Biocrawler:Manual of Style (dashes)
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
| Biocrawler: Guidance on style |
| Main Manual of Style |
|---|
| Supplementary Manuals of Style |
| Biographies |
| China-related articles |
| Dashes |
| Dates and numbers |
| Disambiguation pages |
| Headings |
| Japan-related articles |
| Links |
| Mathematics |
| Pronunciation |
| Sister projects |
| Titles |
| Trademarks |
| Other guidance |
| How to edit a page |
| Guide to layout |
| Captions |
| Categories |
| Categories of people |
| Cite sources |
| Explain jargon |
| Guide to writing better articles |
| Lists |
| Naming conventions |
| Picture tutorial |
| Proper names |
| Section |
| Technical terms and definitions |
Biocrawler should use standard rules of English punctuation for dashes. However, some current or future automated Wiki tools make it important to understand how to represent these dashes.
True dashes convey semantic meaning the hyphen lacks, and some feel it makes the rendered text easier to read. However, the necessity of using HTML entities makes the wiki markup more difficult to read, and these do not display consistently in all browsers. (Please see the talk page.)
Dashes and hyphens used on Biocrawler
The Hyphen, or more accurately known as the hyphen-minus (-), is the shortest dash-like character visually. Traditionally, this was used only for hyphenating words, creating line breaks, or to function as the minus sign. For historic reasons it is the only dash-like character on the keyboard. Dashes have been implemented in various ways that do not display consistently in all software, leading the hyphen to be used in place of dashes.
The Minus Sign (−, −) is designed to be the same width and height as a plus or equals sign, and should be used in non-TeX equations or to designate negative numbers. It is supported in almost all browsers, and can be used in Biocrawler. It can't be typed directly into Biocrawler as it is not present on the keyboard. It is possible to use the HTML entity − or the numeric form −.
The En Dash (–, –) is slightly longer than the hyphen and figure dash and about half the width of an em dash. It indicates duration, such as when you could substitute the word "to" (as in a range of dates). An en dash placed between numbers or in compounds does not have spaces around it: for example pre–World War II period, Ages 7–77. Some writers, however, prefer to place a space on either side in complex ranges: 1 January 2003 – 31 December 2004. The Guide for the Use of the International System of Units (SI) recommends that the word "to" be used instead of an en dash when a number range might be misconstrued as subtraction, such as a range of units. The en dash is supported in almost all browsers, and can be used in Biocrawler. Do not type an en dash directly into Biocrawler. It may display correctly on your browser, but not on others. Use the HTML entity – (not the numeric form –; see below) or hyphens.
The Em Dash (—, —) is twice as long as the en dash, and about the length of the capital M in any particular font. The em dash is used in much the same way as a colon or set of parentheses: it can show an abrupt change in thought or be used where a period is too strong and a comma too weak. An em dash can have spaces on either side or not, depending on the writer's preference or in-house style rules; and some writers prefer to use the en dash (spaced) for this parenthetical use. Em dashes are sometimes used to separate lists of items from their definitions. This is not correct and a colon should be used instead. (Biocrawler has a defined syntax for definitions, which is often preferable to colons. See How to edit.) It is supported in almost all browsers, and can be used in Biocrawler. Do not type an em dash directly into Biocrawler. It may display correctly on your browser, but not on others. Instead, use the HTML entity —, which the MediaWiki engine automatically converts into a numeric entity in the rendered HTML. The numeric entities, — and —, should be avoided in the wikitext: they produce the same result in the rendered HTML, but are more difficult for editors to interpret. Historically a double hyphen (--) was used to represent an em dash because on a typewriter the hyphens tend to connect, creating a dash in appearance, but since this is almost never the case in ASCII, do not use this.
See also Dash (punctuation) for detailed discussion of usage and more dashes.
Dashes not used on Biocrawler
The Figure Dash ("‒") should not be used on Biocrawler. It is slightly longer than the hyphen, usually the same length as the en dash. It is the same width as a number, and is used in telephone numbers (eg 012‒3456‒7890), to indicate a missing value in numeric data, etc. It can be typed with the numeric form ‒. Since browser support for it is lacking, use a hyphen in the Biocrawler instead.
The quotation dash ("―") should not be used on Biocrawler. This dash is used to introduce quoted text. If rendered at all, in most fonts it is rendered identically to the em dash. Since browser support for it is nearly nonexistent, in Biocrawler use the em dash instead. It can be typed only with the numeric form, ―.
The following are not dashes:
- The Macron ("¯") is a diacritic mark. Do not use it as a dash.
- The Underscore or Lowline ("_") is another diacritic mark in some languages. It is also used as a non-breaking space or as a space replacement in some computer operating systems. Do not use it as a dash.
Dash guidelines for Biocrawler editors
In the interests of Biocrawler:Wikilove and pending the planned update of the Wikimedia software that will automatically convert strings of hyphens into the appropriate correct en- and em dashes, editors are encouraged to be accepting of others' dash preferences and not to modify a chosen style arbitrarily in the same way as they would refrain from arbitrarily changing "artefact" to "artifact" (or vice versa). The following five dash styles are currently in use on Biocrawler. Of these, three formats are endorsed and two are deprecated. Please do not change them to reflect your preference, except as indicated below.
- Tight (unspaced) em dashes—like this. Entered by means of either
—or—. - Spaced em dashes — like this.
- A very rare subset of this style separates the dash from the surrounding words using hair spaces; since many browsers cannot display hair spaces, these appear on the display as simple tight em dashes.
- An additional touch used by some editors is to include a nonbreaking space before the dash — with — — to keep dashes from appearing at the start of a line.
- Spaced en dashes – like this. Entered by means of either
–or–. (Note: an unspaced en dash may be used to indicate a range of numbers, but unspaced en dashes should not be used for the parenthetical use under discussion in this Guideline.)- (The – line-break trick is used here, too.)
- A pair of hyphens -- either spaced or unspaced--like that. These are easier to read in the source text and simple to type, but regarded ugly by some. They will be taken care of in the future by the automatic conversion feature. Under a future version of the software, either they or strings of three hyphens are expected to become the default style. Editors who do not want the bother of keying in HTML entities or prefer to maintain the readability of the wikitext are free to type their dashes in this fashion. However, subsequent editors are free to convert any double-hyphens they come across to any of the first three types described above, depending on:
- Personal preference between en dashes and em dashes, and
- How the hyphens were initially entered. That is, a spaced double hyphen may only be converted into a spaced em dash or a spaced en dash. The original editor's spacing preference is respected.
- A single spaced hyphen - like this. This is considered an en-dash rendered in the same "typewriter" style as the double-hypen for em-dashes, above.
Editors changes should be aware that when MediaWiki is set to automatically convert "--" (two hyphens) in the source to a real dash, all HTML entities such as – will be deprecated and changed back to hyphens in the wikitext. (This feature was once implemented but backed out due to incompatibility with table markup.)zh:Biocrawler:格式手册 (破折号)
