Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Text formatting/Archive 8: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 03:46, 29 October 2023

Revision as of 16:12, 26 March 2024

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:Strictly speaking, I suppose, '''''concentric''''' should (or could) be bold-faced and italic, while ''coaxial'' should be just italic, but while that would best meet abstract logic, it just doesn't seem that such a distinction would be readily apparent to the average passing-by reader, i.e. it might just look odd. Hard cases make bad law and "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds", so I'm not sure what the best solution for [[Concentric]] would be, and whether that would be any useful guide for other articles of this type. [[User:Shakescene|—— Shakescene]] ([[User talk:Shakescene|talk]]) 07:39, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

:No, do not italicise. The article is not discussing the {{em|words}}, but the {{em|concepts}}. Consider: {{xt|Two objects are said to be coaxial when they…}}, versus {{xt|… ''coaxial'' derives from the Dutch word, ''koe'' and the American word, ''axel''. }} <span style="font-family:Avenir, sans-serif">—&nbsp;<span style="border-radius:5px;padding:.1em .4em;background:#faeded">[[User:HTGS|HTGS]]</span>&nbsp;([[User talk:HTGS|talk]])</span> 03:29, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

== Which template to use: Strong or Em ==

The boldface part says this:

{{tqb|For [[Semantic HTML|semantical]] emphasis (to denote importance, seriousness, or urgency), you can also use the HTML element <code><nowiki><strong>...</strong></nowiki></code>, or the template {{tlx|strong}}. This is desirable because the words can stand out for text to speech and other software, important due to [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility|accessibility]] issues.}}

It then contradicts this in the {{tq|When not to use boldface}} section:

{{tqb|Avoid using boldface for emphasis in article text. Instead, use HTML's {{tag|em}} element or the {{tlx|em|{{var|...}}}} template (which usually render as italic).}}

So which one {{em|should}} be used? [[:User:Aaron Liu|<span style="color: rgb(6,69,173); text-decoration: inherit;">Aaron Liu</span>]] ([[User talk:Aaron Liu#top|talk]]) 20:22, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

:My understanding is that bolding should never be used in article text for emphasis, as the second passage states. Even italics for emphasis should very rarely be used, since if you're emphasizing something, you're making an editorial choice that it deserves emphasis, and that's not very encyclopedic/neutral. (Exceptions could be things like quotations that contain emphasis in the source.)

:What the first passage seems to be speaking more to is writing on Wikipedia outside of articles. So e.g. a template that has a bolded "don't do this bad thing!!!" message should be using {{t|strong}}. That could definitely be explained better in the MOS here; I'd be fine with tweaking it to clarify. Cheers, <span style="color:#AAA"><small>&#123;{u&#124;</small><span style="border-radius:9em;padding:0 5px;background:#088">[[User:Sdkb|<span style="color:#FFF">'''Sdkb'''</span>]]</span><small>}&#125;</small></span> ^{[[User talk:Sdkb|'''talk''']]} 21:02, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

== Use of italics in references/citations ==

When referring to the title of a book or a film in the title of a source that is normally not italicised, should the title of the work be italicised in the non-italicised title of the source? Hopefully the following example will help you decipher the question. This newspaper article refers to the film ''Walkabout'', so how should the reference be formatted?

# {{cite news|title=How we made Walkabout|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|date=9 August 2016|first=Alex|last=Godfrey |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/aug/09/how-we-made-walkabout-jenny-agutter-nicolas-roeg-luc-roeg |access-date=27 February 2022 }}

# {{cite news|title=How we made ''Walkabout''|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|date=9 August 2016|first=Alex|last=Godfrey |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/aug/09/how-we-made-walkabout-jenny-agutter-nicolas-roeg-luc-roeg |access-date=27 February 2022 }}

[[User:Betty Logan|Betty Logan]] ([[User talk:Betty Logan|talk]]) 20:38, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

:Per [[MOS:CONFORMTITLE]], the title of the work should be italicized in the title of the source, as demonstrated by your second example. <span style="font-variant:small-caps">[[User:Orange Suede Sofa|<span style="color:DarkGreen;">Orange Suede Sofa</span>]]</span> ([[User talk:Orange Suede Sofa|talk]]) 22:48, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

::Thank you! [[User:Betty Logan|Betty Logan]] ([[User talk:Betty Logan|talk]]) 00:37, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

:::But it should be done with bare <code><nowiki>''...''</nowiki></code> markup, not with, e.g., {{tlx|lang}} for cases that in running text that could call for that. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — [[User:SMcCandlish|'''SMcCandlish''']] [[User talk:SMcCandlish|☏]] [[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|¢]] 😼 </span> 01:30, 25 September 2023 (UTC)