Wikipedia:Identifying and using style guides: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 11:03, 12 July 2018

Revision as of 11:04, 12 July 2018

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The style manuals 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 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.

== The "big four", plus one ==