Wikipedia:Identifying and using style guides: Difference between revisions

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{{Essay |interprets=[[WP:Manual of Style]] and [[WP:Reliable sources]] |cat=Wikipedia essays and information pages about the Manual of Style‎ |sc1=WP:STYLEGUIDES |sc2=WP:STYLERS}}

{{Nutshell|Not all style guides are created equal; Wikipedia's Manual of Style is only based on a few of them, aside from particular topical details. Use of them as sources in our articles must follow [[WP:PSTS]] policy.}}

This essay examines the use of externally published [[Style manual|style guidesguide]]s for English writing, both as informative of our own internal [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style]] (MoS), and as [[Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources|reliable sources]] cited in our articles on English usage. Remember that Wikipedia has and uses it'sits own [[House style (disambiguation)|house style]]; do not impose styles that don't comply with it just because that divergent style can be found in an external stylebook.

== How Wikipedia uses style guides ==

The [[Style manual|style guides]] in English that have the strongest effect on general public writing (in the kinds of secondary sources Wikipedia cares about) – and which most directly inform the [[Wikipedia:Consensus|consensus]] behind our MoS – are those for mainstream book publishing. Those of journalism also influence less formal usage (e.g. news reporting, marketing, and business style), but very little from them directly affects Wikipedia style, because it's a markedly different kind of writing. Most discipline-specific academic style manuals are focused on citation formats and the preparation of papers for publication in [[Academic journals|journals]]; we draw on them only for technical material. Government and legal manuals have little impact outside their fields; like academic manuals, they provide little to Wikipedia aside from some terminology and citation formatting.

{{em|As sources for use in our articles}}, care must be taken to use style guides them within the bounds of Wikipedia's [[Wikipedia:No original research#Primary, secondary and tertiary sources|policy on primary, secondary and tertiary sources]], with particular regard to the reputability and expertise of the writer author(s), and an eye to the distinction between presenting the real-world consensus on a language matter versus advocating a subjective "rule". Most of these works are a mixture of sourcing types, but only {{em|secondary}} material from them can be used in our articles for claims that provide analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis.