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Most of the rules in this guide would give way to the principle of accurate quotation. To take the example just above, if a written source says "He had 8 children" or "She is twenty-three years old", then the quotation should preserve the choice of the original. I'd like to warn overeager style mavens not to change quotations. Is there agreement with adding something like this (perhaps under the "Usage and spelling" heading, where it would come up most often): "When a written source is being directly quoted (as opposed to paraphrased), the quotation should conform exactly to the original text, even if the source does not follow the style prescribed by this manual." JamesMLane 08:52, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I agree that it's usually preferable to stick to the original spelling and usage within quotations - but I would not have a hard and fast rule. Unless there are special reasons to keep the original style, correcting misspellings, improving punctuation and correcting grammar are all acceptable, jguk 20:44, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Oral transcripts are definitely different. Ask any journalist—things people say are usually all but rewritten. People tend to speak in a much less clear and more fractured way than they write, so writing down every pause, stumble, and misspeaking looks very odd. — Simetrical ( talk) 18:21, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Maurren, where did you move this to? [1]. The reason I ask is that I felt Jeff Q's comment was worth keeping. SlimVirgin 10:31, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)
What's the style for the titles of computer games? Or other games, for that matter? Italics, quotes, simple Roman? — Simetrical ( talk) 00:44, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The MOS is not explicit about whether quotations may, or should, be italicized. It would make sense to italicize quotations about one sentence or longer, embedded in the paragraph, and maybe even indented quotations. Pgan002 05:25, 2005 Feb 2 (UTC)
<blockquote>
tag, which was designed for this purpose, and is purposefully allowed in Wikitext. The use of italics is best reserved for the source of the quotation, for example:HTH -- Phil | Talk 13:20, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)"There were a lot of people doing a lot of things…"—Some Book or Other by Some Author
<blockquote>
affects both left and right margins, whilst using colons only affects the left margin. --
Phil |
Talk 18:09, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)
For comparison's sake, here are two blocks of text. The first uses the colon markup, and the second uses <blockquote>.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
Note in particular the right margin. This effect, needless to say, is increased substantially when the tags are nested—some of the comments in this heading are indented six times over, which would look like this with <blockquote>:
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
Also, take a look at the edit window for this. Note that the tag produces two line breaks, so you have to place your text right after the tag rather than adding line breaks in the edit window to get it to show up normally when viewed. It is true that the colon markup is pretty bad HTML, though—is there currently any way to get blocks of text indented with style sheets or something? — Simetrical ( talk) 18:44, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
With colon indent. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
Withou colon indent. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
This thread started with Pgan002's observation that the MoS was "not explicit about whether quotations may, or should, be italicized." Pgan leaned toward italicizing but was apparently willing to go along with not italicizing, which was everyone else's preference. On that basis, I'm changing the MoS passage that now reads "Since quotations are already marked by quotation marks or indentations, they need not be put into italics." I'll make it more explicit by changing "need not" to "should not". I'll leave it to others to decide whether the MoS should mention the availability of the <blockquote> tag (right now it doesn't), or even go beyond mentioning it and characterize it as preferred. JamesMLane 02:15, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Plus, the MoS is a guideline in the first place, and there are very, very few cases where it's necessary to break that rule. – flamurai ( t) 13:24, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
Ah, it's just occurred to me what's happening here, and it's only just come to me after months of looking at this page! In the UK, "should" in the context of what you added means there is a compulsion. That is, "should not be put into italics" is synonymous with "should never be put into italics". I think I'm right in saying that "should" doesn't tend to have that meaning in American English.
Maybe replace "should not be put into italics" with "are not usually put into italics"? I think a similar point arises for the rest of your proposed amendments that include the word "should" and suitable adjustments should (compulsion) be made to them. Kind regards, jguk 23:52, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I understand the word should in this contextin the same way as jguk, would "ought" be a less ambiguous word? Philip Baird Shearer 01:59, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
In what order should objects and subjects in a photograph be named? I suggest that in photographs depicting more than one significant individual arranged in rows, the people should be named left-to-right, top-to-bottom (for Left-to-right languages). If they are arranged in a circle, they should be named clockwise, starting at the top. If they are named in some other order, that order should be specified in the capton; for example "John (right) and Ann (left) in front of their house". The same rule seems to make sense for photographs of houses, geographical landmarks and other objects. Pgan002 05:44, 2005 Feb 2 (UTC)
The statement requesting SI units seems a bit strong. While a good guideline for most cases, there are fields of study and practice where other units, whether from inertia or convenience, are widely used either alongside or in place of SI units. For example, in talking about distances within the solar system, millions of kilometers can be reported, but the astronomical unit is such a convenient yardstick that it, too, is widely used. The world petroleum industry works on barrels, not liters, and when talking about petroleum production, the barrel is the unit to discuss it in. Even in the most metrified of countries, the weather is reported in degrees Celsius rather than Kelvin.
