Help:Style guide

This Style guide offers help and suggestions for how best to write articles so that they are clear, easy to read, and concise. It helps to ensure that articles appear as portions of a cohesive whole. And a professional presentation improves a reader's perception of credibility.

When writing for the wiki, try to follow these suggestions. However, it is not required that you do so. The information is more important than the style in which it is presented. Sometimes it may simply be inappropriate to follow a particular style. In other cases, any style issues can be changed or fixed later and after the article is complete. Put the relevant information down first, and consider style afterwards.

Wikipedia style
The following sections are extracts of key elements from the Wikipedia:Manual of Style that should be followed on the wiki.

Article titles
Use "sentence case", not "title case"; that is, the initial letter of a title is capitalized (except in rare cases, such as eBay). Otherwise, capital letters are used only where they would be used in a normal sentence. For example, Cash equivalents for EU investors, not Cash Equivalents For EU Investors.

Article titles should not be acronyms, but should be fully expanded. To handle the case where users may search using the acronym, create a redirect to use as an alternative title to the article. is an example. Redirects help to organize a wiki by making articles findable under different names. See Wikipedia:Redirect for guidelines and a more detailed explanation.

Redirect
A redirect is a page created so that navigation to a given title will take the reader directly to a different page. A redirect is created using the syntax:



where Target is the name of the target page. Example:
 * (redirects to the Bogleheads® investment philosophy article)

Section organization
An article should begin with an introductory lead (or lede) section, which does not contain section headings (see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section). The remainder is divided into sections, each with a section heading (see below) that can be nested in a hierarchy.

If there are at least four section headings in the article, a navigable Table of contents is generated automatically and displayed between the lead and the first heading. In some articles a table of contents may be undesirable. In that case, adding  anywhere within the article will suppress the table of contents. Conversely, adding  will position the table of contents where this appears.

Section headings
Headings are produced by typing multiple equal signs. A primary section heading is written, a subsection below it is written  , and so on (a maximum of five levels is possible). Spaces between the equal signs and the heading text are optional, and will not affect the way the heading is displayed. The heading must be typed on a separate line. Include one blank line above the heading, and optionally one blank line below it, for readability in the edit window. (Only two or more consecutive blank lines will add more white space in the public appearance of the page.)

The provisions in Article titles (above) generally apply to section headings as well. Headings are in sentence case, not title case.

Table headings
As above for Article titles and Section headings. Table titles and table column names should all use sentence case, and not title case.

Pronouns
Remember to never use the pronoun "I". See: Wikipedia:Manual of Style § First-person pronouns. ("We" is acceptable in some specific contexts.)

The case for second-person pronouns is more nuanced. Wikipedia's style for second-person pronouns avoids addressing the reader. However, in some articles, in particular those that give instructions on how to achieve something, addressing the reader or using a second person pronoun can be clearer. Compare: None of these is wrong, but "Check your tax position before ..." is much clearer, even though it directly addresses the reader.
 * "Investors must check their tax position before ..."
 * "One must check one's tax position before ..."
 * "The tax position must be checked before ..."

Use gender-neutral pronouns when referring to generic persons. For example, The investor receives their dividends ... rather than The investor receives his dividends ....

Cultural sensitivity
Avoid using words or phrases that other cultures may find impolite or offensive. One example is crusade; use campaign instead.

Also, avoid idioms that may not be universally understood. For example, Your results may be different rather than Your mileage may vary. One of the main principles, Stay the course, is mildly problematic for readers whose first language is not English.

Contractions
Avoid don't, won't, can't, and so on; use do not, will not, cannot instead. For more, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Abbreviations § Contractions.

"It's" and "its" can be especially confusing, particularly to readers for whom English is not a first language. Avoid it's and use it is, so that for example It's advisable to ... becomes It is advisable to .... "Its" is a possessive that does not require an apostrophe, for example Vanguard is well known for its unique corporate structure.

Similarly, for example and that is can be clearer in most contexts than e.g. and i.e..

Abbreviations
Abbreviations and acronyms are common in finance, to the point where an article written without them might be unreadably unwieldly. When using one though, consider providing an expansion on its first use, for example Exchange-traded fund (ETF) (preferred) or ETF (Exchange-traded fund). After that it can usually be used unexpanded for the remainder of the article.

Dates
Wikipedia style allows for several date formats. It also discourages others, including dd-mm-yyyy (or dd/mm/yyyy) and mm-dd-yyyy (or mm/dd/yyyy)). The problem with these is that they are ambiguous. In some regions of the world, 3/4/2022 is March 4; in others it is April 3.

Use any of the allowable date formats, and in particular avoid using any of the formats that are ambiguous. If unsure, or to save lookup effort, formatting as 3 April 2022 is a decent default choice. Or 3 Apr 2022 if space is an issue, such as in a table.

