTBIO

MOS:ETHNICITY says, "Ethnicity, religion, or sexuality should generally not be in the lead unless relevant to the subject's notability."

MOS:CONTRACTION

Contractions such as aren't should not be used in Wikipedia, except in quoted material; use the full wording (e.g. are not) instead. See MOS:CONTRACTION, which also lists exceptions.

MOS:CONTROVERSIAL

The Manual of style has guidance on the use of contentious labels, like racist, sexist, homophobic, extremist, terrorist, neo-Nazi, pseudoscientific, and many more. Value-laden labels – such as calling an organization a cult, an individual a racist, sexist, terrorist, or a freedom fighter, or a sexual practice a perversion – may express contentious opinion and are best avoided unless widely used by reliable sources to describe the subject, in which case use in-text attribution. For further details see MOS:LABEL.

MOS:COORDS

Geographical coordinates on Earth should be entered using a template to standardise the format and to provide a link to maps of the coordinates. The {{Coord}} template is a good choice. Avoid excessive precision. See MOS:COORDS.

MOS:CQ

Use "straight" quotation marks, not “curly” ones. (For single quotes: 'straight', not ‘curly’.) See MOS:CURLY.

MOS:CREDENTIAL

The Manual of style has guidance about Academic or professional titles and degrees such as "Dr." or "Professor" (including honorary ones). They should be used only with subjects of a biography that are widely known by a pseudonym or stage name containing the title (earned, or not), and included in the pseudonym as described at MOS:NICKNAME See MOS:DOCTOR for details.

MOS:CURLY

Use "straight" quotation marks, not “curly” ones. (For single quotes: 'straight', not ‘curly’.) See MOS:CURLY.

MOS:CURRENCY

When choosing a currency, in country-specific articles, such as Economy of Australia, use the currency of the subject country. In non-country-specific articles, such as Wealth, use US dollars (US$123 on first use, generally $123 thereafter), euros (€123), or pounds sterling (£123). The Manual of style has guidance on currency names, symbols, formatting, and conversions; see MOS:CURRENCY.

MOS:CURRENT

The Manual of style has guidance about chronological items. Except on pages that are inherently time-sensitive and updated regularly (e.g. the "Current events" portal), terms such as now, today, currently, present, to date, so far, soon, upcoming, ongoing, and recently should be avoided in favor of phrases such as during the 2010s, since 2010, and in August 2020. Wording in prose can be modified to remove the "now" perspective: not she is the current director but she became director on 1 January 2026; not 2010–present but beginning in 2010 or since 2010. See MOS:CURRENT.

MOS:DASH

Two forms of dash are used on Wikipedia: en dash (–) and em dash (—). Do not use one or more hyphens in place of a dash. For more details and how to enter them, see MOS:DASH.

MOS:DATE

There are numerous date formats that are acceptable at Wikipedia. You can view them at MOS:DATE.

MOS:DATED

The Manual of style has guidance about chronological items. Except on pages that are inherently time-sensitive and updated regularly (e.g. the "Current events" portal), terms such as now, today, currently, present, to date, so far, soon, upcoming, ongoing, and recently should be avoided in favor of phrases such as during the 2010s, since 2010, and in August 2020. Wording in prose can be modified to remove the "now" perspective: not she is the current director but she became director on 1 January 2026; not 2010–present but beginning in 2010 or since 2010. See MOS:CURRENT.

MOS:DATEFORMAT

There are numerous date formats that are acceptable at Wikipedia. You can view them at MOS:DATE.

MOS:DATERANGE

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on formatting dates and numbers. Date ranges may be written using either an en dash or such forms as from 1822 to 1843 and between May 1 and May 20, but not a combination of a dash and words (from 1881–1886; between June 1 – July 3). A simple year–year range is written using an en dash (–, –) with no spaces and the end year given in full. Lots more at See MOS:DATERANGE.

MOS:DATERET

The Manual of style has extensive guidance about dates. If an article has evolved using predominantly one date format, this format should be used throughout the article, unless there are reasons for changing it based on the topic's strong ties to a particular English-speaking country, or consensus on the article's talk page. See MOS:DATERET.

MOS:DATESNO

Wikipedia has a lot of date formats that are acceptable, but not every date format is. See MOS:BADDATE. For acceptable date formats, see MOS:DATE.

MOS:DATEVAR

The Manual of style has extensive guidance about dates. If an article has evolved using predominantly one date format, this format should be used throughout the article, unless there are reasons for changing it based on the topic's strong ties to a particular English-speaking country, or consensus on the article's talk page. See MOS:DATERET.

MOS:DEADNAME

Use the name and gendered words (man, woman, person) that reflect the person's most recent expressed self-identification as reported in the most recent reliable sources, even if it does not match what is most common in sources. Do not use gendered noun forms (mailman, waitress) that do not match their most recent self-identification. See MOS:GENDERID.

MOS:DECADE

To refer to a decade as a chronological period per se (not with reference to a social era or cultural phenomenon), always use four digits and an s, as in the 1980s. Do not use the 1980's, or the 1980‑ies. See MOS:DECADE.

MOS:DECISIVE

sed for all conflicts and combat operations, such as battles, campaigns, and wars. The "result" parameter has often been a source of contention. The infobox does not have the scope to reflect nuances, and should be restricted to "X victory" or "Inconclusive". In particular, terms like "Pyrrhic victory" or "decisive victory" are inappropriate for outcomes. See MOS:MILRESULT.

MOS:DERRY

The choice of the term Derry or Londonderry for the place name can be contentious. A compromise solution was reached: use Derry for the city and County Londonderry for the county in articles. Do not deviate from this merely because the subject relates to a particular side of the political divide, but where an entity uses a particular name, regardless of whether it is Derry or Londonderry, use that name for the entity. See MOS:DERRY for further information.

MOS:DOCTOR

The Manual of style has guidance about Academic or professional titles and degrees such as "Dr." or "Professor" (including honorary ones). They should be used only with subjects of a biography that are widely known by a pseudonym or stage name containing the title (earned, or not), and included in the pseudonym as described at MOS:NICKNAME See MOS:DOCTOR for details.

MOS:DOUBT

Watch out for words like supposed, apparent, purported, alleged, accused, so-called which can imply that a given point is inaccurate; see MOS:DOUBT.

MOS:DRAFTNOLINK

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on formatting links. In articles, do not link to pages outside the article namespace, including draft articles (except in articles about Wikipedia itself). See MOS:DRAFTNOLINK.

MOS:DUPLINK

Link a term at most once per major section; however they may be used more often in glossaries and stand-alone and embedded lists if it significantly aids the reader. Terms in citations may be linked as often as necessary. See MOS:DUPLINK.

MOS:EDITORIAL

Using descriptors like notable (or: it should be noted, interestingly, of course, fortunately, unfortunately, etc.) to highlight something as particularly significant or certain without attributing that opinion should usually be avoided so as to maintain an impartial tone. For further details and more words to watch, see MOS:EDITORIAL..

