Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Titles of works/Archive 4

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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4

Titling of "Reception of ..." articles about works of authors, composers, etc.

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see: Talk:Reception history of Jane Austen#Requested move 8 May 2021, on whether to use "Reception of [name]", "Reception of the works of [name]", "Reception of [name]'s [type of works]", etc.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:24, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Forms of to be

Concerning the requested move of Reasons to Be Pretty, at Special:Diff/1026091325 RMTR, Rreagan007 and Ahecht objected, interpreting the current wording of MOS:TITLECAPS Every verb, including forms of to be as requiring "To Be" to be fully capitalized under the interpretation that "to" is not a preposition, it is part of the phrasal verbs "to be". I do not think this was the intent, as the MOS sentence is followed by clarification (Be, Am, Is, Are, Being, Was, Were, Been). Further, I haven't seen anywhere that "to" is capitalized when part of the infinitive. https://capitalizemytitle.com/ provides a summary of several style guides, according to which only the AP recommends capitalizing to in infinitives. However, under MOS:5LETTER we explicitly have Not capitalized: [...] The word to in infinitives. No such user (talk) 09:49, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

@No such user I guess I missed the last one, but for clarity it would be good to footnote the non-infinitive forms of "to be" item so it doesn't appear contradictory (I realize that phrasal verbs can mean different things to different people, but I now see that that is already covered by the footnote). --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:32, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
I see now that I was mistaken, and that the "to" in infinitives is not capitalized. I could have sworn I had read in the MoS that the "to" in infinitives was supposed to be capitalized. Sorry about that. Rreagan007 (talk) 15:40, 31 May 2021 (UTC)
No need to apologize, I was also curious about the issue so I thought it would make sense to make it clear either way. The above-quoted https://capitalizemytitle.com/ also has a section on Wikipedia and summarizes our practice in a quite ambiguous way... and style guides are supposed to provide guidelines of clear writing :(. No such user (talk) 20:54, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Capitalization of offices in lists

In lists such as candidacies in 2024 United States presidential election, are these supposed to be in Title Case, sentence case, or something else? (Disclosure: I'm editing a similar article, but on another country's election.) Howard the Duck (talk) 15:48, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Thesis in italics

Under MOS:MINORWORKS, this guideline recommends quotation marks, not italics, for titles of theses. This contrasts with the behaviour of {{Cite thesis}} wher |title= is italicised. Which is correct?

As for the merits of the distinction major/minor works in this regard: Most PhD dissertations are quite substantial, and often they are later published as books, so italics makes sense. My impression of masters theses is that they are more like extended essays, so it's not clear to me whether they are minor or major. Anyway, there's a conflict between the MOS and the tamplate's behaviour.

I raised the same question at Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 77#Thesis in italics. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 01:43, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

That line was added to "minor works" by DGG in October 2019, with the edit summary "abither convention" (probably a typo of "another convention"). I do not see any discussion in the talk archives at that time (or any posts in Archive 3 by DGG). I think that the edit was an error, given that {{cite thesis}} has italicized thesis titles since 2011. That, to me, appears to be the actual convention on Wikipedia; as far as I know, the practice has never been challenged, and the template has 18,000 transclusions. The line about theses should be move to the MOS:MAJORWORK section. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:53, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
Consulting outside sources: APA says italics. MLA says italics. Chicago says quotation marks. That seems to allow us to choose our own style; since italics has been the consensus for over ten years here on WP, we should stay with that unless there is an RFC or some other consensus discussion that determines we should do otherwise. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:58, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
I've now moved that item to "Major works". -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 01:29, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
Theses are in the US not considered a full publication, unless they have been separately published. In Europe , it has been and in some countries (mostly Scandinavia) remains the custom to always publish them, even though that publication has to be paid for by the recipient. Most of the thesis titles I have seen in WP are in fact not in italics, apparently because they're written in the text, not cited, and written by academic, who generally do not consider it a full publication. I don't care all that much about style as such, but I would certainly challenge any attempt to use a citation to a thesis as a fully reliable source in the same sense as a published peer-=reviewed journal paper or book from a major publisher, and I consider the cite template in error in that respect. . But however wrong I think the MOS, I never fight about it . If I did , I would fight much more strongly about the way the cite news template highlights the title of the article, since it is generally accepted that the title of a news article is not a RS, as it is not written by the reporter, but the copy-editor, and usually for effect, rather than as a accurate summary. . DGG ( talk ) 07:48, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
It would be helpful to provide citations or data to support those assertions. A transclusion count and links to third-party style guides are provided above. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:27, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
I don't think source titles being in italics or quotation marks should be taken as any indictor of the reliability of the source (or the title of the source). I'm not aware of any WP guidance otherwise. Thincat (talk) 09:57, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
I've never heard that concern about titles before. The reason that titles are placed in citations is so that readers can locate the work in question in order to verify claims in the article. Without the title, in many cases, you won't know what to look for. Just saying that a fact appeared in the New York Times on April 7, 1991, is not enough information to locate the source readily. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:38, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

