Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Titles of works

"MOS:TITLE" redirects here. For other uses, seeWikipedia:Titles (disambiguation).

This part of theManual of Stylecoverstitle formats and style for works of art or artifice,such as capitalization and italics versus quotation marks.

Italics

See also:Wikipedia:Article titles § Italics and other formatting,andWikipedia:Manual of Style/Text formatting § Italic face

Italic type(text like this,marked up with pairs of apostrophes as''text like this'') should be used for the following types of names and titles, or abbreviations thereof:

Major works

• Officially named series of major works:The Lord of the Ringsfilm series(see§ Series titlesbelow)
• Audio albums (musical or spoken-word)
• Non-generic names of major independent musical compositions(seeWikipedia:Naming conventions (music) § Definitions – italicsfor more detail):
  • Musicals, operas, operettas and other self-contained pieces of musical theatre
  • Named oratorios, cantatas, motets, orchestral works, and other compositions beyond the scope of a single song or dance:
    • Symphony No. 2 by Gustav Mahler, known as theResurrection Symphony...(generic vs. non-generic name)
    • Stravinsky's Cantatais a work for soprano, tenor, female choir, and instrumental ensemble...(unnamed cantata)
    • On an Overgrown Path(Czech:Po zarostlém chodníčku) is a cycle of thirteen piano pieces written by Leoš Janáček...(named piano composition)
• Books, multi-volume works (e.g. encyclopedias), and booklets
  • But not pre-modernreligious textsor scriptures:the Bible,the Quran,the Bhagavad Gita,the Old Testament,Epistle to the Galatians(butKitab al-Kāfīis italicized with{{translit|ar|Kitab al-Kāfī}}as transliterated Arabic, since this title is not assimilated into English the wayQuranandBhagavad Gitaare)
• The titles of novellas which have been published as stand-alone books are normally italicized. Novellas which are only published as parts of collections use quotation marks. Quotation marks may also be used to help distinguish a novella from a longer work with the same or similar title.
• Television and radio programs, specials, shows, series andserials
• Films (including short films) and documentaries
• Comic books, comic strips, graphic novels and manga
• Video games, board games, trading card games
• Court case names, but notcase citationorlaw reportdetails included with the case name:Brown v. Board of Education,347 U.S. 483 (1954)
• Named exhibitions (artistic, historical, scientific, educational, cultural, literary, etc. – generally hosted by, or part of, an existing institution such as a museum or gallery), but notlarge-scale exhibition events
• Paintings, sculptures and other works of visual art with a title rather than a name(for more detail, seeWP:Manual of Style/Visual arts § Article titles)
• Periodicals (newspapers, journals, magazines)
• Plays (including published screenplays and teleplays)
• Long or epic poems:Paradise LostbyJohn Milton
• Syndicated columns and other features republished regularly by others
• Titles of doctoral and master's theses and dissertations

The actual medium of publication or presentation is not a factor; a video feature released only on video tape, disc or the Internet is considered a "film" for these purposes, and likewise an e-book is a book, a webcomic is a comic strip, a music album available only from the artist on a limited-edition USB drive is a real album, a TV series available only via streaming services is still a series, etc.

Minor works(any specifically titled subdivisions of italicized major works) are given in quotation marks(seeWikipedia:Manual of Style/Text formatting § When not to use italicsfor details).

Website titles may or may not be italicized in running text depending on the type of site and what kind of content it features. Online magazines, newspapers, and news sites with original content should generally be italicized (SalonorHuffPost). Online non-user-generated encyclopedias and dictionaries should also be italicized (ScholarpediaorMerriam-Webster Online). Other types of websites should be decided on a case-by-case basis.

These cases are well-established conventions recognized in most style guides. Do not apply italics to other categories or instances because you feel they are creative or artful (e.g. game or sport moves, logical arguments, "artisanal" products, schools of practice or thought, Internet memes, aphorisms, etc.).

