Sapphire Wikia:Manual of Style/Literacy

The Steven Universe Wiki has a specific set of guidelines regarding the literacy in articles. It is recommended to be consistent with such to avoid conflict of interest.

Plain English
"I'm just a kid, you know. I don't know these words. Don't patronize me!"

The golden rule is to use plain English in a formal writing style. This means the article speaks to the target audience (Family entertainment) in a way they understand by being straightforward and concise while being free of clichés and needless technical jargon to focus on the points being presented. It is essential to know if any of the below sections are meant to work with each other in harmony.

Spelling
"I thought it was spelled colour..."

All spelling must be in its American-English (AmE) variant. The only exception to this rule is if the provided text is a quote or a title. A list of various AmE and BrE spelling variations can be found here.

Keep in mind that the variations in the link are not the only cases of differentiation in the two types of English. When choosing words, make sure they are preferred in America compared to the rest of the world. For example, "mollusk" is the U.S. variant of "mollusc".

Foreign Terms
"I am known by many names. Would you want me to list all of them? Probably not, but you might show me the respect I deserve."

Foreign terms are to be used sparingly as it creates a form of jargon for the English reader. Attempt to anglicize the spelling of foreign terms unless it is impossible to do so, in which case the word is italicized. If it can be done, disregard the italics and put the native term with its language of origin after the anglicized term in brackets with the IPA (more below) (e.g. Steven Universe (Spanish: Universo de Steven). If there are different variants of the same language (Simplified / Traditional Chinese), put their terms alongside each other.

Numerical Spelling
"Why can't we type out the numbers like calling out the numbers when typing in a telephone number? It takes me 2 seconds just to write, "hundred", when I could have saved a second or less!"

Numbers from 0-20 should be spelled out. Exceptions are dates, addresses, money, scores, percentages, fractions, pages, and decimals. This is because numbers after twenty tend to have the "twenty" with the number before "ten" said in one phrase (twenty-one/two/etc.) It would save more space this way and be less tedious to type.

Capitalization
"When I refer to "gem", I mean the species. Confusing?"

Particularly related to Gems and gemstones, the "Gem" race and a Gem's name always have the words capitalized. Confining to the usual grammatical rules, "gemstone" and the names are uncapitalized (e.g. Lapis Lazuli (Gem) / Lapis lazuli (Gemstone))

Possessives
"The usages are both correct, but there should be a way to differentiate them."

The preferred plural possessive style is using the apostrophe after an S, not before it, for example, Lapis' instead of Lapis's. This is because in scenarios with plural nouns that are meant to be a possessive, such as "Michaels'," the "S" sounds more like a "Z," which is when an apostrophe will suffice.

Tenses
"Was this in the past, the present, or was it in the past but narrated as if it is in the present? Hurts my head."

Write articles using the present tense (specifically historical present where it uses the present tense to describe the past) and active voice even when certain subjects, objects, and so on, are discontinued in the Steven Universe world (Ronaldo is a former member of the Crystal Gems). The only situations where this is an exception is for deceased subjects (Pink Diamond was a member of the Great Diamond Authority), past events (The Rebellion was an event that occurred approximately 5,750 years ago), and subjects that no longer meaningfully exist as such (Mr. Universe was Greg Universe's stage name when he was a rock star).

Punctuation
"Let's eat Grandma! < Let's eat, Grandma!"

Punctuation adheres to American-English rules, such as straight double quotations (") and Latin punctuation always ending with a period. As an exception, however, quotes for subjects, such as episode titles, should not have punctuation inside of the parentheses.

 Examples: 

Subject scenario
 *  Incorrect : Jasper made her debut in the episode "The Return."
 *  Correct : Jasper made her debut in the episode "The Return".


 * Character quote scenario
 *  Incorrect : Jasper claims that "fusion is just a cheap tactic to make weak gems stronger".
 *  Correct : Jasper claims that "fusion is just a cheap tactic to make weak gems stronger."


 * Latin abbreviation scenario
 *  Incorrect : Dr Steven heals Lapis' cracked gem.
 *  Correct : Dr. Steven heals Lapis' cracked gem.
 *  Incorrect : The fans of Steven Universe will die for another Garnet vs Jasper.
 *  Correct : The fans of Steven Universe will die for another Garnet vs. Jasper.