Ampersand
Use and in normal sentence text and headings. First and second, not First & second. Reserve ampersands for trademarks, titles of works or organisations, and quotations,

tags
These should be placed directly after the sentence, clause, or word to which they apply. Do not prefix  with a space. This causes odd rendering where the browser decides to insert a newline before the superscript.

Where the reference follows a clause, place  after the terminating comma, period, or colon, and not between the final word of the clause and the terminating punctuation.

Mobile
The wiki uses skins to tailor its appearance. An article viewed using the Mobile skin, typically on a mobile phone, could look quite different to the same article viewed in Desktop on a personal computer. To toggle between skins, use the "Mobile view" and "Desktop" links at the very bottom of a wiki page.

Mobile does not support collapsible tables, and can also reposition images, the table of contents, and many other page elements in order to try to fit a small screen. As a result, a carefully laid out page on Desktop could become difficult or even impossible to read in Mobile.

Remember to view any extensive or complex new pages or page edits in Mobile, ideally with a narrow screen width, to ensure that they remain clear and readable on mobile devices. For some guidelines on ways to avoid problems with Mobile, see: Recommendations for mobile friendly articles on Wikimedia wikis.

Exceptions to Wikipedia style
There are some areas where it makes sense not to follow the Wikipedia:Manual of Style.

Instructions
Already mentioned in Pronouns above. Wikipedia style frowns on an instructional tone. However, Wikipedia does not contain How-To articles, whereas the wiki does. Writing these types of article would lead to forced tone that is difficult read.

In these cases, an instructional tone, use of second-person pronoun, and so on, is fine.

Rhetorical questions
Wikipedia style discourages phrasing article titles and section headings as questions. In practice, several wiki articles do this, an obvious example being Investing FAQ for the Bogleheads® forum. Provided they are used either sparingly or where obviously required, they do not detract from the wiki's effectiveness or appearance.

Verb forms
Prefer the active voice to the passive voice. Active is usually clearer and more direct. For example, The fund pays dividends ... rather than Dividends are paid by the fund ....

Sentence length
Prefer short sentences to long ones. Once a sentence exceeds three or four clauses, consider breaking it into separate smaller sentences.

Word choice
Prefer simpler words to more complicated ones. Some examples: use rather than utilize; need rather than necessitate; and often rather than frequently.

White space
Wikitext is inconsistent in its use of space and newline characters. Sometimes whitespace is important; other times it is not. A blank line indicates a new paragraph, but try to avoid leaving two or more blank lines together. This spaces paragraphs beyond their normal spacing and creates an off-balance appearance.

Aside from some special cases, such as template Blockquote, it is not necessary to end lines with  tags.

For space characters where a line break would be detrimental, use  (non-breaking space). For example,, displays as $1 million.

Numbers
Small numbers are usually best written out in full. There are two ways ... instead of There are 2 ways .... Similarly for hundred, thousand and million. Aside from these, for numbers above twenty, digits are generally clearer. For fractions, prefer half and quarter to 1/2 and 1/4, and consider if "one third", "one fifth" and so on might be clearer than "1/3" and "1/5".

Avoid starting a sentence with a digit. Group numbers with five or more digits into threes using commas. For numbers with four digits, either group or not is fine, but remain consistent within the article.

For currencies, amounts such as $100 can generally be assumed by readers to be US dollars unless qualified, for example Can$100 or A$100.

Plurals
Do not use apostrophes to form plurals. Two ETFs exist, not Two ETF's exist. Using These ETFs' TERs refers to multiple TERs related to multiple ETFs. (An exception is single letters, such as Mind your P's and Q's.)

Lists
It is usually best not to state how many items a list contains. For example, There are three benefits: 1. ... 2. ... 3. ...". The problem here is that you, or somebody else, is liable to add a fourth, but not change the introductory text, creating There are three benefits: 1. ... 2. ... 3. ... 4. ...".

The easiest way to avoid this trap is not to count them. Instead use The benefits are: ... or There are several benefits: .... This applies to both wikitext lists and to items that are enumerated in sentence form.

Tables
A plain wikitable, created with  is usually good enough for most purposes (also, see template Table). While some styling can improve its appearance, resist the urge to create something ornate.

When specifying column or table widths, prefer measures in either percentages or characters; that is,  or. This allows the browser some freedom to display items appropriately. Specifying widths in pixels is inflexible, and can be particularly problematic on Mobile.

For columns of currency or percentages with decimal places, consider using template 0 to align the decimal points.

Consider if a table is the appropriate display. Not all data that can be shown in a table should be shown in a table. A list might be more suitable.

For more on table formatting, see Help:Table.

Empty sections
The standard article format has these sections following the main article text: Notes; See also; References; and External links. If after writing your article text any of these sections is empty, remove it. Empty sections give the appearance that something was accidentally omitted from an article.