Similar cases

Some similar cases that are not titles of works include:

• Certainscientific names:namedgenes(but not proteins encoded by them);genusand lowertaxons(e.g.speciesand subspecies), but not higher taxa(SeeWP:Manual of Style/Text formatting § Scientific namesfor details)
• Specific, named transportation vehicles (but not prefixes, classifications, identifying numbers or other designations for them), including ships, spacecraft, trains, and locomotives (but not smaller conveyances such as cars or buses). Example:USSBaltimore(CA-68), the lead ship of theBaltimore-class cruisers(SeeWP:Manual of Style/Text formatting § Vesselsfor details)

Link formatting

To display text in italics, enclose it in doubleapostrophes.

• The Mary Tyler Moore Showis produced by italicizing around (not inside) the link:''[[The Mary Tyler Moore Show]]''.

If the title is also a wikilink but only part of it should be italicized, use italics around or inside apiped linkto properly display the title:

• Casablancais produced by''[[Casablanca (film)|Casablanca]]''or[[Casablanca (film)|''Casablanca'']].

Without piping, this wikilink would display – and incorrectly italicize – thedisambiguationterm, which is not part of the film title.

Italicizing Wikipedia article titles

Further information:Wikipedia:Article titles § Italics and other formatting

If the title of a Wikipedia article requires italicization, there are a few options:

• Use{{Italic title}}to italicize the part of the title before the first parenthesis.
• Use{{Italic disambiguation}}to italicize the part of the title in the parenthesis.
• Use the{{DISPLAYTITLE:}}magic wordor{{Italic title|string=}}template for titles with a mix of italic and roman text, as atList ofSex and the CityepisodesandThe Hustler(novel).
• Use aninfoboxtemplate that automatically handles italicization, such as{{Infobox film}}used atCasablanca(film).

These templates should be placed at the top of the page (but below{{Short description}},if present).

Quotation marks

This section is about use of quotation marks in titles of works of art or artifice. For use of quotation marks generally, seeWP:Manual of Style § Quotation marks.

Minor works

Italics are generallyused only for titles of longer works.Titles of shorter works should be enclosed in doublequotation marks( "text like this" ). It particularly applies to works that exist as a smaller part of a larger work. Examples of titles which are quoted but not italicized:

• Articles, essays, papers, or conference presentation notes (stand-alone or in a collected larger work):"The Dos and Don'ts of Dating Online" is an article by Phil McGraw on his advice site.
• Chapters of a longer work (they may be labeled alternatively, e.g. sections, parts, or "books" within an actual book, etc.)
• Entries in a reference work (dictionary, encyclopedia, etc.)
• Single episodes or plot arcs of a television series or other serial audio-visual program:"The Germans"is an episode of the television programmeFawlty Towers
• Leaflets, flyers, circulars, brochures, postcards, instruction sheets, and other ephemeral publications
• Sections within a periodical, including features, departments, columns (non-syndicated), titled cartoons (not syndicated comic strips)
• Segments of a play, film, television show, etc., including named acts, skits, scenes, and the like
• Short poems:"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"by Robert Frost
• Short stories (textual or graphic):"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"by Ambrose Bierce
• Story lines that span multiple issues of a periodical
• Songs, instrumentals, arias, numbers in a musical, movements of longer musical piece, album tracks, singles, and other short musical compositions:The Beatles' song "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"appears on the album also titledSgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
• Speeches, lectures, and conference presentations (only if given a specific title)

This convention also applies to songs, speeches, manuscripts, etc., with no known formal titles but which are conventionally referred to by lines from them as if they were titles:Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream"speech.

The formatting of the title of a pamphlet, which is on the divide between a booklet or short book on the one hand and a leaflet or brochure on the other – specifically, whether to italicize the title or place it within quotation marks – is left to editorial discretion at the article in question. Anything that has been assigned anISBNorISSNshould be italicized. Another rule of thumb is that if the work is intended to stand alone and to be kept for later reference, or is likely to be seen as having merit as a stand-alone work, italicize it. Use quotation marks if the item is entirely ephemeral, trivial, or simply promotional of some other work or product.

The convention ofitalicizing non-English words and phrasesdoes not apply to proper names; thus, a title of a short non-English work simply receives quotation marks.

