Help:Style

Welcome to the main Coppermind Style Guide. This article is fairly incomplete at the moment, but we're working on it. (Writing style guides are kinda hard, as you might imagine!) So, we apologize for the messiness for now.

These style conventions try to make the wiki both easy to read and easy to write. If you're a new wiki editor, we recommend that you don't really worry about all of the conventions; just write! Other editors will adapt things so they fit more in line with Coppermind standards. The most important thing is new content, don't get bogged down in the details.

Of course, if you're the person who really likes the details and wants to know how to edit other people's work to be in line with the conventions, well, here's a bunch of conventions!

Coppermind Style Conventions

Articles should be written so that they resemble an encyclopedia; keep it informative and written using formal language. Don't include your personal opinion. For example, on an article like Shards, don't add random parenthetical statements that say "I learned this crazy fact!" or, even worse, "This is cool!" or "Where did you learn this?" Articles should stand on their own. If a fact seems a bit extraordinary, you should cite it, so there is no question about its factual accuracy. Above all, there is absolutely no reason to use first person. This is a collaborative effort, and so personal facts or interjections are totally irrelevant. If you find something cool, just add the new fact into the article. That said, all of these sort of personal comments or discussion is totally reasonable for an article's talk page (click the Discussion tab at the top, to the right of "Page")! So, you can totally discuss things like this, but the actual article itself should remain an encyclopedia entry and free of that stuff.

Literary Style

Generally, articles should be factual and written from an in-world perspective. Exceptions to this include meta (out-of-world) pages such as articles on the actual book. In terms of in-world pages, Development sections and Trivia sections can include out-of world-references, however, all other sections should be written from an in-world perspective.

Remember that the Coppermind is not a repository of quotes. Do not simply copy and paste things from the novels directly; put things into your own terms and cite it. It is very obvious when you see a quote pretended to be an encyclopedia entry, because the novels are--shockingly--not encyclopedia entries! Use the primary sources to inform you, but don't copy them directly. When adding information to a topic, try and make it flow with the structure of the article. Or, restructure the article! But new facts should always flow in the article.

Generally, write articles in present tense, except when obviously necessary to write in past tense, such as in history sections. There may exist additional exceptions to this rule.

Linking Other Pages

You don't have to wikilink every instance of every term on a page! That gets tedious really quick. Instead, you need only to link the first instance of a new term on the page (this is why many articles have their first paragraph full of links to other articles!). You can add additional wikilinks if it is convenient. Long articles, for example, can benefit from linking terms in each new section, but that remains your stylistic preference as an editor. However, new terms in the article should definitely be linked.

Smart Punctuation from Word Processors

In a strange turn of events with the wiki software, there's a difference between the quotation marks that, say, Word produces and those that a plain text editor. Normal text editors like Notepad or the wiki edit screen produce characters like " and '. But, if you typed "Vin's" into Word, that apostrophe would be more "curly". Word does this because that makes things look better in a book or printed page, but the wiki software makes a distinction between normal quotes and the curlier "smart" quotes. When possible, use normal quotes. This is especially necessary when dealing with bold and italics, as they use the apostrophe to delimit themselves.

Don't use dashes. Similarly to the smart quotes, dashes are things generated by a word processor. When you want to use a dash, use two hyphens. For example, if I were to give you an example--and wanted a parenthetical statement--I'd do it like this!

General Style Conventions

  • Use American English (British English isn't a big deal, but the correct spelling will probably be eventually edited out in favor of its corrupt brethren). So, use aluminum instead of aluminium.
  • To create a new paragraph, make sure you have an empty line. If you just press enter once, the wiki will render that new line as part of the same paragraph. Do not put each sentence of a paragraph on their own line, just write like you normally would.
  • When you end a sentence, do not put two spaces after it (Grammar Girl agrees it is a silly, archaic habit that's entirely unnecessary anyway). One space will do.
  • Use the Oxford comma
  • As in usual written text, typically do not use numerals. Use "one" instead of "1", and so on. There are of course certain exceptions, such as dates.
  • For possessives, use 's for singular nouns, even if they end with the letter s, and for plural nouns that do not end with a pronounced s; use just an apostrophe for other plural nouns.

Titles

Article Titles

Article titles should generally be the full name of their subject, though other factors, including what is commonly used in the books and any spoiler implications should also be considered. Article titles should also be singular, unless only the plural form of a name is known. However, it is easy to have wikilinks that are plural which direct to singular titles. For example: [[Highprince]]s instead of [[Highprinces]]. You can also use apostrophes similarly.

