Cascade Adventures Saga Wiki:Manual of style

The Manual of Style (often abbreviated MOS) is a style guide for all articles and official documents in the. It establishes a house style, to help editors produce articles with consistent, clear, and precise language, layout, and formatting. The goal is to make the encyclopedia easier and more intuitive to use. Consistency in style and formatting promotes clarity and cohesion.

Article titles
An article title is a convenient label for the article, which distinguishes it from other articles.

Choice of title
Article titles are based on how the books in The Cascade Adventures Saga and other primary sources refer to the article's subject. A good title meets the following five criteria, and if these criteria are in conflict, they need to be balanced against one another.
 * 1) Recognizability: The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with the subject area will recognize.
 * 2) Naturalness: The title is one that readers are likely to look or search for and that editors would naturally use to link to the article from other articles. Such titles usually convey what the subject is actually called in English.
 * 3) Precision: The title is sufficiently precise to unambiguously identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects.
 * 4) Conciseness: The title is no longer than necessary to identify the article's subject and distinguish it from other subjects.
 * 5) Consistency: The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles.

We prefer the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in the sources) as such names will be the most recognizable and the most natural. Although original, full or scientific names may sound logical for article titles, the term or name most typically and frequently used in reliable sources is generally preferred. It also helps to avoid spoilers. For example, Kale Dillans is used as a title instead of Kale James Robert Andrew Brayden Dillans  or Kaelestis, as it is most commonly used in the sources and it avoids spoiling his real name. The same applies to Zorgoth (not: Zarko Leonard or Master of the Predatorials).

There is often more than one appropriate title for an article. In that case, editors choose the best title by consensus based on the considerations that this page explains. Redirects should be created to articles that may reasonably be searched for or linked to under two or more names (such as different spellings or former names). For example, the page Castle Rose and King Casimir's Institute redirects to Land of the Free.

It is not always possible to use the exact title that may be desired for an article, as that title may have other meanings, and therefore may have been already used for other articles. According to the above-mentioned precision criterion, when a more detailed title is necessary to distinguish an article topic from another, use only as much additional detail as necessary, placed in parentheses behind the title. For example, it would be appropriate to title an article Skyfire (book), as the addition of (book) is precise enough to distinguish the book from other uses of the term The SKyfire Realm.

Title format
The following points are used in deciding on questions not covered by the five principles; consistency on these helps avoid duplicate articles:
 * Use "sentence case", not "title case"; that is, the initial letter of a title is capitalized, but otherwise, capital letters are used only where they would be used in a normal sentence. For example, Kale's mother, not Kale's Mother.
 * Do not use A, An, or The as the first word. For example, Planet Cascade, not The Planet Cascade, or Angels, not An Angel.
 * Use names without ranks for characters: Articles about characters should avoid the title or rank, unless the character is known only by the title. For example, Cascada, not Lady Cascada.

Spelling
In English there is a national variety of the language, e.g. American English vs. British English. These varieties differ in many ways, including vocabulary (elevator vs. lift), spelling (center vs. centre), date formatting ("April 13" vs. "13 April"), and occasionally grammar. Check out Comparison of American and British English article on Wikipedia to determine the differences between the varieties.

In order to increase the consistency, it is decided that American spelling should be used on all canon encyclopedia articles in the wiki, on any templates, on all official projects and blog posts. This is to reflect the American origin of The Cascade Adventures Saga. Regional variations in spelling may be used in all other contexts in the wiki, such as comments, talk pages, user pages, blog posts and fanon.

