Editing Incubator escapee wiki:Basic copyediting (section)

==Common mistakes to fix==

These are some common errors you may find in articles:

===Commonly confused words===
{{main|List of commonly misused English words}}

''its'' and ''it's''; ''there'', ''their'', and ''they're''; ''your'', ''you're'', and ''you''; ''lose'' and ''loose''; ''lie'' and ''lay'' (and their tenses); ''who's'' and ''whose''; ''have'' and ''of'' (''should of'' for ''should have'')

===Capitalization and formatting===

* Words defined, described, or referenced as words should be italicized, e.g., "The term ''style'' also refers to the layout of an article."
* Wikipedia article headings should generally be noun phrases (''History of{{nbsp}}...'') and not prepositional phrases (''About the history of{{nbsp}}...'').
* Headings begin with a single capital letter, i.e., they use [[sentence case]]. The only other capital letters in headings are in [[proper noun|proper names]] and [[acronym]]s.
* Titles of works of art (paintings, sculpture), plays and operas, television series, films, novels and nonfiction books, song cycles, and long poems should be italicized rather than put in quotation marks, e.g., ''[[Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance]]''.
* Titles of songs, short stories, individual episodes of television series, and brief poems, e.g., "[[Strawberry Fields Forever]]" or "[[Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening]]", should be in quotation marks. Italics, however, are required for a [[song cycle]], such as ''[[Winterreise]]'' or the title of a longer poem, such as ''[[Four Quartets]]''. Individual episode titles of television series need quotation marks, while the series name itself is italicized, e.g., "[[Welcome to the Hellmouth]]" is the premiere episode of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]''.

===Punctuation===
{{anchor|Parenthetical comma}}
* Location constructions, such as ''Vilnius, Lithuania'', require a comma after the second element, e.g., "He was born in Vilnius, Lithuania, after the country had gained independence."
* The [[month–day–year format|month–day–year]] style of writing dates requires a comma after the year, e.g., "On September 15, 1947, she began her first year at Harvard."
* Decade names should not include an apostrophe before the ''s'' ({{xt|"She was born in the 1980s."}} instead of {{!xt|"She was born in the 1980's."}}). Generally do not refer to a decade without its century. See [[WP:DECADE]].
* Make sure apostrophes are used correctly, and watch out for [[apostrophe#GG|greengrocers' apostrophes]].

===Style===
* Avoid affected, pompous or excessive language, e.g., "due to the fact that" for "because", "ascertain the location of" for "find", and (in [[:wikt:utilise#Usage_notes|almost all cases]]) "utilize" for "use".
* Check articles for unnecessary words and redundant phrases. Vigorous, effective writing is clear and concise. See [[Wikipedia:Plain English|Plain English]].
* Quotations should not be changed, except for trivial spelling and typographic errors. Otherwise, obvious errors and censorship in the original can be marked with {{tlx|sic}}, which displays as {{sic}}. Legitimate insertions and omissions are acceptable if marked by square brackets and ellipses, respectively. See [[WP:MOSQUOTE]] for details.
* [[Wikipedia:Don't be a smartypants|Watch out]] for [[jargon]] and overly long sentences, which can reduce [[readability]].
* In lists, ensure [[Parallelism (grammar)|parallelism]]. Use bulleted lists for more than a few elements, for readability.

===Article elements===
[[Wikipedia:External links|External links]] belong at the end of an article under the heading ''External links'' or ''Further reading''. Articles, books, and websites used as sources are listed separately in a ''References'' or ''Notes'' section.

===Contractions===
With the exception of direct quotations and names, do not use [[Contraction (grammar)|contractions]] in articles. Spell out the words in full, i.e., write "do not" instead of "don't"; write "cannot" instead of "can't"; etc.

===Spelling===

Correct spelling mistakes and [[typo]]s. See [[Wikipedia:Spellchecking]] for complete advice on how to do this well; the main points are:
* Be careful to use the correct variety of English (e.g., American or British), which affects spelling (e.g., ''flavour'', ''colour'', ''centre'' and ''defence'' vs. ''flavor'', ''color'', ''center'', and ''defense''). {{slink|Wikipedia:Manual of Style|National varieties of English}} has extensive guidance on how to choose correctly and how to write clearly for all readers.
** Articles about a given region use that region's variety of English.
** Otherwise, the first variety used by any given editor is retained by succeeding editors.
** The talk page may have a banner indicating which variety is already established, or the article may have a template like {{tl|Use British English}} at the top of the wikitext.
* Most web browsers have built-in spellchecking. You can use external websites or software to check for errors.
* If you want to focus only on misspellings, these tools are handy:
** [[User:Lupin/Live spellcheck]] – for monitoring misspellings as they are added
** [[Wikipedia:Typo Team/moss]] – for finding misspellings in existing text
** [[Wikipedia:Correct typos in one click]] – for correcting typos from [[Wikipedia:DUMP|dumps]]