Acadēmīa:Style

This page explains the guidelines that are established by custom or consensus regarding the creation and formatting of entries.

Orthography

Acadēmīa does not specify a standardized spelling. Everyone can write according to their own taste. However, this spelling must be in common use. Own invented spelling conventions are not desired. The following things should be observed:

• Consistency: Once decided, spelling should not be changed in the middle of an entry.
• Proper names: Proper names should be written in the form in which they occur (i.e. Australian Defence Force vs. US Secretary of Defense). Orthographic adjustment should not be made.

Lemmata

The headings of the entries are called lemmata (sgl. lemma). Since the Acadēmīa is an English-Latin dictionary, the main entries should have an English lemma.

Capitilization

Acadēmīa entries are case sensitive. Entries should only be capitalized if they would also be capitalized in the middle of a sentence. Words that have a different meaning depending on upper or lower case should have their own entries (e.g. polish vs. Polish). With the help of the template {{See also}}, the entries can be referred to one another if one could confuse the entries due to a too similar spelling. Otherwise, words with the same spelling and different meanings get the entry.

Country-specific lemmas

The lemmas should be chosen in such a way that they are common and understandable across countries (e.g. glasses instead of spectacles or eyeglasses). The exception is proper names (see the "Orthography" section above).

For the same reasons, the lemma should always be chosen as it is commonly known. For the same reasons, the lemma should always be chosen as it is commonly known. The lemma to Germany should be created as Germany, not as the Federal Republic of Germany, as it is actually called in the long form. The latter form can be redirected to Germany.

Redirects

The following lemmas should not have their own entries, but only be redirected:

• Synonyms that do not differ too much in scope of meaning
• Country-specific vocabulary that otherwise does not differ
• Latin Lemmata (for more informations see Latin conventions)
• Relational adjectives (e.g. "interrētiālis" should be redirected to "internet"), if there is no English counterpart.
• Derived verbs (e.g. "blōgīre") should be forwarded to the respective noun ("blōx")

The reason for the last two clauses is that English cannot always form relational adjectives and/or derived verbs from a noun. It is therefore advisable to redirect the adjectives/verbs to the same entry as the underlying noun in order to facilitate the search.

Redirects should nevertheless be provided with categories for the sake of clarity.

Sectioning

Headings should always be inserted before the actual entry. A brief explanation of the lemma should be provided. In the case of ambiguous lemmas, the headings also serve to disambiguate.

Sections should, if possible, be sorted in descending order of usage.

The definitions/explanation of the lemmas can at best be taken from the most common English-language encyclopedias/dictionaries/encyclopedias and shortened if necessary. Copyrights must not be violated.

Entries

The actual entries are created using templates. For formatting, we refer to the documentation for the individual templates, which can be seen on the respective template pages. Note that the individual entries must be indented with a colon at the beginning to keep the layout consistent.

The entries whose use is recommended by the Acadēmīa should be placed higher than the entries whose use is discouraged by the Acadēmīa. For more see Acadēmīa:Criteria for inclusion.

Gender, sex and language

Gender-inclusive language

Since English has sufficient means to write in a gender-neutral way without gaining redundancy, the use of gender-neutral language is to be preferred. Latin, however, does, due to its heavily inflected Language structure, neither gender-neutral pronouns, nor gender-neutral personal names. However, there are Latin words that are often used in a sex-neutral way (so-called generic forms) and are perceived as such. Accordingly, it is advised that these forms continue to be used as long as there are no other gender-neutral options that do not create redundancy.

Personal designations

Latin words describing persons (e.g. poēta or homō; we will call them personal designations in the following) should always be given in their masculine and feminine forms (if those exist), as it is not always clear how they are formed (e.g. poēta vs. poētria). It should always be made clear whether the words can be used in a gender-neutral way. The entry for Polōnicus, for example, has "(male) citizen of Poland" as an explanation. The word male is put in brackets, because Polōnicus can also be used in a sex-indifferent way.

Lemmata

Entries about personal designations should be created for both genders. For example, it is worth separating the entry "princess" from "prince" because "princess" is ambiguous. "Princess" is in fact not only a female prince, but can also be the wife of a prince. Such distinctions should be made clear. With the help of template {{Related terms}}, the entries can be referred to each other.

Exceptions about personal designations are entries whose content would not differ. Otherwise, two identical entries would result in a too high maintenance effort. In this case, redirections should be made. For example, "actress" should be redirected to "actor". The same is true for Latin lemmas if no differences can be discerned. In that case, refer to the generic form (e.g. Polōnica to Polōnicus).