Capital letters
Unnecessary capitalization should be avoided. For example, use ortscreen rather than Portscreen. This is sometimes referred to as the "down style". Capitalization should be reserved for proper names only. The following points are noteworthy:
 * Capitalization of "The": Generally do not capitalize the in the middle of a sentence. For example, she was sent to the United Kingdom (not to The United Kingdom). However there are some conventional exceptions, including most titles of artistic works. For example, Meyer wrote The Lunar Chronicles, but is also writing the Heartless series.
 * Titles: In generic use, apply lower case for words such as emperor, queen and president. For example, Levana was the queen of Luna.
 * In parts of a person's title, begin such words with a capital letter, like President Vargas, not president Vargas.
 * Standard or commonly used names of an office are treated as proper nouns (The British Prime Minister is Bromstad; Casimir was King of Planet Cascade).
 * Royal styles are capitalized (Her Majesty; His Highness); exceptions may apply for particular offices.
 * Calendar items: Months, days of the week, and holidays start with a capital letter (June and Monday) and seasons are in lower case (her last summer; the winter solstice), except in personifications or in proper names for periods or events (Old Man Winter).
 * Animals, plants, and other organisms: Any flora and fauna are written in lower case in article prose (forest wolves) and in sentence case at the start of article titles, sentences, headings and other places where the first letter of the first word is capitalized. They are additionally capitalized where they contain proper names: Merlin's cat, African robot.
 * Astronomical bodies: When used generally, the words sun, earth, and moon do not take capitals. For example, The moon was looming behind them. Names of planets, moons, asteroids, comets, stars, constellations, and galaxies are proper nouns, and therefore capitalized, like She was the new ruler of Cascade.
 * Locations: Generic words for institutions (university, college, hospital, high school) and political or geographical units ( cities, towns, and countries) do not take capitals. For example, Tyson didn't want to attend the university in the city. Names of institutions and political or geographical units are proper nouns and require capitals, like Meldon hated the Institute in Land of the Free.

Italics

 * Use italics for the titles of works of literature and art, such as books, pamphlets, films (including short films), television series, music albums, and paintings e.g. Glitches. The titles of articles, chapters, songs, television episodes, and other short works are not italicized.
 * Italics may be used sparingly to emphasize words in sentences (whereas boldface is normally not used for this purpose). Generally, the more highlighting in an article, the less its effectiveness. Use italics when introducing or distinguishing among terms. For example: "Cascada thought it was her fault that this happened, not his".

Numbers

 * In general, write whole numbers one through nine as words, write other numbers that take two words or fewer to say as either numerals or words, and write all other numbers as numerals: 1/5 or one fifth, 84 or eighty-four, 200 or two hundred, but 3.75, 544, 21 million). This applies to both ordinal and cardinal numbers.
 * Use a comma to delimit numbers with four or more digits to the left of the decimal point: 12,345 and 1,000.

Writing style
Writing should be clear and concise. Plain English works best. Avoid ambiguity, jargon, and vague or unnecessarily complex wording.

Grammar tense
In in-universe articles the past tense must be used on any event articles, articles describing entities that are deceased or no longer exist, or sections of any in-universe article detailing past events. For example, Meldrick stabbed at Kale during their encounter. Present tense must only be used on any location, creature, and character article, where this does not conflict with the other guideline. The current "in-universe time" in the wiki is generally considered to be fixed at the end of the last published book which is furthest down the timeline.

Formality and neutrality
Formal use of language is mandatory on all articles.
 * Contractions: Uncontracted forms such as do not or it is are the default in encyclopedic style; don't and it's are too informal. But contractions should not be expanded mechanically. Sometimes rewriting the sentence as a whole is preferable; occasionally contractions provide the best solution anyway.
 * Contested vocabulary: Avoid such phrases as remember that and note that, which address readers directly in an unencyclopedic tone. Similarly, phrases such as of course, naturally, obviously, clearly, and actually make presumptions about readers' knowledge, and call into question the reason for including the information in the first place. Do not tell readers that something is ironic, surprising, unexpected, amusing, coincidental, etc. Simply state the sourced facts and allow readers to draw their own conclusions.
 * Speculation: Speculation is not allowed to be added to any article in the wiki.

Perspectives
Articles in the wiki are one of two types:
 * In-universe: Article should be written as if the universe of The Cascade Adventures Saga was the real world. Chapters and books should not be referred to in a sentence, and characters should not be treated as fictional constructs. These articles include all character, location, object, event etc. articles – all articles not in the real world category.
 * Real world: Article should be written from "our" perspective. This includes all behind the scenes, books, chapters and other articles.