Additional markup

If text is enclosed in quotation marks, do not include the quotation marks in any additional formatting markup. For example, if a title in quotation marks is the subject of a Wikipedia article and therefore displayed in boldface in thelead section,the quotation marks shouldnotbe in boldface because they are not part of the title itself. For further information, seeWikipedia:Manual of Style § Quotation marks in article openings.

Titles in quotation marks that include (or in unusual cases consist of) something that requires italicization for some other reason than being a title, e.g. a genus and species name, or a non-English phrase, or the name of a larger work being referred to, also use the needed italicization, inside the quotation marks:"Ferromagnetic Material in the Eastern Red-spotted NewtNotophthalmus viridescens"(an academic journal article containing an italicized phrase), and"Somebody's Been Reading Dante'sInferno"(a television episode with the title of a major work).

Neither

There are cases in which titles should not be in italics nor in quotation marks (though many are capitalized):

• Religious texts of large, well-known religions(see details at§ Religious texts,below)
• Legal or constitutional documents:temporary restraining order,theBill of Rights
• Descriptive titles: a reference to or description of a work or part of a work when not using its actual title or conventional name:137th graduation address,conferencekeynote speech,an introductory aria,Satie'sfurniture music,State of the Union address,Nixon'sCheckers speech;also:the season finale ofGame of Thrones,notthe "Season Finale" ofGame of Thrones(for media franchises such as series of books, films, etc., see§ Series titlesbelow)
  • This also applies to a conventional name that refers to a specific work but is a descriptor:Symphony No. 2by Gustav Mahler,Shakespeare'sSonnet 130,theMagnificatby Schütz,the Adagio sometimes attributed toAlbinoni
• Traditional games, sports, dances, and other activities:hopscotch,blackjack,rugby football,American football,Viennese waltz,geocaching
• Software other than games:iTunes,traceroute,Sobig
• Commercial products other than media works:Cheerios,Toyota Sportivo Coupe,Silly Putty
• Exhibitions, concerts, and other events:theworld's fairs,Expo 2010,Cannes Film Festival,Burning Man,Lollapalooza.An exception is named exhibitions (cultural, artistic, scientific, etc.) thathave the character of a major workby a person or organizational creator. Another exception is a concert, tour, etc., containing the name of a work that would be italicized; that part is italicized:DangerousWorld Tour.
• Smaller parts of larger works when they are simply numbered sequentially, and the title appears that way in the work (or a preponderance of reliable sources about the work):To Kill a Mockingbird,Part One, Chapter 1
• Names (not to be confused with titles) of some works of art such asilluminated manuscripts:theVienna Dioscorides(which is a copy ofDe Materia MedicabyDioscorides)
• Names ofarchaeological artifacts,including those with inscriptions:theRosetta Stone
• Names of buildings and other structures:the Taj Mahal,the Statue of Liberty

Religious texts

See also:Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters § Religions, deities, philosophies, doctrines, and their adherents

Textsof large, well-known religions should not normally be italicized. For example,Bible,Quran,Talmud,Bhagavad Gita,Adi Granth,Book of Mormon,andAvestaare not italicized. Their constituent parts, such asBook of Ruth,New Testament,orGospel of Matthew,are not italicized either, as such titles are generally traditional rather than original ones. However, the titles of specific published versions of religious texts should be italicized:Authorized King James VersionandNew Edition of theBabylonian Talmud.

Many relatively obscure spiritual works are also generally italicized, particularly if the work is not likely to be well-known to the Wikipedia reader, if the work was first published in modern times and has not undergone substantial changes, or if it might be unclear that the title refers to a book. For example,The Urantia Book,The Satanic Bible,Divine Principle,andGylfaginningshould be italicized.

Series titles

Descriptive titles formedia franchises(including trilogies and other series of novels or films) andfictional universesshouldnotbe placed in italics or quotation marks, even when based on a character or feature of the works:theSherlock Holmesmysteries;Tolkien'sMiddle-earthwritings.Those with official names from the publisher are capitalized (in the singular, not in plural and other genericizing constructions), without quotation marks or italics:Marvel Universe,Marvel Cinematic Universe,andDC Universe,butthe Marvel and DC comics universes.