MOS:EGG

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on the use and formatting of links. Keep piped links as intuitive as possible. Per the principle of least astonishment, make sure that the reader knows what to expect when following a link. Avoid "Easter egg" or "submarine" links, which are links that unexpectedly hide relevant information underneath the link's label. See MOS:EGG.

MOS:ELLIPSIS

The Wikipedia:Manual of style has guidance on how and when to use an ellipsis, such as omitted material in a quotation. Use three unspaced dots (...) not the ellipsis character (…). Generally, use a non-breaking space before an ellipsis and a regular space after it: Alpha, Bravo,{{nbsp}}... Zulu. The ending space is omitted near punctuation in certain cases. See MOS:ELLIPSIS for details.

MOS:EMPHASIS

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on formatting text in articles, such as which text should use boldface or italic type. The most accessible way to indicate emphasis is with the HTML ... element or by enclosing the emphasized text within an ... template. Italics markup (..., or ...) is often used in practice for emphasis, but this use is not semantically correct markup, so emphasis markup is preferred. See MOS:EMPHASIS.

MOS:ENGVAR

All national varieties of Standard English (e.g., American English, British English and more) are equally acceptable on English Wikipedia. In order to determine which variety to use, we rely on consistency within articles, and strong national ties to a topic. When there is no clear reason to use one or another variety, then retain the existing usage in the article; do not change spelling or grammar in an article just because you prefer it. See MOS:ENGVAR for details. See also MOS:SPELLING for spelling issues.

MOS:ERA

Wikipedia supports both the BC–AD and the BCE–CE notation, and you may use either one consistently within the same article, but don't change an article's established era style without reasons specific to its content. BCE and CE or BC and AD are written in upper case, unspaced, without a full stop (period), and separated from the numeric year by a space (5 BC, not 5BC). It is advisable to use a non-breaking space. See MOS:ERA.

MOS:ETHNICITY

MOS:ETHNICITY says, "Ethnicity, religion, or sexuality should generally not be in the lead unless relevant to the subject's notability."

MOS:EUPHEMISM

Euphemisms should generally be avoided in favor of more neutral and precise terms. Died and had sex are neutral and accurate; passed away and made love are euphemisms. See MOS:EUPHEMISM for more information.

MOS:FLAG

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on the appropriate use of flags. Words are the primary means of communication and should be given greater precedence over flags, including in infoboxes. Flag icons may be relevant in some subject areas, where the subject actually represents that country or nationality – such as military units or national sports teams. See MOS:FLAG for details.

MOS:FLAGBIO

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on the use and formatting of biographical articles. In particular, flags are discouraged in the individual infoboxes of biographical articles. Special care should be taken with the use of flag templates in biographies. For specifics, see MOS:FLAGBIO.

MOS:FLAGRELEVANCE

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on the appropriate use of flags. Subnational flags (regions, cities, etc.) should generally be used only when directly relevant to the article. They are rarely recognizable by the general public, detracting from any shorthand utility they might have. See MOS:FLAGRELEVANCE.

MOS:FONTSIZE

The Wikipedia:Manual of style has guidance about the use of font size. Editors should avoid manually inserting large and small fonts into prose. Reduced or enlarged font sizes should be used sparingly. Size changes are specified as a percentage of the original font size and not as an absolute size in pixels or point size. Do not apply ... or {{small}} to plain text in contexts like infoboxes, navboxes, and reference sections where the font is already small. See MOS:FONTSIZE.

MOS:FOREIGN

Non-English terms should be used sparingly. In general, use italics for phrases and words that are not current in English. MOS:FOREIGN explains how to do this using the {{lang}} template.

MOS:FURTHER

The Further reading section is an optional bulleted list, usually alphabetized, of a reasonable number of publications that would help interested readers learn more about the article subject. Editors may include brief annotations. Publications listed in further reading are formatted in the same citation style used by the rest of the article. See MOS:FURTHER.

MOS:GENDERID

Use the name and gendered words (man, woman, person) that reflect the person's most recent expressed self-identification as reported in the most recent reliable sources, even if it does not match what is most common in sources. Do not use gendered noun forms (mailman, waitress) that do not match their most recent self-identification. See MOS:GENDERID.

MOS:GEO

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on the use and formatting of geographical or place names. A place should generally be referred to consistently by the same name as in the title of its article (see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names); exceptions exist). This is an English-language encyclopedia, so established English names are preferred if they exist, and spellings in non-English alphabets should always be transcribed into the Roman alphabet. Much more detail, information, and exceptions can be found at MOS:GEO.

MOS:GEOLINK

The Manual of style has guidance on linking geographical locations. For a geographical location expressed as a consecutive comma-separated sequence of two or more territorial units, link only the first unit; e.g., For more detail, see MOS:GEOLINK.

MOS:GID

Use the name and gendered words (man, woman, person) that reflect the person's most recent expressed self-identification as reported in the most recent reliable sources, even if it does not match what is most common in sources. Do not use gendered noun forms (mailman, waitress) that do not match their most recent self-identification. See MOS:GENDERID.

MOS:GNL

Use gender-neutral language and avoid the generic he if this can be done with clarity and precision. This does not apply to direct quotations or the titles of works (The Ascent of Man), which should not be altered, or to wording about one-gender contexts, such as an all-female school. See MOS:GNL for further details. See also Wikipedia:Writing about women.

MOS:HASH

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on punctuation, including the number sign (pound, hash). Avoid using the # symbol (number sign, hash sign, pound sign) when referring to numbers or rankings. Instead write number, No. or Nos.; do not use the symbol №. For example: Her album reached number one in the UK albums chart, not: #1. See MOS:POUND.

MOS:HEAD

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on section headings. Section headings follow the guidance for article titles and are presented in sentence case. All headings must be on their own line, preceded by exactly one blank line, and followed by one or no blank lines. See MOS:HEADINGS.

MOS:HEADCAPS

The Manual of style has guidance on the use of capitalization in section headings. Use sentence case, not title case, in all section headings. Capitalize the first character of the first element if it is a letter, but leave the rest lower case except for proper names and other items that would ordinarily be capitalized in running text. See MOS:SECTIONCAPS.

MOS:HEADINGS

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on section headings. Section headings follow the guidance for article titles and are presented in sentence case. All headings must be on their own line, preceded by exactly one blank line, and followed by one or no blank lines. See MOS:HEADINGS.

MOS:HEADINGLINKS

For technical reasons, section headings should be unique within an article (so that ection links work). They should not contain links, template transclusions, citations or footnotes, math markup, images, or icons. See MOS:NOSECTIONLINKS.

MOS:HONORIFIC

The Manual of style has guidance on the use and formatting of honorifics. Honorifics and styles of nobility should normally be capitalized, e.g., Her Majesty, His Holiness. They are not usually used in running text, though some may be appropriate in the lead sentence of a biographical article. In general, honorific prefixes and suffixes should not be included, but may be discussed in the article. See MOS:HONORIFIC for more details.

