User:Mini-mitch/Sandbox Three/Usage and spelling
- Specific spelling guidelines are noted in our spelling policy. A quick summary of the most common spelling mistakes can be found at our spelling cheat card.
Type of English[[edit] | [edit source]]
Though the readers and editors of this wiki speak many varieties of English, several forum discussions have confirmed that we will use British English spelling, punctuation, and word usage whilst editing articles. Contributors who are native users of or otherwise fluent in British English standards reserve the right to edit articles to conform to those standards.
Nevertheless, if you appear to be making no effort whatsoever to edit in British English, after having been asked not to do so, your editing privileges may be revoked.
Exceptions[[edit] | [edit source]]
Though British English is preferred, there are some instances where American English may predominate.
Quotation marks/inverted commas[[edit] | [edit source]]
The use of quotation marks shall favour the American usage, as it's less ambiguous for the MediaWiki software underpinning the wiki. Use double quotation marks (") surrounding single ones ('), even though most Doctor Who fiction uses the precise opposite format.
| Correct | Incorrect |
|---|---|
| The Doctor said, "Oh, I know he said he was 'important', but, trust me, that's just the Dalek id talking." | The Doctor said, 'Oh, I know he said he was "important", but, trust me, that's just the Dalek id talking.' |
The reason for this ruling is simple. Since the single inverted comma has an actual meaning in everyday wiki markup, it's all too easy for it to throw off the formatting of a sentence. Indeed, we even have to have a special template, {{'}}, to counteract the problem. Thus, even though it goes against years of schooling for some of us, it's best to use double-quotations on the outside, then follow with single-quotations only as needed.
Products[[edit] | [edit source]]
In the case of products aimed at a foreign market, their spellings and word choices should predominate. IDW Publishing titles should always reflect American spellings, as should anything to do with the new Doctor Who Insider magazine. Similarly, things in the DWU which take place in other countries, should not be "converted" to a British spelling or word choice just to satisfy the above general policy. If, for instance, a future episode of Torchwood should be called "Analyzing Miss Cooper", or IDW were to publish a story called, "A Few of my Favorite Things", there should be no effort to Anglicise the spellings of "Favorite" or "Analyzing".
This can also apply to British-made products that nevertheless refer to foreign items or settings. Don't, for instance, try to Anglicise "Pearl Harbor" or the film, The Color of Money, or the like, should they be mentioned in a Doctor Who story.
Full sentences[[edit] | [edit source]]
Complete sentences — that is, sentences containing at least a subject and a verb — are required. A full sentence is not something that starts with a capital letter and ends with a period or full stop. The following are examples of incomplete sentences that have been found, at one time or another, on the wiki:
| Correct | Incorrect |
|---|---|
| An Unearthly Child was first broadcast on 23 November 1963. | An Unearthly Child first broadcast. |
| David Tennant's future father-in-law, Peter Davison, co-starred alongside Tennant in TV: Time Crash. | David Tennant's future father-in-law, Peter Davison. |
| The 34th issue of Doctor Who Adventures was current in the fortnight beginning 19 July 2007. ["34th issue of Doctor Who Adventures" is bolded in this case as it's the lead to DWA 34.] |
The 34th issue of the BBC's fortnightly Doctor Who Adventures. |
Exceptions to this rule are few.
- If you are directly quoting, and the original quotation is a sentence fragment, and you indicate that you are quoting, you may reproduce it.
- If you are making a simple list of words or titles, a complete sentence is not necessary on each line, because the list is likely to be a part of a preceding full sentence. For instance, if you said,
- William Hartnell appeared in the following serials:
- and then proceeded to give a list of those serials, the list is effectively a dependent clause of prepositional phrase "in the following serials". You therefore don't need a full sentence on each line of the list.
Tenses[[edit] | [edit source]]
With the exception of story article pages, articles tagged with the current event tag and ongoing concerns (such as real world articles about cast and crew) the past tense is preferred in the main article text (this includes on all Timeline pages). All in-universe articles should be in past tense.
The reasons for this are twofold. Firstly, the articles on the TARDIS wiki are presented as historical recordings that have been pieced together from scraps of information left over from the early Universe, and various eras of history. As such, all details pertaining to this history have not yet been uncovered, and more information may be added at a later date. Keeping articles written in past tense provides consistency and flavour. Secondly, the Doctor may travel into the past, the present, or the future, but from his personal perspective, any events which have been previously recorded are now in his own personal past, regardless of where in the universal timeline they may fall. Writing in-universe articles in past tense relates the timeline of the Doctor Who universe with both our and his own perspective.
- Example: Martha Jones was an inhabitant of Earth. Rather than Martha Jones is an inhabitant of Earth.
Avoid phrases like "His ultimate fate is unknown" or "what happened to the ship after that is a mystery" unless it is an actual plot point in a story. Any information that is not known is simply the extent of knowledge, it does not need to be stated.
Do not jump back and forth between tenses; this is confusing.
Do not include theories, speculation or hypothesis in any articles. You can do so in The Howling a forum specifically for the community to do this.
