Italicizing work series and "unofficial" titles

A long discussion in Ask the Tropers has indicated the need for some clarification on this issue. Are work titles to be italicized when referring to a series of books, films, video games, or other media, rather than a specific work in the series? (Note that a television series is considered a long work and is italicized, while individual episodes are short works that use "quotes", but in a book series, each book is considered a long work in itself.) The initial advice, to follow existing style guides, is inadequate because they don't tend to agree.

• The Chicago Manual of Style says no, a series is not a work in itself and is not emphasized.
• The Clemson Editorial Style Guide says use "quotes", as you would for episodes and other short works.
• This Askville thread claims that MLA style is yes, series are italicized.

Practice on the wiki is inconsistent but tends toward italicizing over not, in my experience. Few would argue that Star Wars is not a work that deserves emphasis, even though it is a franchise and no individual film has been named solely Star Wars ever since A New Hope was renamed. Likewise, it seems odd not to italicize Harry Potter when referring to the book or film series rather than the character. But this is by no means a universal norm; J. K. Rowling's own website refers to "the Harry Potter books" while italicizing (and bolding) individual titles.

Emphasis for work names is covered in How to Write an Example, which does not mention a policy for book (or film, etc.) series, but does include the ambiguous statement, "There is no emphasis used when referring to personas, sacred texts, and works by a name other than their franchise name" (emphasis added). The section on emphasis was added by ~crazysamaritan in March 2015.

Complicating the issue is the existence of pages under unofficial names, when an official title does not exist or would be ambiguous. To use examples I'm familiar with, Heralds of Valdemar is a series of books organized into trilogies and standalone novels, which has never been given an official name; "Heralds of Valdemar Series" appears on the timeline printed in each book, but in other contexts "Heralds of Valdemar" refers to the first published trilogy only, while the series as a whole is the "Valdemar" or (rarely) "Velgarth" novels, both of which refer to the setting (The Kingdom and The 'Verse, respectively) rather than an official title. The old Star Wars Expanded Universe (itself an unofficial name) is now an Alternate Continuity published under the banner "Legends" and is referred to as Star Wars Legends here, even though those three words together appear in no official context. Even if franchises and book series are italicized, do these unofficial titles receive emphasis as well?

What is the consensus here? I'll post my thoughts below.

I see four possibilities.

1. Make no distinction between series and individual works, or official and unofficial names. Italicize everything that has a work or franchise namespace and isn't a "short work."
2. Follow the Chicago Manual of Style. Only italicize individual works (including trilogies such as The Lord of the Rings, but not longer series such as Harry Potter, even if they have an ongoing storyline). Series and franchises are not italicized.
3. Italicize series, but only official series names such as Harry Potter and The Dresden Files, not Heralds of Valdemar or Star Wars Legends.
4. Another thought, which would probably be hard to keep consistent, is to draw a distinction between an ongoing storyline which deserves emphasis, and a series that only shares a setting or some other quality, which does not. Harry Potter would be emphasized because it follows one group of characters over seven books, but Heralds of Valdemar would not because each trilogy or standalone novel is its own story. Star Wars would be iffy here; each trilogy is a storyline but whether they relate strongly enough to each other (and the myriad of ancillary material) to deserve emphasis as a whole is ambiguous.

I usually go by whatever has a work page that isn't a synopsis, recap, or similar. Sometimes it's simply hard to figure out if a name is official or not, especially if it's one that everyone uses, and for stand-alone works, whether it qualifies as a long or short work.

If the page is namespaced as a work, I always italicize unless one of the following applies:

• The work is an Expanded Universe (Doctor Who Expanded Universe, Star Wars Legends)
• The work is a musical artist
• The "work" is a character page in a work namespace (Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse)
• The page is mis-namespaced and should be in a nonwork namespace

edited 22nd Jan '16 4:30:33 PM by bwburke94

That also makes sense.

I think characters with pages are technically work pages, but I would only treat them as works if the actual work is named that. At that point, I'd write the name in italics if I'm referring to the work, and normally if I'm referring to the character.

EUs I'm not really sure about.

As the instigator of this discussion I suppose I should weigh in. Here is what I think should be the rule:

• Titles of pages which do not correspond to a work name should not be italicized. Italics are for works, and a superwork (so to speak) isn't itself a work: Harry Potter isn't a work, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is. The Land of Oz isn't a work, but The Marvelous Land of Oz is. Buffyverse isn't a work, Angel & Faith is. Et cetera. Generally speaking EUs are not titled that way so they shouldn't be italicized. Individual long works within the EU should be.
• Character personal names do not get italics unless in the context of referencing a work with the same title as the character; i.e. Batman (comic book) vs Batman (character). Batman can show up in Superman, but Batman can't.

edited 22nd Jan '16 6:42:01 AM by randomsurfer

While I would say my situation of a relative rare one, but I would want some guidance on the proposed guidance.

