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This guide presents the typical layout of Wikipedia articles, including the sections an article usually has, ordering of sections, and formatting styles for various elements of an article. For advice on the use of wiki markup, see Help:Editing; for guidance on writing style, see Manual of Style.
Editors should structure articles with consistent, reader-friendly layouts and formatting (which are detailed in this guide). Where more than one style or format is acceptable under the MoS, one should be used consistently within an article and should not be changed without good reason. Edit warring over stylistic choices is unacceptable. [b]
Text formatting in citations should follow, consistently within an article, an established citation style or system. Options include either of Wikipedia's own template-based Citation Style 1 and Citation Style 2, and any other well-recognized citation system. Parameters in the citation templates should be accurate.
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Self-references to avoid (MOS:SELF) How to avoid mentioning Wikipedia itself, or the fact the article is a webpage. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Spelling (MOS:SPELLING) Not a guideline per se, but a handy guide to national varieties of English. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Stand-alone lists (WP:STANDALONE)
The Manual of Style (MoS or MOS) is an in-depth guide that provides standards on how to format Wikipedia articles. Following these guidelines helps keep the encyclopedia clear, consistent, and stable. The simplest way to do this is to find a well-written article and copy its formatting.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia — each article is meant to provide its readers with "a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject", from a neutral point of view. While Wikipedia is not a place to publish original research, nor an original synthesis of the research literature, you may do this on Wikipedia's sister projects.
When punctuating quoted passages, there are two commonly used styles (here called the "logical" style and the "aesthetic" style). The logical style is used in most countries as standard, [citation needed] and is becoming more popular in America too, although most Americans still use the aesthetic style.
For a guide to editing, see Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia; For an overview of commonly used style guidelines, see Wikipedia:Simplified Manual of Style; For a page on how to use Wikipedia in bite-sized morsels, see Wikipedia:Tips; For advice on writing style and formatting in a bullet-point format, see Wikipedia:Styletips