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I'm just resurrecting this thread with the Animal Toy Blog in mind. We should be consistent on this front, and pretty much have been to date! So, I'm guessing we will all agree that common names should be in lowercase (except where parts of names refer to people and places). @sbell, I noticed you used uppercase in your reviews, was this intentional - maybe you are citing the names as written on the figures?
Quote from: animaltoyforum on August 29, 2019, 02:30:45 PMI'm just resurrecting this thread with the Animal Toy Blog in mind. We should be consistent on this front, and pretty much have been to date! So, I'm guessing we will all agree that common names should be in lowercase (except where parts of names refer to people and places). @sbell, I noticed you used uppercase in your reviews, was this intentional - maybe you are citing the names as written on the figures?I don't think I was really paying attention. Although they should be lower case. I can go edit at some point.
Are we talking in the text or the title? For the main titles I have been using uppercase (for example, Tawny Owl), but in the main body of the text, lowercase.
Quote from: bmathison1972 on August 29, 2019, 02:49:21 PMAre we talking in the text or the title? For the main titles I have been using uppercase (for example, Tawny Owl), but in the main body of the text, lowercase.I was talking about the main body text, but you're right, there is some inconsistency in the titles. The common names in titles are mostly all upper case, but I wrote Mantis shrimp. All titles will begin with a capital, of course. But upon reflection, even though they are titles, I think my preference would be to keep common names generally lowercase here as as well. For example, in the kangaroo review, the word "male" is lower case, and the word "by" is consistently lowercase. So, if they are lower case, the common names should really be as well, right?
Quote from: animaltoyforum on August 29, 2019, 02:59:06 PMQuote from: bmathison1972 on August 29, 2019, 02:49:21 PMAre we talking in the text or the title? For the main titles I have been using uppercase (for example, Tawny Owl), but in the main body of the text, lowercase.I was talking about the main body text, but you're right, there is some inconsistency in the titles. The common names in titles are mostly all upper case, but I wrote Mantis shrimp. All titles will begin with a capital, of course. But upon reflection, even though they are titles, I think my preference would be to keep common names generally lowercase here as as well. For example, in the kangaroo review, the word "male" is lower case, and the word "by" is consistently lowercase. So, if they are lower case, the common names should really be as well, right?I did 'male' in lowercase as it is a subset of information. Red Kangaroo was the main title, the 'male' was just an add-on (so to speak). I almost put 'male' in another set of parenthesis, but back-to-back parenthesis look funny.I'll stand by whatever you decide, Adam, and can help edit as necessary. But personally I like titles to be bold, and capitalizing animal names is the best option (except when Latin names are used, see next sentence).Speaking of titles, I prefer common names for consistency, when available. Hence I edited 'Dynastes hercules' to 'Hercules Beetle'. There will be some instances where a common name is not an option, but I would like to use them then possible since it seems to be most common in the toy animal community :-)
I would personally go with Title Case for the...titles. All 'important' words capitalized, modifiers and prepositions are not. But then that allows for the company and set names to be named properly as well.In the body, yeah, common names should be lowercase. But--would it make sense to somehow have them stand out? My thinking is bold, which is annoying to use in the forum posts, but and easy CTRL+b in the wordpress editor. Obviously, we can't use italics because we all know better than that (and underlines...are for emphasis).That is how I would use types, but not sure how people feel re: bolding common names.
Quote from: sbell on August 30, 2019, 01:42:58 AMI would personally go with Title Case for the...titles. All 'important' words capitalized, modifiers and prepositions are not. But then that allows for the company and set names to be named properly as well.In the body, yeah, common names should be lowercase. But--would it make sense to somehow have them stand out? My thinking is bold, which is annoying to use in the forum posts, but and easy CTRL+b in the wordpress editor. Obviously, we can't use italics because we all know better than that (and underlines...are for emphasis).That is how I would use types, but not sure how people feel re: bolding common names.I have bolded Latin names in my posts (and the authors of description), but that's it.
yes, Italics are sufficient. I am not a stickler about what's bolded and not, and have not corrected others' works accordingly. I have italicized Latin names that were not, however.Overall I agree with your approach, Sean