titled cartoons

MOS:MINORWORK includes "titled cartoons (not syndicated comic strips)". I would think this would apply to the articles in Category:Individual printed cartoons (and its subcat, Category:Editorial cartoons), but virtually all of them use italics, with the exceptions being Supermac (cartoon) and What if it's a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing? which mix italics and quotation marks. Is this policy being widely misinterpreted/ignored, or am I misunderstanding it? (Briefly discussed previously with User:Randy Kryn at Talk:Cow Tools - their interpretation was that these should be considered MOS:MAJORWORKs under the criterion of "Paintings, sculptures and other works of visual art".) Colin M (talk) 13:56, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Two examples of titled cartoons as visual art: Join, or Die (Benjamin Franklin's masterpiece) and Keep on Truckin' (Crumbs iconic work). These and other named works of visual art, such as named photographs which first appeared in magazines or newspapers, attain wide usage and academic analysis and commentary outside, and in addition to, the medium in which they were first presented. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:14, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
Are there any examples of works that you think do fall under the "titled cartoons" category described by MOS:MINORWORK? Colin M (talk) 15:22, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
If the cartoon is named by the cartoonist or has acquired a common name through media and academic discussion it is a titled work of visual art. Let's check with SMcCandlish who added titled cartoons as minor works in 2014 to ask what his thinking was or if he's changed his mind noting that Join, or Die and Keep on Truckin' have been italicized since 2016 with no objection. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:52, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Soviet is not a proper name

The MoS refers to "The general rule in English to not capitalize after a hyphen unless what follows the hyphen is itself a proper name (as in post-Soviet)". But "Soviet" is not a proper name, since it is an adjective rather than a noun. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 01:58, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

If "proper name" is not considered to include proper nouns (e.g., America), proper adjectives (e.g., American, Soviet), and proper verbs (e.g., Americanize), the MOS could be modified to "is itself usually capitalized". Doremo (talk) 03:39, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
Done as suggested. Would it be better to say "would itself ordinarily be capitalized" or "would usually be capitalized by itself" or "would be capitalized in a non-hyphenated use in running text"? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 15:48, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
Whatever is the best combination of clear and concise. I think it's OK as it is now. Doremo (talk) 17:15, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Episode and italicized items

Should episode titles which have parts named after italicized items, italicize them in the episode title or is the episode title treated as one entity? Some examples:

Couldn't find a mention of this so wasn't sure what is the correct way here. Gonnym (talk) 10:49, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

I've never seen this explicitly mentioned either, but I would side with what you have written in your examples (but with quotation marks around the episode titles). ~ JDCAce | talk ~ 09:28, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Punctuation after title ending in punctuation

How should a introductory phrase or appositive be used when the last character of the written phrase is a question mark, exclamation mark, or some other punctuation? To use MOS:TITLEPUNCT's example, how should the following sentence be punctuated: "O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a 2000 comedic film, stars George Clooney." Should there be a comma there? The only mention of dropping punctuation (that I can find) is when it involves a quotation. My answer to this, like most syntactic weirdness in general, would be "rewrite the sentence", but what if it can't be re-written? ~ JDCAce | talk ~ 09:28, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Abbreviation of newspaper titles/capitalized "the"

I'm having KPNX reviewed for GA. The article mentions The Arizona Republic in several cases and abbreviates to "the Republic" after the first instance, and the reviewer, Steelkamp, said that it should be abbreviated as "The Republic". Is this correct? I can't find anything on shortened titles of newspapers. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 00:17, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm saying the whole thing should be italicised. "The" doesn't need to be capitalised. Steelkamp (talk) 01:20, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
Apparently, the newspaper itself does capitalize "The" in this situation (in which case I would capitalize it too), e.g. [1]. Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 15:04, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
The most relevant section is MOS:THETITLE. In its examples, "the" is capitalized and italicized when used as part of an official title. And in my opinion the Republic (lowercase but italicized) looks jarring: either "the" is part of the title (and capitalized) or it's not (and not italicized). pburka (talk) 15:33, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Typographic conformity & sic

The last entry in the list here MOS:TITLECONFORM mentions not to use the sic template at all in titles. It does not however mention, in a specific manner, what action or inaction should occur when there are typos in titles. What is implied is that errors be left in situ. With the lack of proof reading today typos in titles are all too regular. Personally I believe that the reader should know when a non-deliberate spelling/grammatical error is made in a title so that there is not reinforcement of, shall we say, bad habits (its/it's comes to mind). Perhaps this paragraph was written before the nolink=y option within the sic template was made available?

