Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles)
These are guidelines for presentation of titles of things referred to within Wikipedia articles. For guidelines relating to the naming of Wikipedia articles, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions.
You may also be looking for Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lists of works) or Wikipedia:Filmographies and Discographies.
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Italics
Italics should be used for:
- Scientific names for genera or species
- titles of the following:
- Books
- Comic strips and webcomics
- Computer and video games
- Court cases
- Films
- Long poems/epic poems
- Musical albums
- Named passenger trains
- Orchestral works
- Periodicals (newspapers, journals, and magazines)
- Plays
- Ships
- Ship class
- Television series
- Works of visual art (except sculpture)
Abbreviations of the above should also be italicized. If the title is also a link, you should usually place the italic markup outside the brackets, but see the Titanic example below for a special case.
Examples
- Huckleberry Finn, DCL Command Language Manual
- ''[[Huckleberry Finn]]'', ''DCL Command Language Manual''
- Casablanca, Boccacio '70
- ''[[Casablanca (film)|Casablanca]]'', ''Boccacio '70''
- The Mary Tyler Moore Show
- ''[[The Mary Tyler Moore Show]]''
- Life magazine, Astounding Science Fiction
- ''[[Life (magazine)|Life]]'' magazine, ''[[Astounding Science Fiction]]''
- RMS Titanic, USS Minnesota (BB-22), Apollo 11, The Legend of Zelda series. Only the name is italicized, not the classification or designation. This link will require a pipe character (a "|"), as italics tags will not work within a link
- [[RMS Titanic|RMS ''Titanic'']], [[USS Minnesota (BB-22)|USS ''Minnesota'' (BB-22)]], ''[[Apollo 11]]'', [[The Legend of Zelda series|''The Legend of Zelda'' series]]
- Escherichia, Escherichia coli, E. coli
- ''[[Escherichia]]'', ''[[Escherichia coli]]'', ''[[Escherichia coli|E. coli]]''
- USS Toledo (CA-133) was a Baltimore class cruiser, HMAS Australia (1911) was an Indefatigable class battlecruiser. Only the class name is italicized, not the ship type. This link will require a pipe character (a "|"), as italics tags will not work within a link
- [[USS Toledo (CA-133)|USS ''Toledo'' (CA-133)]] was a [[Baltimore class cruiser|''Baltimore'' class cruiser]], [[HMAS Australia (1911)|HMAS ''Australia'' (1911)]] was an [[Indefatigable class battlecruiser|''Indefatigable'' class battlecruiser]]
- Mouse Trap, The Incredible Machine, Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast, HL2
- ''[[Mouse Trap]]'', ''[[The Incredible Machine]]'', ''[[Baldur's Gate series|Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast]]'', ''[[Half-Life 2|HL2]]''
- Symphony No. 9 Op. 95 "From the New World"
- ''[[Symphony]] No. 9 Op. 95 'From the New World' ''
- Eldred v. Ashcroft, Plessy v. Ferguson
- ''[[Eldred v. Ashcroft]]'', ''[[Plessy v. Ferguson]]''
- Action Comics, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, The Beano, The Amazing Spider-Man
- ''[[Action Comics]]'', ''[[Batman: The Dark Knight Returns]]'', ''[[The Beano]]'', ''[[The Amazing Spider-Man]]''
- Peanuts, Penny Arcade
- ''[[Peanuts]]'', ''[[Penny Arcade (webcomic)|Penny Arcade]]''
Quotation marks
Italics are generally used for titles of longer works. Titles of shorter works, such as the following, should be enclosed in double quotation marks:
- Articles, essays or papers
- Chapters of a longer work
- Episodes of a television series
- Short poems
- Short stories
- Songs and singles
- Statues
Examples
- "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"
- Rodin's "The Thinker"
- "Goober and Gomer Change a Tire"
- "Do's and Don'ts of Dating"
- "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"
- "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "She's Leaving Home" appear on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
- "The Germans" is an episode of the television programme Fawlty Towers
The quotation marks should not be bolded in the summary when the title of an article requires quotation marks, as they are not part of the title. See WP:Manual of Style#Punctuation.
Neither
There are a few cases in which the title should be in neither italics nor quotation marks:
- Scripture
- Legal or constitutional documents
- Traditional games
- Software other than games
- Commercial products other than media works
Punctuation
Whether the title is in italics or quotes, punctuation (such as commas) belongs outside the markup, as can be seen in the lists aboveāthe comma is not part of the title. (The name of the book is not Huckleberry Finn,.)