MOS:HYPHEN

Hyphens have three main uses in Wikipedia articles: 1) in personal names (John Lennard-Jones); 2) to link prefixes and suffixes with the main term (quasi-scientific, London-based); 3) to distinguish between homographs: (re-sign vs. resign). More minor usage includes suspended hyphens. For details, see MOS:HYPHEN; contrast: MOS:DASH.

MOS:ICONS

Wikipedia uses icons—including logos, crests, coats of arms, seals, flags, or other decoration—in articles, mainly in lists, tables, infoboxes, and navboxes in order to provide useful visual cues to the content, but can also present a number of problems. The Manual of style has extensive guidance on icons at MOS:ICONS.

MOS:IDIOM

Clichés and idioms should generally be avoided in favor of direct, literal expressions. Lion's share is often misunderstood and a landslide victory is imprecise; instead use a term such as all, most, two-thirds, or whatever matches the context. Other clichés to avoid: tip of the iceberg, white elephant, take the plunge, ace up the sleeve, twist of fate, at the end of the day. See MOS:CLICHE.

MOS:IMAGELAYOUT

Most images should be on the right side of the page, which is the default placement. Left-aligned images may distort article layout and make it harder to navigate. They can make lines of text jump to the left in the middle of a paragraph and may also disturb the layout of bulleted lists and other structures. Multiple images may sandwich article text in the middle. See MOS:IMAGELAYOUT.

MOS:IMAGES

Images must be significant and relevant in the context of the article topic, not mainly decorative. Each image should have a clear and illustrative purpose and serve as an important aid to understanding the subject. Not every article needs images, and too many can be distracting; usually, less is more. Wikipedia has extensive style guidance at MOS:IMAGES.

MOS:IMAGESIZE

Images adjacent to text should use the thumb (thumbnail) parameter. The default image width then becomes 250 pixels (px). Use parameter |upright=scaling factor when you need to display an image at other than default width. See details at MOS:IMAGESIZE.

MOS:INFOBOX

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on the purpose, creation, style, use, and implementation of Infoboxes using dedicated templates. See MOS:INFOBOX.

MOS:INFOBOXFLAG

Generally, flag icons should not be used in infoboxes. Situations where flag icons may be used in infoboxes include: military conflicts; participants in sporting events such as the FIFA World Cup or Olympic Games; country of registry of ships. See MOS:INFOBOXFLAG.

MOS:INDICSCRIPT

The Manual of style has guidance on the use of Indic script. Avoid the use of Indic scripts in lead sections or infoboxes. Instead, use International Phonetic Alphabet pronunciation guides, which are more international. Exceptions are articles on the script itself, articles on a language that uses the script, and articles on texts originally written in a particular script. Further details at MOS:INDICSCRIPT.

MOS:INSTRUCT

Avoid instructional and presumptuous language, including phrases such as remember that and note that, which address readers directly in an unencyclopedic tone and lean toward instructional. Simply present sourced facts neutrally and let readers draw their own conclusions. See MOS:INSTRUCT.

MOS:ISLAM

The Manual of style has extensive guidance about editing Islam-related articles, ensuring they adhere to a neutral, encyclopedic style and maintain a consistent format for readability. See MOS:ISLAM.

MOS:ITALICS

Wikipedia has style guidance on the use of italics for emphasis, in names and titles, when using words as words (e.g., hat is a noun, but a hat is a head covering); foreign terms, scientific terms, and more. See MOS:ITALICS.

MOS:ITALICTITLE

Some Wikipedia articles take an italic title, including major works like books, TV programs, films, newspapers and magazines, video games, and much more. See MOS:ITALICTITLE for an expanded list. To italicize an article title (or parts of it), you can use {{Italic title}}, {{Italic disambiguation}}, or the DISPLAYTITLE: magic word. See MOS:ITALICTITLE.

MOS:JARGON

Wikipedia has style guidance on the use of technical language. Some topics are necessarily technical; however, editors should seek to write articles accessible to the greatest number of readers. Minimize the use of jargon, and adequately explain its meaning when it is used. See MOS:JARGON.

MOS:JOBTITLES

The Manual of style has guidance on the use of offices, titles, and positions. Terms such as president, king, emperor, pope, prime minister, chief financial officer are common nouns and should be in lower case when used generically: Mitterrand was the French president or There were many presidents at the meeting. They are capitalized only when it becomes part of the name: President Nixon; Pope John XXIII. See MOS:JOBTITLES.

MOS:LABEL

The Manual of style has guidance on the use of contentious labels, like racist, sexist, homophobic, extremist, terrorist, neo-Nazi, pseudoscientific, and many more. Value-laden labels – such as calling an organization a cult, an individual a racist, sexist, terrorist, or a freedom fighter, or a sexual practice a perversion – may express contentious opinion and are best avoided unless widely used by reliable sources to describe the subject, in which case use in-text attribution. For further details see MOS:LABEL.

MOS:LARGE

The Wikipedia:Manual of style has guidance about the use of font size. Editors should avoid manually inserting large and small fonts into prose. Reduced or enlarged font sizes should be used sparingly. Size changes are specified as a percentage of the original font size and not as an absolute size in pixels or point size. Do not apply ... or {{small}} to plain text in contexts like infoboxes, navboxes, and reference sections where the font is already small. See MOS:FONTSIZE.

MOS:LAYOUT

All articles should have a lead section, and references. Beyond that, there are additional standardized sections in an article, which are generally placed in a certain order, with infoboxes, body content, 'see also' links, References, External links, Nav boxes, categories, and more. For a more complete list and the recommended order for article sections, please see MOS:LAYOUT.

MOS:LAYOUTEL

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on the typical layout and formatting of Wikipedia articles, including the sections an article usually has, and their ordering. The External links section is a bulleted list of recommended relevant websites that do not appear in the article body, each accompanied by a short description. See MOS:LAYOUTEL.

MOS:LAYOUTNAV

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on the typical layout and formatting of Wikipedia articles, including the sections an article usually has, and their ordering. The External links section is a bulleted list of recommended relevant websites that do not appear in the article body, each accompanied by a short description. See MOS:LAYOUTNAV.

MOS:LEAD

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on the WP:LEAD section of an article, including the order of elements, content, and special recommendations for biographies and short articles. See MOS:LEAD.

MOS:LEADCITE

The presence of citations in the lead is neither required nor prohibited. Because the lead usually repeats information that is in the body, editors should balance the desire to avoid redundant citations in the lead with the desire to aid readers in locating sources. The lead section must conform to all Wikipedia policies, and "all quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged" should be cited, even in the lead. See MOS:CITELEAD.

MOS:LEADIMAGE

A lead image is perhaps the first thing to catch the reader's eye. It should be a natural and appropriate representation of the topic; of low shock value; and in the case of ethnic groups or other large human populations should not be illustrated by a photomontage or gallery of images of group members. See MOS:LEADIMAGE.

MOS:LEADSENTENCE

The first sentence should introduce the topic, and tell the nonspecialist reader what or who the subject is, and often when or where. It should be in plain English. See MOS:LEADSENTENCE.

