Wikipedia:Technical terms and definitions: Difference between revisions

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''Italic'' (<nowiki>rendered as ''italic''</nowiki>); used for:

*Binomial names of organisms (''Genus species'') are always <i>italicized</i>; the genus name is first-letter capitalized, the species name is not. Higher taxonomic levels are not italicized,. butWhen both the classification term and its name form a unified title, they are both first-letter capitalized: "Family Poaceae"; when they do not form a title, neveronly the name is capitalized: "the family ''Poaceae''".

*Foreign language words that are not generally used in English: ''hidari'' (Jp: "left"); but not gauche (from Fr: "left"), whensince usedthis asis aan synonymestablished forword "akward"in English.

*Technical or scientific terms that are defined above in the same article (and appear there in '''''bold italic'''''; see below) to demonstrate use of the term, or emphasize that use to the reader. Although it is standard practice in text books to put in italics or bold font those words likely to be new to the reader only the first time the word appears, it is helpful to the learning process if newly defined terms that reappear are rendered in ''italic'' font elsewhere in a Wikipedia article.

*Terms that are not defined at that point in the text, but are nonetheless "technical", although will likely appear in numerous other articles in Wikipedia. Here, the "emphasize only the first time used on a page" rule could apply. Example (from [[Plant]]):