Typesetting Guidelines

Language and Writing

Typesetting Guidelines

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Contents of this page:

• Table of features
• Bold
• Italics
• Round Brackets
• Backticks
• Quotation Marks
• Headings
• Lists
• Citations
• Commonly Used Reserved Words

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Table of features

Feature	Typesetting	Example
Abbreviations	Round brackets following the Full Capitalised Form	Natural Language Processing (NLP)
Arguments	Backticks	You can define the colour and title arguments
Buttons	Italics	Click the Upload to session storage button
Citations	Article name in double quotation marks (or « guillemets » in French)	Tobler, W. R. (1970), “A computer movie simulating urban growth in the Detroit region”, Economic Geography, 46:234-240.
Code (inline)	Backticks – one on each side	You can type bundle show minima from the command line
Code (multiline blocks)	Backticks – three above and three below	TRUE
Coined terms	Single quotation marks (or « guillemets » in French)	TRUE
Column heading	Bold	TRUE
File extensions	Backticks	We will export this file in a .pdf format
File or folder names	Backticks	Next, we analyze the DNP_ancient_authors.csv dataset
Functions	Backticks	Let us next apply the PCA() function
Headings	Sizes range from ## to ####	## Header 2 and #### Header 4
Icons	Bold	Click the Files icon on the left of the window
Keystroke	Italic	press Enter
Labelled category	Bold	TRUE
Lesson titles	Links	See Programming Historian’s excellent article on Computer Vision for the Humanities
Lists	Numbered or bulleted; sentence-capped; no punctuation	See section on Lists
Menu items	Bold	Click File > New Notebook in the menu
Quotes	Double quotation marks (or « guillemets » in French)	TRUE
Reserved Words	Backticks	import these modules at the start of your new notebook
Speech	Double quotation marks (or « guillemets » in French)	TRUE
Tab name	Bold	Go to the Basics tab
Technical words	Single quotation marks (or « guillemets » in French)	This will replace any missing numeric values as a 'non-number'
Titles	Italics	Las bizarrías de Belisa is a comedy written by Lope de Vega (1562-1635) in 1634
Translations	Round brackets	Se anota el nodo de origen (source)
Variables	Backticks	This time, call the function using the fig variable
Window or page name	Bold	You can find this on the Keys and Endpoint page

Bold

Bold is formatted using **double asterisks**. It is used to help readers with their navigation around an interface or workspace. This includes:

• Menu items (e.g. in a dropdown)
• Tab or window names
• Column headings (e.g. in a spreadsheet)
• Labelled categories (e.g. in a dataset)

Italics

Italics are formatted using *single asterisks* or _single underscore_. They are used primarily to indicate a keystroke or button which generates an action (e.g. Enter, Run).

They are also used for book titles, plays, films, TV programmes, paintings, songs, albums.

Round Brackets

Round Brackets are used to follow a word with its direct translation. They can be used both to give a translation from the original language, or the translated language.

• OR (TR)
• TR (OR)

They can also be used to introduce an abbreviation. The first time any abbreviation is introduced, it is first written in its Full Capitalised Form, followed by the abbreviation in brackets (FCF).

Backticks

`Backticks` are used to indicate any parts of the text which are code, to distinguish them clearly from the prose.

• Multi-line code blocks should be enclosed in three backticks

Multi-line code blocks should be enclosed in three backticks

• Inline code can be enclosed in single backticks.

They are also used to indicate:

• Variables (e.g. num).
• Functions (e.g. createFile)
• Filenames, including their extension (e.g. typographical-guidelines.md).
• File extensions on their own (e.g. .pdf).
• Reserved Words which are part of a programming language (e.g. else, for (R); import, False (Python 3); arguments, export (Javascript).

Quotation marks

• "Double quotation marks" are used for speech or quotes, but also for titles of academic articles in a citation.
• 'Single quotation marks' are used to highlight coined terms or technical words, ideally followed by an explanation.
• French « guillemets » (chevrons) are used for any and all instances of quotation marks in French. «  and  » can be written using the HTML codes «  for a left-pointing guillemet and  » for a right-pointing guillemet.

Straight double quotation marks interfere with the liquid syntax. Use backslash \ followed by straight double quotation marks or single quotation marks, if needed in figure captions. Ideally, avoid altogether in the alt-text.

Headings

• Largest heading size: ## Header 2
• Smallest heading size: #### Header 4

Headings should never contain inline code font or style formatting such as bold, italic, or code font.

Lists

Typically, we use numbered lists and bulleted lists. List items are sentence-capped. List items should be treated as separate items and should not be strung together with punctuation or conjunctions.

For example:

• Here is an item
• Here is another item
• Here is the final item

Or:

1. Here is an item
2. Here is another item
3. Here is the final item

Citations

We use the The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th Edition for all our citations.

• Book and journal titles are in italics, whereas article names are in double quotation marks (or « guillemets » in French).
• Where references to other Programming Historian lesson titles are made within the text (but in a citation), these should formatted as links without quotation marks around the title (e.g. "see Programming Historian’s excellent article on Computer Vision for the Humanities).

Commonly Used Reserved Words

A list of reserved words in common programming languages include:

JavaScript:

abstract, arguments, await, Boolean, break, byte, case, catch, char, class, const, continue, debugger, default, delete, do, double, else, enum, eval, export, extends, false, final, finally, float, for, function, goto, if, implements, import, in, instanceof, int, interface, let, long, native, new, null, package, private, protected, public, return, short, static, super, switch, synchronized, this, throw, throws, transient, true, try, typeof, var, void, volatile, while, with, yield.

Python 2:

and, as, assert, break, class, continue, def, del, elif, else, except, exec, finally, for, from, global, if, import, in, is, lambda, not, or, pass, print, raise, return, try, while, with, yield.

Python 3:

and, as, assert, break, class, continue, def, del, elif, else, except, False, finally, for, from, global, if, import, in, is, lambda, nonlocal, None, not, or, pass, raise, return, True, try, while, with, yield.

R:

break, else, for, FALSE, function, if, in, Inf, NA, NA_character_, NA_complex_, NA_integer_, NA_real_, NaN, next, NULL, repeat, TRUE, while.