I think there should be some clarity around such instances so that the editor knows whether to correct, add a sic template (for some CS1 templates), flag as an error in some other way, or leave it.

What I have seen for some errors (also other than titles) that have just had for instance [sic] appended to the miscreant is that at a later date the word in error has been corrected (possibly non-checked AWB use), so basically obfuscation is really necessary when items are flagged. What do you think? - Neils51 (talk) 03:31, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

WP:MOST as a redirect

I found this redirect while trying to find a page that would clarify when to use the word "most". I eventually found Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch#Puffery, which (sort of?) serves the purpose I was trying to look for, and I ask: should a hatnote be created to reflect this and link to the page noted? 172.112.210.32 (talk) 16:54, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Policy for slogans

It seems some articles about slogans have an italics title, although I think that a few words hardly count as "major". Though they can have a major impact on society. What is the consensus in this case? PhotographyEdits (talk) 13:42, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Non-English minor work titles

Should a non-English title of a minor work be italicised or not? Currently this page says:

but also:

  • At MOS:FOREIGNTITLE: "Non-English titles should be wrapped in the {{lang}} template with the proper ISO language code (the shortest available for the language or dialect in question), e.g.: "{{lang|de|Hymnus an den heiligen Geist}}". This is done inside surrounding quotation marks, for short/minor works. Since 2017, the template automatically italicizes foreign material in a Latin script, so no manual italics markup around or inside the template is needed, and should be removed if present. Such titles should be italicized as non-English regardless whether they would also be italicized as major works or not italicized as minor ones."

Which one is right? ‑‑YodinT 18:34, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

Both those sections were introduced by User:SMcCandlish: see change at MOS:MINORWORKS and change at MOS:FOREIGNTITLE. I think MOS:MINORWORKS is widely observed and should win. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 01:12, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
Thanks; I guess that any non-English title should be tagged with {{lang}} either way? I just saw that MOS:AMU also supports italics for non-English minor works... it seems worth making consistent one way or the other. Do any of the major style guides cover this? ‑‑YodinT 13:57, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
The example there, "Ich Bin Ein Auslander", was also introduced by User:SMcCandlish, who later agreed that it was wrong to italicize it. For details, see the discussion from March 2018 at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Titles/Archive 3#Short foreign works. It seems that his belated clarification from February 2019 was incomplete. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:17, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
Sounds good; I've changed the instances above to match MOS:MINORWORKS, and might add similar notes to other places in the MOS/template docs for clarity. ‑‑YodinT 18:27, 1 May 2022 (UTC)
Works for me. Didn't realize that multiple discussions at different times had produced conflicting advice. Doesn't happen often, fortunately.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:56, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

MOS on Gospel names

I've been variously gnoming around and cleaning up articles related to Christianity, and I keep coming across mentions of "John's gospel", "Luke's gospel", "Mark's gospel", "Matthew's gospel".

This is a problem because they imply an authorship that isn't there. This isn't controversial or anti-Christian; as the lead for Gospel states, the four canonical gosples chronicling the life of Jesus were written anonymously, with names appended in the 2nd century. This is just a majority opinion, the same way the historicity of Jesus is a majority opinion amongst secular and non-Christian scholars.

Sentences like "Mark states that" and "in John it is evident" are fine; these refer to the titles of the works and their contents. But I think we need a specific rule against "so-and-so's gospel" being written into articles as if their authorship were widely-reported fact. It's inaccurate and misleading.

I've looked through Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Titles#Religious texts, but I've not seen this mentioned anywhere; apologies if it's mentioned somewhere else and I've missed it.--Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 12:43, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

We should generally use the normal "Gospel of Luke" etc format anyway. Once the context is clear, I'm ok with using just "Luke", "Matthew" etc in text further down. This seems to me a convention that doesn't imply actual historical authorship. Johnbod (talk) 13:22, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
@Johnbod: Maybe I wasn't clear – I find those conventions fine too, my specific problem is just with the phrasing "X's gospel". For instance:
"The Gospel of John places the narrative of Jesus in the Second Temple at the beginning of his ministry, in contrast with the Gospel of Mark, Matthew and Luke" – Fine;
"John places the narrative of Jesus in the Second Temple at the beginning of his ministry, in contrast with Mark, Matthew and Luke" – Also seems fine;
"John's gospel places the narrative of Jesus in the Second Temple at the beginning of his ministry, in contrast with Mark's gospel, Matthew's gospel and Luke's gospel" – Not fine.
I hope this makes sense; despite being a native English speaker, I don't have the best grasp of what the rules of English are known as, but there's a possessive implication in the last example that just strikes me as wrong.--Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 15:03, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
Yes, I tend to agree with that, but I'm not sure it's a major issue. Johnbod (talk) 16:43, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
@Johnbod: it's not the biggest issue in the world; I just don't think it'd be too big of a deal to have maybe a line about it in the MOS. Kinda ties in with not writing about religions in-universe, for want of a better word.--Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 11:31, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Italicizing Wikipedia article titles