However, the following should be set in italics:

• Actual titles of a series declared by the author or publisher:Les Rougon-Macquart,The Chronicles of Narnia
• The name of an individual work within the series name:theStar Warsfranchise,named for theStar Warsfilm;theThree Colourstrilogy,named for films with the prefixThree Colours.Do not capitalize or italicize descriptive terms that are not part of an official series title (as with "franchise" and "trilogy" in those two examples).

For use of definite and indefinite articles at the start of a series title, applythe same rules as for work titles.

Punctuation

Place adjacent punctuationoutside any quotation marks or italicsunless the punctuation is part of the title itself.

• Johnson spoke often ofHuckleberry Finn,his favorite novel.– The comma is not part of the title and therefore is not italicized.
• George Orwell's well-known 1946 essay inHorizon,"Politics and the English Language",condemned the hypocrisy endemic in political writing and speech.– The commas are not part of the title and are therefore outside the quotation marks.
• O Brother, Where Art Thou?is a 2000 comedic film.– The comma and question mark are both part of the title and are therefore italicized.

Where subtitle punctuation is unclear (e.g. because the subtitle is given on a separate line on the cover or a poster), use a colon and a space, not a dash, comma, or other punctuation, to separate the title elements. If there are two subtitles, adashcan be used between the second and third elements.

Capital letters

For capitalization in Wikipedia article titles, seeWikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization).

See also:Wikipedia:Manual of Style/France- and French-related articles § Capitalization

For Wikipedia article titles that are not the titles of works and are not in other languages, the English Wikipedia usessentence case(this isalso trueof section headings, captions, etc.) In sentence case, generally only the first word and allproper namesare capitalized. Examples:List of selection theorems,Women's rights in Haiti.

In titles (including subtitles, if any) of English-language works (books, poems, songs, etc.), every word is capitalized except for thedefiniteandindefinite articles,the shortcoordinating conjunctions,and any shortprepositions.This is known astitle case.Capitalization of non-English titles varies by language(seebelow).Wikipedia normally follows these conventions when referring to such works, whether in the name of an article or within the text.

WP:Citing sources § Citation stylepermits the use of pre-defined, off-Wikipedia citation styles within Wikipedia, and some of these expect sentence case for certain titles (usually article and chapter titles). Title case should not be imposed on such titles under such a citation style consistently used in an article.

Always capitalized:When using title case, the following wordsshouldbe capitalized:

• The first and last word of the title (e.g.A Home to Go Back To)
• Everyadjective,adverb,noun,pronoun,andsubordinating conjunction(Me,It,His,If,etc.)
• Everyverb,including forms ofto be(Be,Am,Is,Are,Being,Was,Were,Been)
• Prepositionsthat contain five letters or more (During,Through,About,Until,Below,Under,etc.) – the "five-letter rule"
• Words that have the same form as prepositions, but are not being used specifically as prepositions
  • Particles ofphrasal verbs(e.g.Give Up the Ghost,"Puttin' On the Ritz")
  • The first word in acompound preposition(e.g.Time Out of Mind)

Not capitalized:For title case, the words that arenotcapitalized on Wikipedia (unless they are the first or last word of a title) are:

• Indefinite and definite articles(a,an,the)
• Shortcoordinating conjunctions(and,but,or,nor ;alsofor,yet,sowhen used as conjunctions)
• Prepositionscontaining four letters or fewer (as,in,of,on,to,for,from,into,like,over,with,upon,etc.); but see above for instances where these words are not used as prepositions
• The wordtoininfinitives

Other styles exist with regard to prepositions, including three- or even two-letter rules innews and entertainment journalism,and manyacademic publisherscall for capitalization of no prepositions at all. These styles are not used on Wikipedia, including for titles of pop-culture or academic works.