MOS:LEADTITLE

If possible, the page title should be the subject of the first sentence. If it is a formal or widely accepted name for the subject, display it as early as possible in the first sentence See MOS:LEADTITLE.

MOS:LINK

Wikipedia has style guidance on the use of links in articles, including over- and under-linking, duplicate and repeat links, the proper use of red links, and how to use various techniques such as redirects, piped links, and tips for linking categories and files. See MOS:LINK.

MOS:LINKONCE

Link a term at most once per major section; however they may be used more often in glossaries and stand-alone and embedded lists if it significantly aids the reader. Terms in citations may be linked as often as necessary. See MOS:DUPLINK.

MOS:LIST

The Manual of style has guidance on stand-alone list articles, lists embedded within an article, lists of works, timelines, and other types of lists. See MOS:LIST.

MOS:LQ

The Manual of style has guidance on using punctuation inside or outside quotation marks. Use the logical quotation style in all articles, regardless of the variety of English in which they are written. Include terminal punctuation within the quotation marks only if it was present in the original material, and otherwise place it after the closing quotation mark. See MOS:LQ.

MOS:LOGICAL

The Manual of style has guidance on using punctuation inside or outside quotation marks. Use the logical quotation style in all articles, regardless of the variety of English in which they are written. Include terminal punctuation within the quotation marks only if it was present in the original material, and otherwise place it after the closing quotation mark. See MOS:LQ.

MOS:LONDONDERRY

The choice of the term Derry or Londonderry for the place name can be contentious. A compromise solution was reached: use Derry for the city and County Londonderry for the county in articles. Do not deviate from this merely because the subject relates to a particular side of the political divide, but where an entity uses a particular name, regardless of whether it is Derry or Londonderry, use that name for the entity. See MOS:DERRY for further information.

MOS:MAC

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on how to refer to the various geographical and political entities called "Macedonia". In brief, the country will be referred to by its short name North Macedonia. The official name Republic of North Macedonia will be used in all contexts where other countries would also be called by their full official names. For additional detail, such as how to refer to events between 1992 and 2019, see MOS:MAC.

MOS:MEASUREMENT

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on formatting units of measurement. Quantities are typically expressed using an appropriate "primary unit" (e.g., kilometers) displayed first, followed, when appropriate, by a conversion in parentheses e.g. 200 kilometres (120 mi). For details on when and how to provide a conversion, see MOS:CONVERSIONS. The choice of primary units depends on the circumstances, and should respect the principle of strong national ties, where applicable; for example in the U.S., use pounds, miles, feet, inches, etc., and in other articles, use SI units (such as meters or kilograms. The UK has special rules, depending on context. For more information on unit choice and order, unit conversions, unit names and symbols, and quantities of bytes and bits, see MOS:UNITS.

MOS:METRIC

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on formatting units of measurement. Quantities are typically expressed using an appropriate "primary unit" (e.g., kilometers) displayed first, followed, when appropriate, by a conversion in parentheses e.g. 200 kilometres (120 mi). For details on when and how to provide a conversion, see MOS:CONVERSIONS. The choice of primary units depends on the circumstances, and should respect the principle of strong national ties, where applicable; for example in the U.S., use pounds, miles, feet, inches, etc., and in other articles, use SI units (such as meters or kilograms. The UK has special rules, depending on context. For more information on unit choice and order, unit conversions, unit names and symbols, and quantities of bytes and bits, see MOS:UNITS.

MOS:MILRESULT

sed for all conflicts and combat operations, such as battles, campaigns, and wars. The "result" parameter has often been a source of contention. The infobox does not have the scope to reflect nuances, and should be restricted to "X victory" or "Inconclusive". In particular, terms like "Pyrrhic victory" or "decisive victory" are inappropriate for outcomes. See MOS:MILRESULT.

MOS:MISGENDER

Use the name and gendered words (man, woman, person) that reflect the person's most recent expressed self-identification as reported in the most recent reliable sources, even if it does not match what is most common in sources. Do not use gendered noun forms (mailman, waitress) that do not match their most recent self-identification. See MOS:GENDERID.

MOS:MUHAMMAD

The Manual of style has guidance on the way to refer to the prophet Muhammad. Honorifics for Muhammad should generally not be used in articles. The Salawat article discusses these honorifics in more detail, the most common ones being: The Prophet or (The) Holy Prophet in place of, or preceding, "Muhammad"; as well as PBUH (or the fuller "peace be upon him") and variants of PBUH. See MOS:PBUH for more information.

MOS:NATIONALITY

MOS:ETHNICITY says, "Ethnicity, religion, or sexuality should generally not be in the lead unless relevant to the subject's notability."

MOS:NB

Use the name and gendered words (man, woman, person) that reflect the person's most recent expressed self-identification as reported in the most recent reliable sources, even if it does not match what is most common in sources. Do not use gendered noun forms (mailman, waitress) that do not match their most recent self-identification. See MOS:GENDERID.

MOS:NICKNAMETHE

The Manual of style has extensive guidance about the use and formatting of alternative names in biographical articles. For nicknames, a leading "the" is not capitalized. Example: Jack "the Assassin" Tatum; or: Jack Tatum, nicknamed "the Assassin". See MOS:NICKNAMETHE.

MOS:NONENG

Non-English terms should be used sparingly. In general, use italics for phrases and words that are not current in English. MOS:FOREIGN explains how to do this using the {{lang}} template.

MOS:NOSECTIONLINKS

For technical reasons, section headings should be unique within an article (so that section links work). They should not contain links, template transclusions, citations or footnotes, math markup, images, or icons. See MOS:NOSECTIONLINKS.

MOS:NOBOLD

The Manual of style has guidance on when not to use boldface. Boldface is appropriate for article title terms in the lead, and certain mathematical symbols. See MOS:NOBOLD for details.

MOS:NOBREAKS

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on the use of bulleted and unbulleted lists. In particular, do not separate list items in bulleted lists with line breaks ( ). Use {{plainlist}} or {{unbulleted list}} if the list is to remain vertical; or consider {{flatlist}} or {{hlist}} if the list could be better rendered horizontally (inline). See MOS:NOBREAKS.

MOS:NOPIPE

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on the proper use of links. Do not use a piped link where it is possible to use a redirected term that fits well within the scope of the text. Further explanation with examples and details at MOS:NOPIPE.

MOS:NOTE

Avoid instructional and presumptuous language, including phrases such as remember that and note that, which address readers directly in an unencyclopedic tone and lean toward instructional. Simply present sourced facts neutrally and let readers draw their own conclusions. See MOS:INSTRUCT.

MOS:NOTES

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on the typical layout and formatting of Wikipedia articles, including the sections an article usually has, and their ordering. The Notes and references section may contain Explanatory footnotes, footnotes, full citations to sources, and General references. For further details, see MOS:LAYOUTNAV.

MOS:NOTLATIN

Names and terms originally written using a non-Latin script—such as the Greek alphabet, the Cyrillic alphabet, or Chinese characters—must be romanized for use in English Wikipedia. If there is a conventional romanization of the subject's name in English—e.g., Tchaikovsky, Chiang Kai-shek—that form should be used. Otherwise, the romanization of names should adhere to a widely used system for the language in question. See MOS:NOTLATIN and WP:ROMAN.

