Wikipedia:Technical terms and definitions: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 03:37, 4 December 2005

Revision as of 08:38, 11 January 2006

Line 7:

There are three basic markups used to make technical terms stand out; these are ''italic'' (also termed ''oblique'' with [[sans-serif]] fonts), '''bold''', and '''''bold italic'''''. The following uses of these styles are recommended for technical articles:

''Italic'' (edited as <tt><nowiki>''</nowiki><tt>italic</tt><nowiki>''</nowiki></tt>); 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. When 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, only the name is capitalized: "the family Poaceae".

*Foreign language words that are not generally used in English: ''hidari'' (Jp: "left"); but not the word gauche (from Fr: "left"), since this is an established word 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.

Line 15:

*Words as words: ''Deuce'' means ''two''. See also: [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style]], subsections '''Caption style''' and '''Style for words as words''' and [[Wikipedia:Cite your sources]] for other uses of italicised or oblique text.

'''Bold''' (edited as <tt><nowiki>'''</nowiki><tt>bold</tt><nowiki>'''</nowiki></tt>); used for:

*First use of the article name, near the front of the introduction sentence.

*Definitions that are important aspects discussed by the article, but have not been elevated to the level of subtitle and do not pass the "rare technical term" test. Example (from [[Current (electricity)]]):

::In [[electricity]], '''current''' is any flow of [[charge]], usually through a metal wire or some other electrical [[conductor (material)|conductor]]. '''Conventional current''' was defined early in the history of electrical science as a flow of positive charge, although we now know that, in the case of metallic conduction…conduction...

'''''Bold italic''''' (edited as <tt><nowiki>'''''</nowiki><tt>bold italic</tt><nowiki>'''''</nowiki></tt>); used for:

*First time introduction of a technical term. This should be part of a definition sentence or immediately followed by a non-technical substitute in parentheses. Example (from [[Fern]]):

::A fern is defined as a [[vascular plant]] that reproduces by shedding [[spores]] to initiate an [[alternation of generations]]. New fronds arise by '''''[[Vernation|circinate vernation]]''''' (unrolling leaf formation).

Line 26:

As in the fern example above, any of the three styles described above could be turned into a link if there exists a more detailed or better explanation of the technical term in a separate article. It may not be necessary then to define the term in the article if a link leads to a definition. However, to aid the reader in continuing with the text without having to leave an article for other details, it might still be appropriate to include a non-technical substitute in parentheses, as in the fern example above.

Some other markups are available but risky. Examples are <tt>teletype</tt> (edited as <tt>&lt;tt&gt;teletype&lt;/tt&gt;</tt>), <u>underline</u> (edited as <tt>&lt;u&gt;underline&lt;/u&gt;</tt>), and ''italic'' (edited as <tt>&lt;i&gt;italic&lt;/i&gt;</tt> or <tt>&lt;cite&gt;italic&lt;/cite&gt;</tt>). But the teletype (monospace) tag does not usually produce text sufficiently different from the standard Wikipedia font to be useful; the underline tag can create confusion with links; and the HTML tags &lt;i&gt; and &lt;cite&gt; are not differentiated by most common browsers. The Wikipedia italic, described above and edited as <tt><nowiki>''</nowiki><tt>italic</tt><nowiki>''</nowiki></tt>, is preferablypreferable to the

HTML tags &lt;i&gt; and &lt;cite&gt;.