Re: this guideline:

I looked in the Casablanca article and I couldn't see that template used anywhere. Does the guideline need to be updated? --Jameboy (talk) 11:44, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

The infobox handles it. Gonnym (talk) 11:45, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

MOS:MINORWORK

At this edit, Editor SMcCandlish added this sentence:

Another rule of thumb is that if the work is intended to stand alone and to be kept for later reference, or has content likely to be seen as having merit as a stand-alone work, italicize it, but use quotation marks if it is entirely ephemeral, trivial, or simply promotional of some other work or product.

That sentence has seen minor tweaks but remains essentially the same today. What I want to know is how that sentence accords with the unordered list of items that should be quoted. Is there a conflict here? Surely all of those things in the list are intended to stand alone and to be kept for later reference and have content likely to be seen as having merit as ... stand-alone [works]. So, to me MOS:MINORWORK is saying 'quote titles of these things' but on the other hand is saying 'italicize the titles of these things'. They both can't be right, so which is it?

The issue has been raised at Help talk:Citation Style 1 § what to do with {{cite document}}? where I have proposed a new template to replace the current {{cite document}} which (improperly) redirects to {{cite journal}}.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:49, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

It would have to mean if you can't find your document type in our enumerated listing of types of works, apply the rule of thumb as a last resort. It could be restated more clearly like that. If what you're citing or wring about is something like an book-length whitepaper, italicize it. If it's something like a Bajooka Joe comic on the inside of a gum wrapper, use quotation marks. It's a judgement call, like a lot of other MoS stuff; there's no way to reduce every imaginable case to a robotic decision.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:57, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Music video: italicize or not?

In a list of music videos in which a person appears (perhaps singing, but perhaps not), should the names of the music videos use double quotation marks or be italicized? As a video, I normally would have italicized the name as an example of a short film, which is covered under MOS:MAJORWORK; but since the subject matter of the video is a single song, I am wondering if double quotation marks (per MOS:MINORWORK) are more appropriate. Here's an example: Yash_(actor)#Music_videos. — Archer1234 (t·c) 22:19, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Quotation marks, just like the song it's a video of.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:02, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Conflicting styles

Here, under MOS:ITALICTITLE, laws are not in the list of works that should have their titles italicized. This was clarified at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Titles of works/Archive 3#Italics for legislation. However, at MOS:CANLAW, it's stated, "in Canada, per the McGill Guide, titles of acts are italicized". Which of these opposing instructions governs? ₪ MIESIANIACAL 01:39, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

I've taken this to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Text formatting. --₪ MIESIANIACAL 00:20, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't think titles of acts should at all be italicized on WP, which is not written by McGill. Importing weird "do it differently just because we feel like it" variances from off-site style guides produces reader-confusing inconsistency across articles, which is the opposite of why we have a manual of style. There is no discussion at WT:MOSCAN or its archives establishing a consensus for doing that. A discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Text formatting#Conflicting styles did not conclude with a consensus to do such italicizing, and considerable opposition. An essentially duplicate discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Conflicting styles for names of laws isn't showing anything like a pro-italics consensus emerging, either.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:10, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

contradiction in MOS:SERIESTITLE?

So I was happy to find the MOS:SERIESTITLE section, which includes: Those [media franchise series] 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, and DC Universe, but the Marvel and DC comics universes.

But then it goes on in what I can't help but feel is a contradiction:

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

So... official names from the publisher are not italicized... unless an actual title is declared by the author or publisher?

Don't get me wrong... I don't think we should be italicizing series titles, especially the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but Disney/Marvel does refer to their movies as the MCU, so I don't see how that's not an "actual title" as declared by the publisher. Can someone point out the distinction between how we treat The Chronicles of Narnia and the MCU to me? —Joeyconnick (talk) 17:48, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

The Chronicles of Narnia is essentially one long work that is presented as a series of novels. The Marvel Cinematic Universe, like Narnia and like Middle-earth, is a setting for some stories.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:14, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
I'd argue that titles which describe shared universes should not be italicized. HaiFire3344 (talk) 00:05, 31 May 2022 (UTC)
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