Hokkaipedia Manual of Style
(for questions and comments about style, please see the discussion page)
Contents |
English
Hokkaipedia is written in clear, simple English that can be understood by native and non-native speakers alike. Both American and British (Commonwealth) English can be used, although consistency within individual articles is preferred. It's considered bad form to change American English into British or vice versa.
Addresses
Hokkaipedia addresses are in western order, so for example a rural address like: 083-8650 Nakagawa-gun Ikeda-cho Nishi 1 jo 7 chome 11 banchi is written: Nishi 1-7-11, Ikeda-cho, Nakagawa-gun 083-8650 in Hokkaipedia.
Hokkaido addresses in Japanese can be inconsistent, for example between Sapporo and Obihiro, but we want to try to be consistent here.
Telephone numbers
Tokachi and Hidaka numbers in the format 0155 12 3456. Other numbers to be decided as appropriate. Consistency is important! Also no hyphens or parentheses!
Measurements
Metric as in Japan.
Numbers in text
One to ten should be spelt out, 11 onwards in Arabic. (Precise measurements are always in Arabic.)
Headings
Headings are normally in sentence style capitalization (e.g. The flora and fauna of Daisetsuzan).
Japanese place names
Kanji and kana are provided in parentheses. If the English name is different from the Japanese then the romanization is also given (in italics), e.g. Honbetsu Park (本別公園 Honbetsu Kōen).
Hokkaipedia uses Revised Hepburn romanization.
Macrons
Revised Hepburn - and therefore Hokkaipedia - uses macrons. Here is a table:
| ā Ā ē Ē ī Ī ō Ō ū Ū |
(See also Wikipedia on Hepburn romanization and Help:Macrons).
Symbols
Two unicode symbols are being used at present: ☎ for telephone numbers and ♨ for hot springs (onsen).
Japanese personal names
Again kanji and kana shuld be provided in parentheses. Post-Meiji era names (i.e. after 1912) should be personal name first, but with Japanese order in parentheses, e.g. Fumiko Nakajo (中城ふみ子 Nakajo Fumiko). Meiji era names should written in Japanese order, e.g. Itō Hirobumi (伊藤 博文 Itō Hirobumi).
References
Wikipedia has a well organized manual of style dealing with the finer points of writing about Japan Wikipedia Manual of style.
We can refer to this if necessary.