Potential exceptions: Apply our five-letter rule (above) for prepositions except when a significant majority of current, reliable sources that are independent of the subject consistently capitalize, in the title of a specific work, a word that is frequently not a preposition, such as "Like" or "Past". Continue to lower-case common four-letter (or shorter) prepositions like "into" and "from".

Hyphenation:The general rule in English is to not capitalize after a hyphen unless what follows the hyphen is itself usually capitalized (e.g.post-Soviet). However, this rule is often ignored in titles of works. Follow the majority usage in independent, reliable sources for any given subject (e.g.The Out-of-TownersbutThe History of Middle-earth). If neither spelling is clearly dominant in sources, default to lowercase after a hyphen, per the general rule.

Subtitles:Not everything in parentheses (round brackets) is a subtitle. For titles with subtitles or parenthetical phrases, capitalize the first word of each element, even if it would not normally be capitalized, if the element is either:

• A clause that can stand alone as a title and is sometimes used that way, as a short name:"(Now and Then There's) A Fool Such as I"
• A clearly separate or alternative title, expansion, or descriptive phrase, given in parentheses or following a colon or dash:"Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man)","Linking Albinism and Immunity: The Secrets of Secretory Lysosomes",Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Do not capitalize a normally lower-cased word:

• In adependent clausethat does not begin the title and is not used as a stand-alone title:"Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)"
• After a comma:The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

Incipits:If a work is known by its first line or few words of text (itsincipit), this is rendered insentence case,and will often be the Wikipedia article title. Examples:

• Remember not, Lord, our offences,a musical setting of an excerpted passage from a liturgical text
• "An act to enforce the 15th amendment to the Constitution of the United States",the beginning of theVoting Rights Act of 1965and sometimes used as a long name for it; legal incipits are often originally published inall-capitals.

Capitalization in non-English language titlesvaries, even over time within the same language. Retain the style of the original for modern works. For historical works, follow the dominant usage in modern, English-language, reliable sources. Examples:

• Les Liaisons dangereuses(French; the English title isDangerous Liaisons)
• El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha(Spanish; the English title isThe Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha,orDon Quixotefor short)
• "Hymnus an den heiligen Geist"(German; there is no English title, though it translates as"Hymn to the Holy Ghost")

Non-English titles should be wrapped in the{{lang}}template with the properISO language code(the shortest available for the language or dialect in question), e.g.:{{lang|fr|Les Liaisons dangereuses}}.This is done inside surrounding quotation marks, for short/minor works. Since 2017, the template automaticallyitalicizes non-English material in a Latin script,so for minor works|italic=noshould be set to prevent the title from being italicized, e.g.:"{{lang|de|italic=no|Hymnus an den heiligen Geist}}".This is because non-English proper names, including titles of minor works, should not be in italics. See the template documentation for complicated markup situations, such as use within a piped link.

Series, franchise, and fictional universe names:See§ Series titles.

Indefinite and definite articles

A leadingA,An,orTheis preserved in the title of a work, including when preceded by a possessive or other construction that would eliminate the article in something other than a title, e.g.:Stephen King'sThe Stand;however,theis sometimes not part of the title itself, e.g.:theOdyssey,theLos Angeles TimesbutThe New York Times.

The leading article may be dropped when the title is used as a modifier:According to aNew York Timesarticle by....

An indefinite or definite article iscapitalizedonly when at the start of a title, subtitle, or embedded title or subtitle. For example, a book chapter titled "An Examination ofThe Americans:The Anachronisms in FX's Period Spy Drama "contains three capitalized leading articles (main title" An ", embedded title"The",and subtitle" The ").

Translations

For works originally named in languages other than English, useWP:COMMONNAMEto determine whether the original title or an English language version should be used as the article title. For works best known by their title in a language other than English, an English translation of that title may be helpful. If the work is also well known by an English title, give the English translation in parentheses following normal formatting for titles:Les Liaisons dangereuses(Dangerous Liaisons).Where the work is not known by an English title, give the translation in parentheses without special formatting in sentence case:Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen(Weeping, lamenting, worrying, fearing).In references, square brackets are used:Il Giornale dell'Architettura[The journal of architecture].

