Editing Talk:Gundam Unicorn (section)

==An explanation, a question, and a reference==

Sorry I've been away for a while, it's been a busy couple of weeks.

Anyway, [[User:Teh_Ping|Teh_Ping]], under the assumption that you're watching this page, I thought I'd give an explanation for why I made the changes I did as far as jargon and terminology indicators, and ask what you, as project lead, think I should do in future edits. Putting all this on the talk page also gives me a handy reference sheet to refer back to during editing so that I stay consistent with myself.

For radio and other electronic broadcasts I put the text in single angle brackets (that is, <>) for two reasons. One: Angle brackets aren't used anywhere in standard English writing, so they lent themselves well to an unambiguous meaning, whereas parenthesis (which were used at least in the prologue to denote electronic transmissions) could conceivably be taken to mean that the enclosed text is a very long aside. The second reason I chose single angle brackets for electronic communication is because, frankly, they look more electronic than square brackets ([]) or braces ({}).

In standard written English, the double angle bracket (<<>>), which you used to indicate terminology or jargon usage, isn't used at all, which is why I elected to change them to common standard English alternatives, such as <i>italics</i>, Capital Letters, or "double quotation marks", as appropriate.

In most written English style guides, names of ships (and, by extension, space ships) are given in italics, such as the U.S.S. <i>Enterprise</i>, or the <i>Millennium Falcon</i>, so naturally I chose that for ship names, such as the <i>Garencieres</i>.

Italics, together with double quotation marks, are generally used in fiction to denote internal thoughts. So a character would think <i>”I'm screwed”</i>.

The names of cities, provinces or states, colonies, and countries are always capitalized, as they are proper nouns. You wouldn't talk about “New York” or <i>London</i>. Therefore, I decided to talk about Industrial 7.

On a similar note, it has become relatively common to denote that an object is important by capitalizing the initial letters in each word, such as saying that something is a Big Deal. Following this trend, I chose Laplace's Box.

For general jargon and terminology usage that doesn't fall into any of the above cases (such as the common names of military hardware), double quotation marks are used. Therefore, F-16 “Fighting Falcon”, F-22 “Raptor”, NZ-666 “Kshatriya”. Once the quotation marks are used once, however, it's generally accepted that the name can be repeated without them in all future uses. Admittedly, I've been lax on this on myself, as I rarely, if ever, used quotation marks that way, but I have been working them into my edits as I go along, and I plan to make the second pass edits all have them properly.

So, that's why I used the styles I did. But English is a weird, inconsistent language, and you're in charge of the project. If you dislike anything I've done, let me know what, and what you'd like me to use instead, and I'll put them into future edits.

[[User:TheWonko|TheWonko]] 23:34, 22 June 2012 (CDT)

I'm fine with them. As I noted on your talk page, I had been using the same style as the novels themselves, but the effect doesn't actually translate well into English. Will use this as a reference for myself as well.--[[User:Teh Ping|Teh Ping]] 04:01, 23 June 2012 (CDT)