MOS:NOTSEEALSO

The "See also" section should not include red links, links to disambiguation pages (unless used in a disambiguation page for further disambiguation), or external links (including links to pages within Wikimedia sister projects). As a general rule, the "See also" section should not repeat links that appear in the article's body. See MOS:NOTSEEALSO.

MOS:NOTUSA

Both US and U.S. are seen as abbreviations for 'United States', with US generally preferred, but there are many exceptions. See MOS:US.

MOS:NOW

The Manual of style has guidance about chronological items. Except on pages that are inherently time-sensitive and updated regularly (e.g. the "Current events" portal), terms such as now, today, currently, present, to date, so far, soon, upcoming, ongoing, and recently should be avoided in favor of phrases such as during the 2010s, since 2010, and in August 2020. Wording in prose can be modified to remove the "now" perspective: not she is the current director but she became director on 1 January 2026; not 2010–present but beginning in 2010 or since 2010. See MOS:CURRENT.

MOS:NUM

Integers from zero to nine are spelled out in words. Integers greater than nine expressible in one or two words may be expressed either in numerals or in words (16 or sixteen, 84 or eighty-four, 200 or two hundred). There are a lot of other style issues about numbers: ordinals (first, second: MOS:ORDINAL), number ranges, sport scores and vote tallies, fractions, decimals, and much more. See MOS:NUMERAL.

MOS:NUMBERSIGN

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on punctuation, including the number sign (pound, hash). Avoid using the # symbol (number sign, hash sign, pound sign) when referring to numbers or rankings. Instead write number, No. or Nos.; do not use the symbol №. For example: Her album reached number one in the UK albums chart, not: #1. See MOS:POUND.

MOS:NUMERAL

Integers from zero to nine are spelled out in words. Integers greater than nine expressible in one or two words may be expressed either in numerals or in words (16 or sixteen, 84 or eighty-four, 200 or two hundred). There are a lot of other style issues about numbers: ordinals (first, second: MOS:ORDINAL), number ranges, sport scores and vote tallies, fractions, decimals, and much more. See MOS:NUMERAL.

MOS:OFCOURSE

Using descriptors like notable (or: it should be noted, interestingly, of course, fortunately, unfortunately, etc.) to highlight something as particularly significant or certain without attributing that opinion should usually be avoided so as to maintain an impartial tone. For further details and more words to watch, see MOS:EDITORIAL..

MOS:OL

Everyday words, common occupations, major country and city names, geographic features, nationalities, religions, and many more very common topics need not be linked, as they may clutter the article with red links without aiding reader understanding. See MOS:OVERLINK.

MOS:OLINK

Everyday words, common occupations, major country and city names, geographic features, nationalities, religions, and many more very common topics need not be linked, as they may clutter the article with red links without aiding reader understanding. See MOS:OVERLINK.

MOS:ORDER

The Manual of style has extensive guidance about the layout of Wikipedia articles, and lists the recommended order of sections in the article. See MOS:SECTIONORDER.

MOS:ORDINAL

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on formatting dates and numbers. For ordinal numbers, the general principles set out in Numbers as figures or words apply. In particular, do not start a sentence with a figure, and generally use first through ninth, not 1st through 9th, for single-digit ordinals. (Exception: MOS:CENTURY.) In "suffix" forms, use two-letter suffixes: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and so on (2nd Battalion not 2d Battalion). Do not superscript (e.g. 123^rd). See MOS:ORDINAL.

MOS:OTHERLANG

By default, English Wikipedia articles state explicitly to the browser that they are written wholly in English. Most screen readers attempting to handle a foreign expression like ''Assemblée nationale'' in the article will sound ridiculous or confusing. Non-English text should be tagged with the language, typically with a template like {{lang}}; e.g.: {{lang|fr|Assemblée nationale}}. See MOS:OTHERLANG.

MOS:OUR

The Manual of style has guidance on the use and formatting of first-person pronouns. To maintain an objective and impersonal encyclopedic voice, an article should never refer to its editors or readers using I, my, we, us, our, or similar words; e.g., avoid: We note that some believe that bats are bugs. For more details, see MOS:WE.

MOS:OVERLINK

Everyday words, common occupations, major country and city names, geographic features, nationalities, religions, and many more very common topics need not be linked, as they may clutter the article with red links without aiding reader understanding. See MOS:OVERLINK.

MOS:PARAGRAPH

Sections usually consist of paragraphs of running prose, each dealing with a particular point or idea. Single-sentence paragraphs can inhibit the flow of the text; by the same token, long paragraphs become hard to read. Between paragraphs—as between sections—there should be only a single blank line. See MOS:PARAGRAPH.

MOS:PARENS

Sentence punctuation goes outside parentheses or brackets (as shown here). (But if they contain an entire sentence, the punctuation goes inside, like this.) More details about parentheses and brackets, including how to use bracketed expressions inside a wikilink, is available at MOS:PARENS.

MOS:PBUH

The Manual of style has guidance on the way to refer to the prophet Muhammad. Honorifics for Muhammad should generally not be used in articles. The Salawat article discusses these honorifics in more detail, the most common ones being: The Prophet or (The) Holy Prophet in place of, or preceding, "Muhammad"; as well as PBUH (or the fuller "peace be upon him") and variants of PBUH. See MOS:PBUH for more information.

MOS:PEACOCK

Words such as legendary, greatest, acclaimed, iconic, visionary, outstanding, etc., are often used without attribution to promote the subject of an article, while neither imparting nor plainly summarizing verifiable information. They are known as "peacock terms" by Wikipedia contributors. See MOS:PEACOCK.

MOS:PERIOD

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on punctuation, including terminal punctuation. Question marks or exclamation marks have almost no application in encyclopedic writing. Where a word or phrase that includes terminal punctuation ends a sentence, do not add a second terminal punctuation mark. If the word or phrase ends in a question mark or exclamation mark, readers may find the sentence confusing, so it is usually better to reword so that the mark appears mid-sentence. Not all contexts require terminal punctuation. Captions, list entries, and similar sentence fragments in most cases should not end with a period. See MOS:PERIOD.

MOS:PLURALS

Words adopted into English take the plurals shown in appropriate English dictionaries, otherwise we follow the pluralization conventions of the native language. Some collective nouns – such as team, army, company, crowd, fleet, government (and others) can take the singular or plural, depending whether it is viewed as a single entity, or to its members. In British English, such words are sometimes treated as singular, but more often treated as plural. In North American English, these words are almost invariably treated as singular (except for sports teams). Further details at MOS:PLURALS.

MOS:PMC

Quotations must be verifiably attributed, and the wording of the quoted text must be faithfully reproduced. This is referred to as the principle of minimal change. See MOS:PMC.