For characters, "full name" means what the character would consider to be their full name, which may not be the same as their birth name. For Shin, this generally means the complete "Name-son/daughter-Parent" name. In most cases, Epic names are considered a new name representing a new identity and are used even when the Epic's original name is known, so the article title for most Epics is their Epic name. If a character's full name is not known and they are generally addressed with a title and surname (e.g., Mrs. Chamwit and Lady Lentin), the article's title should include the character's title. Titles may also be used when the article name needs to be made unambiguous (e.g., Lady ZoBell and General Khal). Characters with a title in their name should be added to Category:Titled characters.

In situations where a character is addressed both with and without a title and one isn't much more common than the other, consider the surrounding context (e.g. the two lords who switch their votes from Cett to Penrod are given the pages Lord Hue and Lord Habren; Lord Habren has an equal number of references with the "Lord" title and without it, but Lord Hue is always called Lord Hue, and so Lord Habren's page is titled "Lord Habren" to match Lord Hue's), but you should generally consult with the Keepers when naming the articles in grey areas like this.

If it is unclear whether what a character considers to be their full name has changed in a book, their article will not generally be renamed immediately. For example, Moash's page was not moved to "Vyre" after the release of Oathbringer and indeed Rhythm of War bore out that he uses both names. Similarly, Shallan Davar's page was not moved to "Shallan Kholin" at that time, as it was unclear whether she had changed her last name, and indeed Brandon later confirmed that Veden women generally do not take their husband's last name.

When the above guidelines don't seem to fit with the individual circumstances of an article, the best thing to do is to talk with other editors; the Keepers will determine the best name to use on a case-by-case basis for such articles. Exceptions to the guidelines given above are:

Beware that article titles are case sensitive for all letters except the first (so, there is a difference between BioChromatic Breath, Biochromatic Breath, and Biochromatic breath, but not between BioChromatic Breath and bioChromatic Breath [though, even if you made that first b lowercase when you created the page, MediaWiki would still render it as uppercase]). Always use standard capitalization for terminology. MediaWiki also differentiates articles depending on whether apostrophes are smart quotes or not, so be sure to use regular quotes, not the curlier quotes a rich word processor like Microsoft Word produces.

Disambiguation

When multiple distinct characters or other topics share the same name, their article names have to be changed slightly so that they can be disambiguated. Usually, this is done by adding something, usually a parenthetical, to each page name that distinguishes that page from other pages with the same name. The order of preference for these additions is generally:

  1. Distinction by specific name (e.g., Inkwell Flight to Inkwell (Epic) and Inkwell (town))
  2. Distinction by type (e.g., Burl (character) and burl (species))
  3. Distinction by setting
  4. Distinction by some other characteristic (e.g., Ton (Veden) and Ton (singer))

While those are the general guidelines used, the best practice is generally to ask a Keeper when you encounter something that needs to be disambiguated. This will often be necessary anyways, as only Keepers can move existing pages to a new title. Occasionally, if the topic of one page is significantly more important than the other topics with the same name, it may be kept at the exact name, without a parenthetical.

Italic Titles

It is possible to italicize article titles using the DISPLAYTITLE magic word. Article titles should only be italicized if they fall under the limited criteria listed in the #Italics section below.

Section Titles

Do not apply formatting to section titles, and do not put wikilinks in them either. It just looks tacky.

Section titles should use title case, like "Food and Drink" rather than "Food and drink."

Capitalization

Naturally, proper English capitalization should be used (proper nouns capitalized, and so on). But, you knew that already! What you really want to know are the rules for capitalizing all the new terms from the book. Well, fear not, because here you shall now know them!

We always follow the style in the main, published novels (see the note below), so if you see a term capitalized or not capitalized there, that will be our convention as well. But in case you forgot, here are our capitalization conventions, book-by-book, as well as standard capitalization rules for cosmere terms which rarely appear in novels thus far.

Mistborn

Things to be capitalized:

  • Names and House Names - Venture, Elariel, Tekiel, Kelsier, Vin, etc.
  • Metallic Arts and Users of the Metallic Arts - Allomancy, Mistborn, Misting, Feruchemy, Ferring, Feruchemical, Feruchemist, Hemalurgy, Inquisitor, Thug, Smoker, etc.
  • Specific Terms - the Well of Ascension, the Deepness, the Hero of Ages, the Lord Ruler, the Final Empire, Steel Ministry, etc.
  • Cantons in the Steel Ministry - Canton of Orthodoxy, Canton of Inquisition, etc.
  • Locations - Dominance, Luthadel, Fadrex City, Urteau, Ashmount (and specific Ashmount names), Pits of Hathsin, etc.
  • Individual Cultures and Organizations - Terris, Khlennium, Synod, Keepers, Worldbringers, etc.
  • Honorifics - Master Vaht, Lord, Lady, etc.

