CpapWiki:Manual of Style

The Manual of Style is intended to bring some general guidelines to the way articles and pages should be formatted and structured to help make the CPAPtalk.com CPAP Wiki better. One of the nice things about a wiki is that edits do not have to be perfect since they may always be changed for correction or improvement later on. These guidelines are not "law", but will serve to make the site more uniform, and therefore easier to use. Editors should try to follow these guidelines but there are always exceptions to every rule. Above all, use common sense.

Article titles

In choosing a title for a new page or article, use the following guidelines.

• Use English.
• Use the singular.
• Avoid special characters.
• Avoid using a, an, or the as the first word.
• Avoid abbreviations.

If the wrong name is chosen for a title, the page can be moved by a Sysop, which will automatically create a redirect from the old title to the new title. Redirects should also be made from all other entries someone might type when looking for your article.

First sentence

The article should begin with a straightforward, declarative first sentence that will help the reader understand what the article contains.

As a general rule, the first (and only the first) appearance of the page title should be in the first sentence, as soon as possible, and should be bolded. Use as few links as possible before and in the bolded title.

If the subject of the page has a common abbreviation or more than one name, the abbreviation (in parenthesis) and each additional name should be bolded on its first appearance.

Sections and headers

Headings provide a table of contents and allow for quick navigation of the article. Here are some guidelines for section titles and headers.

• Try not to change section headings (and sub-headings) too often, because other articles may have linked to a section and changing it would break those links. If you do change a section name, try to find what links to that section and fix the broken links.

• Section names should be unique within a page. This also applies to subsections. Duplication of section names may result in a user arriving at the wrong point on the page after an edit, and may cause difficulty in understanding the page history, or linking to the proper section.

• Links should not be used in headings. Instead link the first appearance of the word in a sentence.

• Capitalize the first word only. Exceptions are proper nouns (names given to individual people, places, companies, or brands), which should be capitalized in a section name, or header.

• Section titles should not be bolded.

• Do not italicize the section name, unless it needs italics (for example: a book title).

• Do not use special characters in headings.

• Try to keep the section title short with preferably 10 words, or less.

• Do not use the title of the whole article as a heading.

• A blank line below the heading is optional. If there are no blank lines above the heading, one line should be added, for readability in the edit window. Only two or more blank lines above or below will change the public appearance of the page by adding more white space.

Capitalization

Capital letters should not be used for emphasis. Use italics instead.

Incorrect:	Capital letters should Not be used for emphasis. Use italics instead.
Incorrect:	Capital letters should NOT be used for emphasis. Use italics instead.
Correct:	Capital letters should not be used for emphasis. Use italics instead.

• Months, days of the week, and holidays should start with a capital letter.

• Seasons, in almost all instances, are lowercase. When personified, season names may function as proper nouns, and they should then be capitalized.

Italics

• Use italics sparingly for emphasis.
• Use italics for title of books, literature, and works of art. Titles of articles, chapters, and other short works should not be italicized, but instead should be in quotation marks.
• Use italics for words or phrases in other languages.
• Use italics when writing about words as words, or letters as letters.
  • Example: The word apnea comes from the Greek word ἄπνοια.
• Do not substitute italics for quotation marks when quoting. Use quotation marks instead.
• Do not italicize a quotation just because it is a quotation.
• Try not to italicize punctuation.

Acronyms and abbreviations

Do not assume that readers will know the meaning of acronyms and abbreviations used in an article. At the first occurrence, use the full version of the acronym or abbreviation followed by the abbreviation in parentheses.

• For example: A Manual of Style (MoS) consists of general guidelines for writing on the wiki.

Do not use unnecessary abbreviations. In other words, do not write an article and use approx. every time the word approximately should be used.

Do not invent abbreviations and acronyms.

Acronyms and abbreviations are made plural by adding -s or -es.

• For example: DMEs across the country are selling CPAP masks.

Modern style books do not use as many periods and spaces with acronyms and abbreviations for personal titles, as were used in the past. For example, PhD is more common than Ph.D. or Ph. D., and is preferred here. If an abbreviation is not clear without periods, the periods should not be removed.

Punctuation

Quotation marks

The guideline here is that quotations are enclosed within "double quotes". Quote marks within quotations are enclosed within 'single quotes'.

Punctuation marks are placed inside the quotation marks only if the sense of the punctuation is a part of the quotation.

• Examples: (Examples needed)
  • Example 1:
  • Example 2:
  • Example 3:
  • Example 4:

Try not to link words that are in quotes.

Do not italicize words within quotations, unless the original quote is italicized.

The author of a quote of a full sentence or more should be named in the main text and not in a footnote.

Block Quotes

For longer quotes of four lines or more, block quotes should be used. Block quotes can be enclosed between a pair of <blockquote>...</blockquote> HTML tags. The current version of the MediaWiki software does not render multiple paragraphs inside a <blockquote> when spacing the paragraphs apart with a blank line. Instead, enclose each of the block-quoted paragraphs in its own <p>...</p> HTML tags.

Example:

<blockquote>
<p>Please Note: Return insurance is available to all customers, however, return labels are only offered within the 48 contiguous United States. If return insurance is purchased by a customer living outside the 48 contiguous United States, all shipping costs involved are paid by the customer and the mask must be received back within the 30 day insurance time frame.</p>

<p>—CPAP.com, ''Return Insurance''</p>
</blockquote>

The result appears indented on both sides:

Please Note: Return insurance is available to all customers, however, return labels are only offered within the 48 contiguous United States. If return insurance is purchased by a customer living outside the 48 contiguous United States, all shipping costs involved are paid by the customer and the mask must be received back within the 30 day insurance time frame.

—CPAP.com, Return Insurance