Typographic effects

Main page:Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Trademarks

Do not attempt (with HTML, Unicode, wikimarkup, inline images, or any other method) to emulate any purely typographic effects used in titles when giving the title in Wikipedia, though an article on a work may also include a note about how it is often styled, e.g. in marketing materials. When giving such a stylization, it is not italicized or placed in quotation marks as a title; this confuses readers, who are apt to think such markup is part of the stylization when it is not.

• Right:Alien 3(stylized as ALIEN³) is a 1992 American science-fiction horror film.
• Wrong:ALIEN³initially received mixed reviews from critics.

For typographic effects that do not represent actual mathematical or scientific usage, it is preferable to use HTML or wiki markup, not Unicode equivalents, for superscript and subscript. When giving a stylization, do not attempt to mimic specific fonts, font size quirks, uneven letter placement, coloration, letters replaced with images, unusual upper- or lower-casing, or other visual marketing(seeWP:Manual of Style/Trademarks,WP:Manual of Style/Capital letters).

If a stylization that readers might look for can be created as an article title,redirectit to the actual article, and include{{R from stylization}}on the redirect page:ALIEN³.

Semantic markupand special characters in titles should be preserved when they convey meaning not just decoration, especially if omitting them would make the title difficult to understand or cause it to not copy-paste correctly. Examples:

• According to section 4.5.28, "Thespanelement ", inHTML 5.2: W3C Recommendation
  This should not be done for titles insideCitation Style 1andCitation Style 2templates, however, as it will negatively affect COinS metadata output.

Quotation marks simply used as a form of title stylization on a cover are removed. They are retained within a title when reliable sourcing demonstrates they indicate an actual quotation, orsarcasm,as in our article title for the songAre "Friends" Electric?.If the title is put into double quotation marks as a minor work, its interior quotation marks are rendered as single quotes:"Are 'Friends' Electric?".When giving a quoted title that begins or ends with an interior quotation mark, the templates{{"'}}and{{' "}},respectively, can be used tokernthe double and single quotation marks apart for better readability; this should not be done inside citation templates, just in running prose. Interior quotation marks in an italicized title go within the italics.

Typographic conformity

Main page:Wikipedia:Manual of Style § Typographic conformity

Generally, theguidelines on typographic conformity in quoted materialalso apply to titles of works, including normalization of dashes and quotation marks, conversion of various emphasis techniques, cleanup of punctuation, and use of italics for things like scientific names of species.

Some special considerations:

• Inside acitation template,do notuse formatting templates like{{em}}or{{lang}},or raw HTML markup like<em>...</em>,in the titles of the work, author(s) names, or any ofthe other parametersin which extended markup should be avoided. Using such code in them pollutes theCOinSmetadata emitted by the templates, for use withreference management software.To italicize or boldface something in a title, use basic wikimarkup, e.g.:{{Cite journal |title=Gray wolf (''Canis lupus'') is a natural definitive host for ''Neospora caninum'' |date=...}}.It will be filtered out of the COinS metadata, as will wikilinks, but most other markup will not be.
• An entirely boldfaced, all-caps, underlined, neon-green, or otherwise stylized title in the source material is not interpreted as a form of emphasis. This includes partial titles; e.g., a newspaper might have an in-house convention for all-caps in the first part of a title and all-lowercase in a subtitle: something like"JOHNSON WINS RUNOFF ELECTION: incumbent leads by at least 18% as polls close"should be rendered on Wikipedia as"Johnson Wins Runoff Election: Incumbent Leads by at Least 18% as Polls Close"or"Johnson wins runoff election: Incumbent leads by at least 18% as polls close",depending on title-case or sentence-case for periodical sources in the citation style used in the article.
• A particular specially treated word within an otherwise plain title probably will need markup, however. In such a case, convert any such highlighting to plain wiki ''...'' markup in a citation template, but{{em}}markup when the title is mentioned in running text, if the intent was emphasis. Italics used by convention to indicate a non-English expression, a legal case name, a movie title, a species scientific name, etc., are not emphasis and just take ''...'' markup.
• Titles of works that should be italicized receive this treatment inside another title. E.g., convert a newspaper title like"Ben Daniels Joins Cast of 'The Crown' for Season Three"to"Ben Daniels Joins Cast ofThe Crownfor Season Three ".This includes in a citation template as well as in running text.
• Abbreviations in titles of works should be left as-is, and do not need any linking or markup; if the abbreviation is contextually important, it should be treated in the main article prose. Use of the{{abbr}}template in particular should not be done in citation templates, except in the|quote=parameter (which is free-form text and does not generate metadata).
• Do not inject [sic] or the template{{sic}}into a work title. If it seems important to use, do it after the title. Within a citation, it is better to use an HTML comment, e.g.|title=The Compleat Gamester<!--Original period spelling.-->.Do not use the templated version of{{sic}}inside citation template data at all, except in the|quote=parameter.