Things to never be capitalized:

  • Names of Races - skaa, noble, nobility, koloss, kandra, mistwraiths
  • Metal names and variants - iron, steel, tin, pewter, copper, coppermind, coppercloud, atium, lerasium, bronze spike, etc. (Note: Brandon, in interviews, sometimes capitalizes atium and lerasium. These informal interviews should not be construed as official capitalization, because in the trilogy, atium is never capitalized, and on the official Table of Allomantic Metals, atium and lerasium are lowercase)
  • Verbs and Modifiers related to Metallic Arts - burn, flare, store, tap, charge, spike, atium shadow, pulse, etc.
  • Steel Ministry Rankings when not used as an honorific - obligator, prelan, high prelan, lord prelan, etc.
  • Terms with the nobility when not referring to a specific case - keep, house, manor
  • Mundane terms - boxing, mists, ashfalls, streetslot, etc.

Stormlight Archive

Things to be capitalized:

  • Shardbearer, Shardblade, Shardplate
  • Knights Radiant and Orders of Knights Radiant (Windrunners, Dustbringers)
  • Magic systems and their users - Surgebinding, Surgebinders, Voidbinding, Old Magic, Surge, Soulcasters, Lashings
  • Mythological things - Heralds, Voidbringers

Things to never be capitalized:

  • ardent, fabrial
  • General flora and fauna that aren't of mythological importance - skyeel, blackbane, chasmfiends, greatshells

Elantris and Emperor's Soul

Things to be capitalized:

  • Magic related things - Aon, AonDor, ChayShan

Things to never be capitalized:

  • Magic related things - seon, skaze

Warbreaker

Things to be capitalized:

  • Awaken and its variants
  • God King
  • Locations: Idris, Hallandren
  • Type Two BioChromatic entity
  • Lifeless
  • Command
  • Breath

White Sand

Things to be capitalized:

  • Diem
  • Dayside/Darkside
  • Taisha/Taishin
  • Profession (when referring to the official Professions)
  • Slatrification (as a noun)
  • Sand Lord

Things to never be capitalized:

  • sand mastery/master
  • Diem ranks (except for the title Lord Mastrell)
  • deep sand
  • general fauna and flora (e.g. sandling, tonk, dorim vine)

The Rithmatist

Things to be capitalized:

  • Line of Warding etc.
  • Glyph of Rending
  • Professor (if used as honorific)
  • Knight-Senator (if used as honorific)
  • The names of the Defenses (i.e. Easton Defense)
  • Warding Hall, Making Hall (and two others)

Things to never be capitalized:

  • inception ceremony
  • chamber of inception
  • the office
  • campus
  • (Rithmatic) lines, defenses, offenses etc.
  • (wild) chalkling

Sixth of the Dusk

Things to be capitalized:

  • Sixth of the Dusk, or Dusk for short
  • Aviar
  • Pantheon
  • the Ones Above

Things to never be capitalized:

  • "normal" lifeforms (nightmaw, nightwind fungi, deathant, deepwalker etc.)
  • trapper

Cosmere

Things to be capitalized:

  • Adonalsium
  • Terms like Shard, Sliver, Splinter, and other derivatives of them, even if they are nonstandard (Shardpool, Shardholder). Similarly, the Shattering and Splintering are also capitalized
  • Names of Shards like Honor, Ruin, Preservation, Cultivation
  • Realmatic Theory, names of the three Realms (Physical Realm, Cognitive Realm, Spiritual Realm). Typically, when referring to something's Physical/Cognitive/Spiritual aspect, they are also capitalized.
  • Names of Shardworlds - Scadrial, Sel, Taldain, Roshar
  • Other terms - Investiture, Worldhopping, Intent

Things to never be capitalized:

  • focus, spiritweb
  • cosmere (this is not consistent, but it is not capitalized in The Letter, and that is our current convention. This may change)

Note that we follow capitalization rules of the main sequence of published novels. Other, secondary titles--especially Mistborn Adventure Game--may not follow the same styles.

Cytoverse

Things to be capitalized:

  • FTL travel
  • Sense (when referring to Cytonics sensing)

Things to never be capitalized:

  • cytonics(it is capitalized in Defending Elysium, but Skyward does not capitalize it)
  • telanium
  • mindblade
  • (cytonic) suppression

Italics

Like capitalization, italics should generally be used as would be typical in English writing, generally matching the conventions used in the text. This includes italicizing the names of works (in-world books, broadsheets, plays, etc.) and proper names of vehicles like ships and spacecraft. Out-of-world articles follow similar criteria; titles of books and other works like movies and podcasts are italicized.

The following are a few notable instances where italics should be avoided:

  • Series titles (e.g. The Reckoners, The Stormlight Archive) should not be italicized. Although style guides vary on this topic, the wiki mirrors Brandon's websites, which do not typically use italics.
  • "Foreign" words like nuatoma and babsk are (inconsistently) italicized in the books to stand out from another language. They should not be italicized in articles unless there is a particular need to do so.