MOS:POPCULT

The Manual of style has extensive guidance about trivia and popular culture. Cultural references about the article's subject should not be included merely because they exist. Cultural aspects of the subject should be included only if they are supported by reliable secondary or tertiary sources that discuss the subject's cultural impact in some depth. The mere appearance of the subject in a film, song, video game, television show, or the like is insufficient; more generally, if sourcing for a given cultural reference is such that a given article would be able to do little more than briefly mention it, then it doesn't merit inclusion in that article at all. See MOS:POPCULT.

MOS:POSS

The Manual of style has guidance on the use of possessives. For singular nouns, add 's (her niece's wedding); for a normal plural noun ending with a pronounced s, form the possessive by adding just an apostrophe (my sons' wives); official names should not be altered. (St Thomas' Hospital should therefore not be rendered as St Thomas's Hospital or St. Thomas Hospital, even for consistency. For more details, see MOS:POSS.

MOS:POSTNOM

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on the use of post-nominal letters and Honorifics. Post-nominal letters may be included in any part of the article other than the lead sentence. Post-nominals should only be mentioned at relevant places in a biography subject's own article (except the lead) and in other special circumstances. Please see MOS:POSTNOM for further details. For formatting issues, please see MOS:POSTNOMVAR.

MOS:POUND

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on punctuation, including the number sign (pound, hash). Avoid using the # symbol (number sign, hash sign, pound sign) when referring to numbers or rankings. Instead write number, No. or Nos.; do not use the symbol №. For example: Her album reached number one in the UK albums chart, not: #1. See MOS:POUND.

MOS:PREFIX

The Manual of style has extensive guidance about honorifics including honorific prefixes like His/Her Excellency, The Right Honourable, Sir, Dame, Lord, and Lady and other examples. See MOS:PREFIX.

MOS:PRONOUNS

First person: to maintain an objective and impersonal encyclopedic voice, an article should never refer to its editors or readers using I, my, we, us, our, or similar words. Second person:Avoid addressing the reader using you or your, which sets an inappropriate tone. Third-person:Refer to a person with pronouns (and other gendered words) that reflect their latest self-identification in recent reliable sources. See MOS:PRONOUNS.

MOS:PRONUNCIATION

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on how to indicate the pronunciation of article titles, using the International Phonetic Alphabet, pronunciation respelling, or with an audio file. See MOS:PRONUNCIATION.

MOS:PROPER

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on capitalization, including for proper names. See MOS:PROPER.

MOS:PROPERNAME

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on capitalization, including for proper names. See MOS:PROPER.

MOS:PUFFERY

Words such as legendary, greatest, acclaimed, iconic, visionary, outstanding, etc., are often used without attribution to promote the subject of an article, while neither imparting nor plainly summarizing verifiable information. They are known as "peacock terms" by Wikipedia contributors. See MOS:PEACOCK.

MOS:PUNCT

Wikipedia has style guidance on punctuation, including usage of apostrophe, Quotation marks, straight and curly quotation characters, Brackets and parentheses, comma, colon, hyphens and dashes, slash, period, and much more. See MOS:PUNCT.

MOS:QUOTE

Quotations are placed between double "straight" quotation marks, not “curly” ones. The wording of the quoted text must be faithfully reproduced, except that punctuation and purely typographical elements of quoted text are adapted to the Wikipedia Manual of style. For further details, see MOS:QUOTE.

MOS:RACIST

The Manual of style has guidance on the use of contentious labels, like racist, sexist, homophobic, extremist, terrorist, neo-Nazi, pseudoscientific, and many more. Value-laden labels – such as calling an organization a cult, an individual a racist, sexist, terrorist, or a freedom fighter, or a sexual practice a perversion – may express contentious opinion and are best avoided unless widely used by reliable sources to describe the subject, in which case use in-text attribution. For further details see MOS:LABEL.

MOS:RECENT

The Manual of style has guidance about chronological items. Except on pages that are inherently time-sensitive and updated regularly (e.g. the "Current events" portal), terms such as now, today, currently, present, to date, so far, soon, upcoming, ongoing, and recently should be avoided in favor of phrases such as during the 2010s, since 2010, and in August 2020. Wording in prose can be modified to remove the "now" perspective: not she is the current director but she became director on 1 January 2026; not 2010–present but beginning in 2010 or since 2010. See MOS:CURRENT.

MOS:REFERENCES

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on the typical layout and formatting of Wikipedia articles, including the sections an article usually has, and their ordering. The Notes and references section may contain Explanatory footnotes, footnotes, full citations to sources, and General references. For further details, see MOS:LAYOUTNAV.

MOS:REFPUNCT

Reference tags should immediately follow the text to which the footnote applies, with no intervening space. See MOS:REFPUNCT.

MOS:REFS

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on the typical layout and formatting of Wikipedia articles, including the sections an article usually has, and their ordering. The Notes and references section may contain Explanatory footnotes, footnotes, full citations to sources, and General references. For further details, see MOS:LAYOUTNAV.

MOS:REFSPACE

Reference tags should immediately follow the text to which the footnote applies, with no intervening space. References are placed after adjacent punctuation, not before. (Exception: they go before dashes.) A series of multiple reference tags should have no space between them. See MOS:REFSPACE.

MOS:RELTIME

Absolute specifications of time are preferred to relative constructions using recently, currently, and so on, because the latter may go out of date. "By October 2026 contributions had dropped" has the same meaning as "Recently, contributions have dropped", but the first sentence retains its meaning as time passes. Words to watch: recently, lately, currently, today, to date, X years ago, in the past, this/last/next year/month/season soon, since. See MOS:RELTIME.

MOS:REPEATLINK

Link a term at most once per major section; however they may be used more often in glossaries and stand-alone and embedded lists if it significantly aids the reader. Terms in citations may be linked as often as necessary. See MOS:DUPLINK.

MOS:RETAIN

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on national varieties of English. An article should not be edited or renamed simply to switch from one variety of English to another. When an English variety's consistent usage has been established in an article, maintain it in the absence of consensus to the contrary. Only very exceptionally (such as when a topic has strong national ties, or the change reduces ambiguity) is there a valid reason for changing from one acceptable option to another. (Exception: do not change the variety of English within a quotation.) See MOS:RETAIN.

MOS:REVEREND

The Manual of style has extensive guidance about honorifics including honorific prefixes like His/Her Excellency, The Right Honourable, Sir, Dame, Lord, and Lady and other examples. See MOS:PREFIX.

MOS:ROLEBIO

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on biographical artices, including the use of positions and roles in the lead. The noteworthy position(s) or role(s) the person held should usually be stated in the opening paragraph. However, avoid overloading the lead paragraph with various and sundry roles; instead, emphasize what made the person notable. Incidental and non-noteworthy roles (i.e. activities that are not integral to the person's notability) should usually not be mentioned in the lead paragraph. See MOS:ROLEBIO.

MOS:SAWW

The Manual of style has guidance on the way to refer to the prophet Muhammad. Honorifics for Muhammad should generally not be used in articles. The Salawat article discusses these honorifics in more detail, the most common ones being: The Prophet or (The) Holy Prophet in place of, or preceding, "Muhammad"; as well as PBUH (or the fuller "peace be upon him") and variants of PBUH. See MOS:PBUH for more information.