- See also Citation - Articles on living people
Capital letters[[edit] | [edit source]]
The article "the" in names like "the Doctor" and "the Master" should not be capitalised (unless, of course, they begin a sentence). The articles "a", "an", and "the" only should be capitalised in titles and proper nouns. "The first broadcast of an Unearthly Child" should be written: "The first broadcast of An Unearthly Child."
Human[[edit] | [edit source]]
Following consensus in the forum, it was demonstrated that the vast majority of instances of the word human in Doctor Who prose fiction aren't capitalised. We recognise that other sapient species are almost always capitalised, and that there are very occasional capitalisations of human in Doctor Who prose, as in some parts of PROSE: Doctor Who and the Ark in Space However, human isn't typically capitalised in every major range of Doctor Who fiction, including PROSE, PROSE, PROSE, PROSE, PROSE, PROSE, and even most PROSE novels.
Because this rule was instituted on 27 February 2011, about six years after the wiki opened — and it had previously been the rule to capitalise human — you may occasionally encounter instances of Human. These should be fixed.
Put simply: human is the preferred form. The word should only be capitalised when it begins a sentence and in the infobox..
Bold text[[edit] | [edit source]]
The article name, when first mentioned, should be in bold text. If a story title, it should additionally be italicised, as with An Unearthly Child. Alternate names for the topic should also be bolded. In most cases, any alternate name which is emboldened should also get a redirect.
Because emboldened text carries a meaning — namely, "this is the topic of the page" — bold text should be used sparingly in the rest of the article.
Bold text which appears within publisher's summaries, for instance, should be stripped — even though it may have appeared in the original printing of the text — because it causes visual confusion at the top of the page. Consider indenting — with the use of a preceding colon (:) — long passages of emboldened text found on back covers of books.
Similarly, working titles of stories should not be emboldened at any point in the text of the page, unless the titles are significant enough to warrant a redirect, and unless those titles are in the lead of the article. For instance, 100,000 BC is indeed emboldened at An Unearthly Child, because several sources consider it the correct name of the serial.
Italics[[edit] | [edit source]]
Pursuant to vigorous forum debate, we have decided that all story names shall be rendered in italics. This goes contrary to standard English rules, which generally hold that shorter works of fiction would be enclosed in quotation marks. Nevertheless, it was felt easier for our editors to consistently italicise all stories, regardless of medium or length, and all BBC Wales episodes.
There are also other things which may be italicised, a list of which is given below.
The biggest exception to the "always italicise" rule is that Hartnell-era episode titles, like "The Cave of Skulls" should be enclosed in quotation marks to clearly indicate when a Hartnell episode, rather than a full serial, is being referenced. This is particularly important because some Hartnell serials, like An Unearthly Child, have episodes of the same name.
Story names[[edit] | [edit source]]
Names of stories should be:
- Capitalised
- Italicised
e.g.
- Tooth and Claw
- Everything Changes
This means that they should be italicised everywhere, infoboxen, source citations — even page titles. To change a page title into italics, please use {{title}}.[it 1] Generally, the easiest way to italicise a page title would be to place the following on a page:
{{title|''{{PAGENAME}}''}}
However, in the case of disambiguated page names, you'll have to use the appropriate title template. For instance, to properly italicise TV titles, just use:
{{TitleTV}}
Here's a list of all the title templates:
- ↑ MediaWiki 1.16 — or the software on which this wiki runs — allows for italic titling through the use of the magic word, DISPLAYTITLE. The problem is, though, that users who are not logged in can't see italics when rendered through this command – yet. Thus, as of early 2011, the only certain way of rendering italic titles for all users is through {{title}}.
Other cases[[edit] | [edit source]]
Aside from story titles, there are a number of other instances where one must make a choice between italicising and enclosing in "double quotations". This chart sorts out these other cases.
| Type | Quotes or italics | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Reference book | Italics | The Writer's Tale |
| Song | Quotation marks | "Song for Ten" |
| Album | Italics | 30 Years at the Radiophonic Workshop |
| Poetry | Quotation marks (epic length poems italicized) | "All Things Will Die", The Odyssey |
| Hartnell-era episode[it2 1] | Quotation marks | "Bell of Doom", "The Death of Doctor Who" |
| Games | Italics | The Gunpowder Plot, Destiny of the Doctors |
| Plays | Italics | Hamlet, Doctor Who: The Ultimate Adventure |
| Non-English words | Italics | deus ex machina, Allons-y! |
| Works of art (paintings, sculptures, etc.) | Italics | The Church at Auvers |
| Most major religious texts | Neither | The Bible |
| Commercial products | Neither | iPod |
| Legal documents | Neither | Magna Carta, Constitution of the United States |
| Periodical | Italics | TV Action, Doctor Who Magazine, The New York Record |
| Vehicle name | Italicize only the name | HMS Teazer |
- ↑ This is helpful in distinguishing between information which comes from a single episode of a serial, versus that which is applicable to the entire serial. One of the most helpful cases is the very first story, An Unearthly Child. The first episode, "An Unearthly Child" is so markedly different than the the rest of the story, that one would often have the need to cite the episode rather than the serial. Thus (TV: An Unearthly Child) is an attribution to the whole serial, whereas (TV: "An Unearthly Child") is the best way to cite simply the episode. Note that this only applies to Hartnell episodes; BBC Wales episodes are always italicised.