There should be some statement that when common practice uses other-than-SI units, then those units are acceptable. (I see this analogous to the Jimmy Carter vs. James Earl Carter example. Shimmin 14:02, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)
(copied info from the Village pump)
This is a subject brought to my attention when I studied what I saw at Talk:Cowhand
I suggest that we need a talk in Wikipedia's manual of style about the kind of correctness being used in Wikipedia. A few possible choices include political and traditional. Any comments?? Georgia guy 16:29, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 | → | Archive 15 |
Most of the rules in this guide would give way to the principle of accurate quotation. To take the example just above, if a written source says "He had 8 children" or "She is twenty-three years old", then the quotation should preserve the choice of the original. I'd like to warn overeager style mavens not to change quotations. Is there agreement with adding something like this (perhaps under the "Usage and spelling" heading, where it would come up most often): "When a written source is being directly quoted (as opposed to paraphrased), the quotation should conform exactly to the original text, even if the source does not follow the style prescribed by this manual." JamesMLane 08:52, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I agree that it's usually preferable to stick to the original spelling and usage within quotations - but I would not have a hard and fast rule. Unless there are special reasons to keep the original style, correcting misspellings, improving punctuation and correcting grammar are all acceptable, jguk 20:44, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Oral transcripts are definitely different. Ask any journalist—things people say are usually all but rewritten. People tend to speak in a much less clear and more fractured way than they write, so writing down every pause, stumble, and misspeaking looks very odd. — Simetrical ( talk) 18:21, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Maurren, where did you move this to? [1]. The reason I ask is that I felt Jeff Q's comment was worth keeping. SlimVirgin 10:31, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)
What's the style for the titles of computer games? Or other games, for that matter? Italics, quotes, simple Roman? — Simetrical ( talk) 00:44, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The MOS is not explicit about whether quotations may, or should, be italicized. It would make sense to italicize quotations about one sentence or longer, embedded in the paragraph, and maybe even indented quotations. Pgan002 05:25, 2005 Feb 2 (UTC)
<blockquote>
tag, which was designed for this purpose, and is purposefully allowed in Wikitext. The use of italics is best reserved for the source of the quotation, for example:HTH -- Phil | Talk 13:20, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)"There were a lot of people doing a lot of things…"—Some Book or Other by Some Author
<blockquote>
affects both left and right margins, whilst using colons only affects the left margin. --
Phil |
Talk 18:09, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)
For comparison's sake, here are two blocks of text. The first uses the colon markup, and the second uses <blockquote>.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
Note in particular the right margin. This effect, needless to say, is increased substantially when the tags are nested—some of the comments in this heading are indented six times over, which would look like this with <blockquote>:
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
Also, take a look at the edit window for this. Note that the tag produces two line breaks, so you have to place your text right after the tag rather than adding line breaks in the edit window to get it to show up normally when viewed. It is true that the colon markup is pretty bad HTML, though—is there currently any way to get blocks of text indented with style sheets or something? — Simetrical ( talk) 18:44, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
With colon indent. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
Withou colon indent. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
This thread started with Pgan002's observation that the MoS was "not explicit about whether quotations may, or should, be italicized." Pgan leaned toward italicizing but was apparently willing to go along with not italicizing, which was everyone else's preference. On that basis, I'm changing the MoS passage that now reads "Since quotations are already marked by quotation marks or indentations, they need not be put into italics." I'll make it more explicit by changing "need not" to "should not". I'll leave it to others to decide whether the MoS should mention the availability of the <blockquote> tag (right now it doesn't), or even go beyond mentioning it and characterize it as preferred. JamesMLane 02:15, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Plus, the MoS is a guideline in the first place, and there are very, very few cases where it's necessary to break that rule. – flamurai ( t) 13:24, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
Ah, it's just occurred to me what's happening here, and it's only just come to me after months of looking at this page! In the UK, "should" in the context of what you added means there is a compulsion. That is, "should not be put into italics" is synonymous with "should never be put into italics". I think I'm right in saying that "should" doesn't tend to have that meaning in American English.
Maybe replace "should not be put into italics" with "are not usually put into italics"? I think a similar point arises for the rest of your proposed amendments that include the word "should" and suitable adjustments should (compulsion) be made to them. Kind regards, jguk 23:52, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I understand the word should in this contextin the same way as jguk, would "ought" be a less ambiguous word? Philip Baird Shearer 01:59, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
In what order should objects and subjects in a photograph be named? I suggest that in photographs depicting more than one significant individual arranged in rows, the people should be named left-to-right, top-to-bottom (for Left-to-right languages). If they are arranged in a circle, they should be named clockwise, starting at the top. If they are named in some other order, that order should be specified in the capton; for example "John (right) and Ann (left) in front of their house". The same rule seems to make sense for photographs of houses, geographical landmarks and other objects. Pgan002 05:44, 2005 Feb 2 (UTC)
The statement requesting SI units seems a bit strong. While a good guideline for most cases, there are fields of study and practice where other units, whether from inertia or convenience, are widely used either alongside or in place of SI units. For example, in talking about distances within the solar system, millions of kilometers can be reported, but the astronomical unit is such a convenient yardstick that it, too, is widely used. The world petroleum industry works on barrels, not liters, and when talking about petroleum production, the barrel is the unit to discuss it in. Even in the most metrified of countries, the weather is reported in degrees Celsius rather than Kelvin.
There should be some statement that when common practice uses other-than-SI units, then those units are acceptable. (I see this analogous to the Jimmy Carter vs. James Earl Carter example. Shimmin 14:02, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)
(copied info from the Village pump)
This is a subject brought to my attention when I studied what I saw at Talk:Cowhand
I suggest that we need a talk in Wikipedia's manual of style about the kind of correctness being used in Wikipedia. A few possible choices include political and traditional. Any comments?? Georgia guy 16:29, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)