Broad Characters
"I thought that was an English A, not a Greek symbol..."

Only use the punctuation characters that are available on your keyboard unless it is an HTML entity that is non-existent on the keyboard (like math symbols such as ∞). This means any symbol outside of a common keyboard is not allowed (“ < "). Not even the composition of an HTML entity is allowed (&amp;infin; < ∞) unless the character resembles a keyboard character (&amp;Alpha; > Α [Alpha / α in Greek alphabet]; See Manual of Style/Technical).


 *  Incorrect : “If every porkchop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hotdogs.”
 *  Correct : "If every porkchop were perfect, we wouldn't have hotdogs."

Oxford/Serial Comma
"My friends aren't included with these people. These people are my friends."

If a sentence contains a series of three or more words, phrases, or clauses, the Oxford comma can be used before the coordinating conjunction and the final item in a series. This comma is required on all the articles.

The Oxford comma's main purpose is to clarify what would be ambiguity or confusion as it is otherwise a matter of style, so depending on the context, a missing Oxford might be needed. On the third sentence, are Connie and Greg Steven's friends?

For the sake of asking less responsibility, the Oxford comma is added in any context.

 Examples: 
 *  Incorrect : The last remaining Crystal Gems are Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl and Steven.
 *  Correct : The last remaining Crystal Gems are Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, and Steven.
 *  Incorrect : Steven entered the room with the Crystal Heart, grabbed the bubble with Peridot's gem inside and popped it as he fell, resulting in Peridot's regeneration afterward.
 *  Correct :Steven entered the room with the Crystal Heart, grabbed the bubble with Peridot's gem inside, and popped it as he fell, resulting in Peridot's regeneration afterward.
 *  Incorrect : After the Crystal Gems and Steven came back from a mission, Steven saw a letter next to the door. He picked it up and sees it is an invite to a special surprise location from his friends, Connie and Greg.
 *  Correct : After the Crystal Gems and Steven came back from a mission, Steven saw a letter next to the door. He picked it up and sees it is an invite to a special surprise location from his friends, Connie, and Greg.

Captions
"This image is of a worm reading a book while drawing art and typing on a computer with a mini paper tornado in the background... How does this relate to Lion?"

Every image should have a brief (unless it is a technical graph where everything needs to be explained) caption unless it is a "self-captioning" image (book covers) or an unambiguous depiction of the subject of the article. They will start with a capital letter, be sentence fragments, and should not end with a period unless a complete sentence occurs in the caption.

Typographic Ligature
"I have a doctorate in linguistics, and I know a glyph should be here, not two letters."

A ligature is a hybrid of two letters that combine into a single glyph. Ligatures should be used in languages in which they are standard (" Gem language sounds like repeating clin d'œil over and over. " > " Gem language sounds like repeating clin d'oeil over and over. ") but not in English outside of names (" Pearl caused issues with the pre-mediaeval king " > " Pearl caused issues with the pre-mediæval king ").

Phonetic Transcription
"Would you like some Worcestershire sauce?"

The international phonetic alphabet and pronunciation respelling serve to give readers an easier time knowing how to pronounce difficult-to-pronounce words. These will be used sparingly and only when the community (depending on the majority's native tongue and proficiency in English) has proven to have difficulty.

International Phonetic Alphabet
See the IPA keyboard for an example website to construct IPAs.

The IPA next to the name of the English name will link to Wikipedia:IPA for English so it can provide a how-to guide on why the current IPA would be correct or not. It is provided on this page for this reason, too.

Pronunciation Respelling
See the smallcaps generator.

Pronunciation respelling is when a word is hyphenized to separate distinct syllables. It is more tricky because it takes into account how one stresses a part of a word, phrase, or term and it cannot be used to represent pronunciations from any language in the world accurately. Both are used for non-native speakers and those chiefly familiar with English orthography.

The pronunciation respelling, like the IPA, will be linked to Wikipedia:Help:Pronunciation respelling key for a how-to guide. The respelling will be italicized, and the stressed words will be bolded and in small capital letters (e.g. Machine (mə-sʜᴇᴇɴ))