MOS:SCAREQUOTES

Watch out for words like supposed, apparent, purported, alleged, accused, so-called which can imply that a given point is inaccurate; see MOS:ALLEGED.

MOS:SCIENTIFIC

The Manual of style has guidance on the formatting of the scientific names of organisms. Normally, you should capitalize (but not italicize taxa higher than genus (with a few exceptions, like viruses which are italicized). For further details, see MOS:SCIENTIFIC.

MOS:SEAOFBLUE

Do not place links next to each other that appear to be a single link, as in [[chess]] [[tournament]] (chess tournament). Instead, consider using a single and more specific link, such as [[chess tournament]] (chess tournament). If this is not possible, consider omitting one of the links (chess tournament) or rephrasing the sentence (tournament of chess). See MOS:SEAOFBLUE.

MOS:SEASON

Avoid using seasons to refer to a particular time of year, as they are different in the in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere. Season names are generally not capitalized. See MOS:SEASON.

MOS:SECTIONCAPS

The Manual of style has guidance on the use of capitalization in section headings. Use sentence case, not title case, in all section headings. Capitalize the first character of the first element if it is a letter, but leave the rest lower case except for proper names and other items that would ordinarily be capitalized in running text. See MOS:SECTIONCAPS.

MOS:SECTIONHEADINGS

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on section headings. Section headings follow the guidance for article titles and are presented in sentence case. All headings must be on their own line, preceded by exactly one blank line, and followed by one or no blank lines. See MOS:HEADINGS.

MOS:SECTIONLINK

If an article has a section specifically about a topic, linking to that section takes the reader directly to the relevant information. Section-linking options are piped links, redirects, and the {{Section link}} template, which also generates the § character. Avoid displaying the hash (#) character in section links; do not simply write [[foo#bar]], which will render as foo#bar. See MOS:SECTIONLINK.

MOS:SECTIONORDER

The Manual of style has extensive guidance about the layout of Wikipedia articles, and lists the recommended order of sections in the article. See MOS:SECTIONORDER.

MOS:SECTIONSTYLE

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on the use and formatting of section headings. Section headings should generally follow the guidance for article titles and be presented in sentence case (Funding of UNESCO projects in developing countries), not title case (Funding of UNESCO Projects in Developing Countries). All headings must be on their own line, preceded by exactly one blank line, and followed by either one or no blank lines. See MOS:SECTIONSTYLE for more information and numerous examples.

MOS:SEEALSO

The See also section should be a bulleted list, sorted either logically, chronologically, or alphabetically. List entries should begin with a capital letter, and are limited to a reasonable number. See MOS:SEEALSO.

MOS:SEMICOLON

A semicolon (;) is sometimes an alternative to a full stop (period), enabling related material to be kept in the same sentence; it marks a more decisive division in a sentence than a comma. See MOS:SEMICOLON. For the use of semicolon before however, see MOS:HOWEVER.

MOS:SIC

Quotations must be verifiably attributed, and the wording of the quoted text must be faithfully reproduced. This is referred to as the principle of minimal change. See MOS:PMC.

MOS:SINCE

The Manual of style has guidance about chronological items. Except on pages that are inherently time-sensitive and updated regularly (e.g. the "Current events" portal), terms such as now, today, currently, present, to date, so far, soon, upcoming, ongoing, and recently should be avoided in favor of phrases such as during the 2010s, since 2010, and in August 2020. Wording in prose can be modified to remove the "now" perspective: not she is the current director but she became director on 1 January 2026; not 2010–present but beginning in 2010 or since 2010. See MOS:CURRENT.

MOS:SINGULAR

Words adopted into English take the plurals shown in appropriate English dictionaries, otherwise we follow the pluralization conventions of the native language. Some collective nouns – such as team, army, company, crowd, fleet, government (and others) can take the singular or plural, depending whether it is viewed as a single entity, or to its members. In British English, such words are sometimes treated as singular, but more often treated as plural. In North American English, these words are almost invariably treated as singular (except for sports teams). Further details at MOS:PLURALS.

MOS:SMALL

The Wikipedia:Manual of style has guidance about the use of font size. Editors should avoid manually inserting large and small fonts into prose. Reduced or enlarged font sizes should be used sparingly. Size changes are specified as a percentage of the original font size and not as an absolute size in pixels or point size. Do not apply ... or {{small}} to plain text in contexts like infoboxes, navboxes, and reference sections where the font is already small. See MOS:FONTSIZE.

MOS:SMALLFONT

The Manual of style has guidance on the use of small font size. No text should be reduced below 85% of the page's default font size. Avoid reducing font size within elements that already use smaller text, such as infoboxes, navboxes, and reference sections. See MOS:SMALLFONT.

MOS:SPELLING

If you are not familiar with a spelling, please do some research before changing it. There are numerous differences in spelling, especially in the case of American and British English, as well as other national varieties of English. See this table for a list of the most common examples. Further details at MOS:SPELLING.

MOS:STRAIGHT

Use "straight" quotation marks, not “curly” ones. (For single quotes: 'straight', not ‘curly’.) See MOS:CURLY.

MOS:STYLEVAR

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on national varieties of English. Sometimes, the MOS provides more than one acceptable style or gives no specific guidance. When more than one style is acceptable, it is generally considered inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change. Edit warring over style, or enforcing optional style in a bot-like fashion without prior consensus, is disruptive and is never acceptable. See MOS:VAR.

MOS:SURNAME

After the initial mention, a person should generally be referred to by surname only – without an honorific prefix such as "Mr.", "Mrs.", or "Ms.", and without academic or professional prefixes like "Dr.", "Prof.", "Rev.", etc. – or may be referred to by a personal pronoun. See MOS:SURNAME.

MOS:SUBSECTION

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on the layout of Wikipedia articles, including the use and formatting of headings of sections and subsections. There is a six-level section hierarchy, starting at 1 and ending at 6. The level is defined by the number of equals signs on each side of the title. See MOS:SUBSECTION.

MOS:TABLE

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on the formatting, appearance, accessibility, and sortability of Tables in Wikipedia articles, including lists of do's and dont's. See MOS:TABLE. (For technical help in creating tables, see Help:Table.)

MOS:TENSE

By default, write articles in the present tense, including those about works of fiction and discontinued products. Use past tense only for past events and for subjects that are dead or no longer meaningfully exist, such as deceased people or defunct companies. See MOS:TENSE for numerous examples and further details.

MOS:TERRORIST

The Manual of style has guidance on the use of contentious labels, like racist, sexist, homophobic, extremist, terrorist, neo-Nazi, pseudoscientific, and many more. Value-laden labels – such as calling an organization a cult, an individual a racist, sexist, terrorist, or a freedom fighter, or a sexual practice a perversion – may express contentious opinion and are best avoided unless widely used by reliable sources to describe the subject, in which case use in-text attribution. For further details see MOS:LABEL.

