Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Superscripts and subscripts: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 06:15, 7 August 2012

Revision as of 06:25, 26 October 2015

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Special care is needed with subscripted labels to distinguish the purpose of the subscript (as this is a common error): variables and constants in subscripts should be italic, while textual labels should be in normal text font (Roman, upright). For example:

: <math> x_\text{this one} = y_\text{that one} \,\!</math> &emsp; (correct—typeset from <code><nowikisource lang="tex" inline><math> x_\text{this one} = y_\text{that one} \,\!</math></nowiki></codesource>),

and

: <math>\sum_{i=1}^n { y_i^2 }\!</math> &emsp; (correct—typeset from <code><nowikisource lang="tex" inline><math>\sum_{i=1}^n { y_i^2 }\!</math></nowiki></codesource>),

but not

: <math>r = x_{predicted} - x_{observed}</math> &emsp; (''incorrect''—typeset from <code><nowiki><math>r = x_{predicted} - x_{observed}</math></nowiki></code>).

Moreover, the TeX engine used on Wikipedia may format simple superscripts using <code><nowiki><{{tag|sup>...</sup></nowiki></code>}} depending on user preferences. Thus, instead of the image <math>x^2\,</math>, many users see ''x''{{sup|2}}. Formulae formatted without using TeX should use the same syntax to maintain the same appearance.