Abbreviation of long titles

Main page:Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Abbreviations

When it is impractical to keep repeating a long title in the same article, it is permissible to use asource-attestedabbreviation of it. This can be introduced in parentheses, with or without a parenthetical "hereafter", at an early occurrence in the page:"It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" (hereafter "ITEOTWAWKI" ).Some other examples includeOEDfor theOxford English Dictionary,LotRforThe Lord of the Rings,andSTII:TWoKforStar Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.It is not necessary to usecamel case,as inLotR,unless most of thereliable sourcesprefer such a spelling. Such an abbreviation need not be mentioned in thelead sectionof the article unless the work is very commonly known by the abbreviation (e.g.,GTAfor theGrand Theft Autovideo game series), or the lead is long and the abbreviation is needed in the lead.

A common convention in literary and film reviews is to use the first major word or two from the title (or subtitle, for franchise works) in the same manner, e.g.Roger Ebert gaveEternal Sunshinea rating of... ",forEternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.Although this approach may be also used on Wikipedia, it can seem unencyclopedically colloquial if used for works that have short titles to begin with. It is common to shorten a reference to a work in a series to just its subtitle on second and later mention, or when the context already makes it clear what the overarching title is. However, avoid this usage if confusion could occur, as when the abbreviated form could refer to another element in the same franchise that is also mentioned in our article (Shannaraadapts literary high fantasy...would not work well at our article onThe Shannara Chronicles,because "Shannara" appears in the titles of the books on which the TV series is based). Abbreviated forms should be retained as-is in direct quotations, and may be clarified if necessary with square-bracketed editorial insertions.

In all cases, such abbreviations follow the italic or quotation-marked style of the full title.

Titles or what could be taken for titlesshouldbe trimmed, both in main text and inreference citations,to remove extraneous and reader-unhelpful injections. A common case is navigational website interface elements, such asbreadcrumbs,hashtags,andkeyword linksappearing in front of or after the article titleper se.Another frequent example is author, department/column, or publication names put inline with the title. Less often, a website (especially in an officially bilingual country like Canada) may include an English title and a translation in another language as a co-title. Another case is marking exclamations, e.g. "Exclusive:" or "Breaking:" at the start, though sometimes tacked on at the end( "... – Exclusive!" ).Including these serves no encyclopedic or citation-verification purpose.

Credit abbreviations

SeeWikipedia:Manual of Style/Abbreviations § Songwriting credits,for usage of composition and performance credit abbreviations, including "feat.", "arr.", and "trad."

See also

For complete guidance on the handling of titles of works, see further detail at the following pages (until the material is better consolidated):

• WP:Article titles(WP:TITLE,WP:TITLES) for the policy on what a title shouldbe,i.e. the name chosen to indicate what an article is about and to distinguish it from other articles
• WP:Manual of Style § Titles of works(which summarizes the key points)
• WP:Manual of Style § Italics §§ Titles,andWP:Manual of Style/Text formatting § Names and titles(both summarize details provided on the page below)
• WP:Manual of Style § Punctuation §§ Quotation marks §§§ Names and titles(summarizes details provided on the page below)
• WP:Manual of Style/Lists of works
• WP:Manual of Style/Music § Capitalization