MOS:THEBAND

The Manual of style has guidance on the use of the word "the" as the first word of a band's name. When the word the is sometimes or consistently used at the beginning of a band's name, a redirect (or disambiguation) should be created with the alternative name (with or without "the"). Mid-sentence, the word the should in general not be capitalized in runnng text, e.g.: Wings featured Paul McCartney from the Beatles and Denny Laine from the Moody Blues. See MOS:THEMUSIC.

MOS:THECAPS

Regarding the capitalization of The, normally do not capitalize the definite article after the first word of a sentence; howeever, some idiomatic expressions, including the titles of artistic and academic works, should be quoted exactly, according to common usage. For example, J. R. R. Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings, but Homer wrote the Odyssey. There are many exceptions and it can be tricky; see MOS:THECAPS.

MOS:THEMUSIC

The Manual of style has guidance on the use of the word "the" as the first word of a band's name. When the word the is sometimes or consistently used at the beginning of a band's name, a redirect (or disambiguation) should be created with the alternative name (with or without "the"). Mid-sentence, the word the should in general not be capitalized in runnng text, e.g.: Wings featured Paul McCartney from the Beatles and Denny Laine from the Moody Blues. See MOS:THEMUSIC.

MOS:THENICKNAME

The Manual of style has extensive guidance about the use and formatting of alternative names in biographical articles. For nicknames, a leading "the" is not capitalized. Example: Jack "the Assassin" Tatum; or: Jack Tatum, nicknamed "the Assassin". See MOS:NICKNAMETHE.

MOS:TIES

The Manual of style has extensive guidance about national varieties of English. An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should use the standard (formal, not colloquial) English of that nation. See MOS:TIES.

MOS:TIME

The MOS:TIME guideline covers issues of 12- vs. 24-hour clock times and time zones. See MOS:TIME.

MOS:TITLE

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on title formats, including foreign titles, and recommended style for titles of works, such as capitalization and italics versus quotation marks, and which ones take neither. See MOS:TITLE.

MOS:TM

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on the use and formatting of trademarks. Capitalize trademarks, like proper names, e.g. Pyrex, not: pyrex. Do not expect readers to know what an item is, based solely on trademark or brand name. For example: use: Police in Miami confiscated 25 stolen Rolex watches., not: Police in Miami confiscated 25 stolen Rolexes. Much more detail at MOS:TM.

MOS:TMRULES

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on the use of trademarks. Capitalize trademarks, like proper names, e.g., use: Pyrex, not pyrex. Follow standard English text formatting and capitalization practices, even if the trademark owner considers nonstandard formatting "official". Use: Time, Kiss, Asus, Sony Mobile. not TIME, KISS, ASUS, SONY Mobile. See MOS:TMRULES for lots more details anL numerous examples.

MOS:TRIVIA

The Manual of style has extensive guidance about trivia and popular culture. Avoid collections of miscellaneous facts or examples, since Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. These risk becoming trivia magnets, which grow increasingly unwieldy as items are added. See MOS:TRIVIA.

MOS:TVCOUNTRY

The Manual of style has guidance about the nationality or country of origin of a television series. It should be referenced by reliable sources, directly if possible, but otherwise by referencing the country or collaboration within which principal creative control was exercised. See MOS:TVNATIONALITY.

MOS:TVNATIONALITY

The Manual of style has guidance about the nationality or country of origin of a television series. It should be referenced by reliable sources, directly if possible, but otherwise by referencing the country or collaboration within which principal creative control was exercised. See MOS:TVNATIONALITY.

MOS:TVNOW

The Manual of style has extensive guidance about television-related articles. When onsidering verb tense, references to the show, and its characters and locations, should always be in the present tense, as the show will still exist even after it is no longer airing new episodes (e.g. "The Dick Van Dyke Show is a show that aired from 1961 to 1966."). Most production and broadcast information should be referred to in past tense: "The Afternoon Show is a British talk show which was broadcast by Channel 1 between 2008 and 2011." See MOS:TVNOW.

MOS:UNFORTUNATELY

Using descriptors like notable (or: it should be noted, interestingly, of course, fortunately, unfortunately, etc.) to highlight something as particularly significant or certain without attributing that opinion should usually be avoided so as to maintain an impartial tone. For further details and more words to watch, see MOS:EDITORIAL..

MOS:UNITS

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on formatting units of measurement. Quantities are typically expressed using an appropriate "primary unit" (e.g., kilometers) displayed first, followed, when appropriate, by a conversion in parentheses e.g. 200 kilometres (120 mi). For details on when and how to provide a conversion, see MOS:CONVERSIONS. The choice of primary units depends on the circumstances, and should respect the principle of strong national ties, where applicable; for example in the U.S., use pounds, miles, feet, inches, etc., and in other articles, use SI units (such as meters or kilograms. The UK has special rules, depending on context. For more information on unit choice and order, unit conversions, unit names and symbols, and quantities of bytes and bits, see MOS:UNITS.

MOS:UNLINKDATES

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on the use and formatting of dates. Dates, years, and other chronological items should be linked only when they are relevant to the subject and likely to be useful to a reader (except articles that are explicitly about a chronological item, e.g. 2002, 19th century). For dates in sortable tables, see Help:Sortable tables § Date sorting problems. See MOS:UNLINKDATES.

MOS:US

Both US and U.S. are seen as abbreviations for 'United States', with US generally preferred, but there are many exceptions. See MOS:US.

MOS:VAGUE

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on words to watch, including expressions that lack precision, such as euphemisms, clichés and idioms, relative time references, unspecified places or events, and others. See MOS:VAGUE for details.

MOS:VAR

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on national varieties of English. Sometimes, the MOS provides more than one acceptable style or gives no specific guidance. When more than one style is acceptable, it is generally considered inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change. Edit warring over style, or enforcing optional style in a bot-like fashion without prior consensus, is disruptive and is never acceptable. See MOS:VAR.

MOS:WE

The Manual of style has guidance on the use and formatting of first-person pronouns. To maintain an objective and impersonal encyclopedic voice, an article should never refer to its editors or readers using I, my, we, us, our, or similar words; e.g., avoid: We note that some believe that bats are bugs. For more details, see MOS:WE.

MOS:WEASEL

Avoid the use of weasel words that may give the impression that something specific and meaningful has been said, when in fact only a vague or ambiguous claim has been communicated. Examples: some say, it is believed, experts declare, it is often reported, research has shown, science says, officially, is widely regarded as, X has been described as Y. Claims about what people say, think, or believe, and what has been shown, demonstrated, or proved should be clearly attributed. See MOS:WEASEL.

MOS:WORDS

The Manual of style has extensive guidance on words to watch, including words that may introduce bias, expressions that lack precision, vulgarities, obscenities, and profanities, and others. See MOS:WORDS for details.

MOS:YOU

The Manual of style has guidance on the use of the pronoun you. Avoid addressing the reader using you or your, which sets an inappropriate tone. See also § Instructional and presumptuous language. In some contexts, the impersonal pronoun one may be used: a sense that one is being watched. The passive voice may sometimes be used instead: Impurities are removed before bottling. See MOS:YOU.