I'm editing a series of novels that also has an Animated Adaptation. While each novel in the series has its own names, the animation uses the series title as its title. In this situation, what would be the appropriate way to refer to the adaptation?

edited 22nd Jan '16 2:34:22 AM by SamCurt

I had a similar question a while ago about Looney Tunes works, as there is lots of inconsistencies.

I've seen Looney Tunes italicized, and the individual shorts in quotes like they were episodes...

Or Looney Tunes unchanged, but each short title italicized, as if they were individual works...

An animated adaptation is certainly a work, and should be italicized, whether or not the book series should be. Game of Thrones is italicized, A Song of Ice and Fire, maybe not.

Wow, Looney Tunes is very inconsistent even on its own page; some of the shorts have "quotes and italics," which is certainly incorrect. My opinion would be to treat it as a TV series even though it was released in other formats originally—the series gets italics, each short gets "quotes." A short cartoon is by definition a short work, and collections of short works, such as anthologies, get italics.

edited 22nd Jan '16 5:56:15 AM by HeraldAlberich

Yup, that's a big problem all-around. For many works it's rather clear how they fall into the rule, while other much less so. I would adhere to the above if we can agree on it and try keep it consistent.

Just as a reminder, for my understanding:

• For Music, the name of the artists or group receive no formating; the name of album are in italics, and the name of song are in quotes. (Ex: Daft Punk, Discovery, "One More Time".)
• For TV series, the name of the series is in italics, each episode is in quotes, and a bigger verse/franchise is unchanged. (Ex: Stargate-verse, Stargate SG-1, "Windows of Opportunity").

It's mostly the less clearly defined works that can be problematic, like Websites. Also, I've seen once a comic strip title in quotes, while the Magazine it originated from in italics...

Oh, yeah, now that I think of it... in comic books, there are titles for a whole series, but how do we format a specific story arc...?

edited 22nd Jan '16 1:52:39 PM by StFan

Regarding comic books, if there's a TPB for a story arc, there's often a name for it.

Story arcs longer than a couple of issues^note which they almost all are nowadays are usually italicized, less than that is usually quotes. Rule of thumb: can you (or in the future, will you be able to) buy it as a standalone TPB? Or conversely will it be in an anthology-type TBP along with several other stories?

edited 23rd Jan '16 8:43:49 AM by randomsurfer

The current rules are "follow existing style guides", but we also want to be consistent and the style guides aren't consistent enough.

We also want the rules to be relatively easy to keep track of and at least somewhat similar to the rules used outside this site. So my personal favourite (just put every work in italics) probably shouldn't be used. I had tried to discuss rules before, but there wasn't much interest in the discussion.

Here's my proposal instead (it incorporates a lot of what has already been said):

1. Any work of standard length is emphasized with italics.
2. Any work that is considered a portion of a larger work of standard length is emphasized with "quotes".
3. Any page that is an organization of diseparate works with standard lengths that is not named after one of those works receive no emphasis aside from capitalizations.
4. If you can't figure out which of the above applies, use italics for emphasis.

Rule 3 covers situations like music bands (their performance covers albums which are collections of "songs" and the smaller works are named for the band, not the other way around), Sacred texts (usually compilations of books), and book series. Book series showcase where this rule is somewhat complicated, but overall simplified compared to the standard style guides. The Harry Potter universe page (covering the seven book series and ancillary works like Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) would receive capitalization only, and the the page that refers to just the seven book series would have italics for emphasis as well. Would this be easy to explain/interpret?

I'm afraid I'm not sure how your Rule #3 shakes out. Can you explain further "not named after one of those works"? Why would Literature.Harry Potter^note which does cover ancillary books and not just the main seven be italicized, while Franchise.Harry Potter^note covering the books, the films, the theme park, the video games, the play... is not? Both are named after the first two words of the title of each book. Meanwhile, The Dresden Files and Heralds of Valdemar, also book series, are not named after any one book in the series, so they don't get italics while Harry Potter does?

There's a split in opinion here between Post #4 (italicize all categories of fiction) and Post #7 (italicize only individual works). We need to decide which of those makes more sense for TV Tropes, as a very fiction-focused wiki.

I guess I'd have to reword it... The seven books of Harry Potter tell a single continuous story. Not all of the works in the Harry Potter 'Verse are a part of that single story arc. Fantastic Beasts, for example, has nothing to do with the Potter family. For the single multinovel story arc, Harry Potter is italicized; for the disparate stories, Harry Potter is not.

Oh! That does make more sense, and I had the same thought (option 4 in post 2), but I didn't think anyone would go for it. I like it in theory, but there would be many ambiguous cases (which could be covered by the when in doubt, italicize rule).

I did say my suggestion was influenced by previous posts. You just didn't go the next step, which was to realize Harry Potter and Harry Potter would then refer to different things. "Single continuous storyarc" also works with the comics storylines (italicize storyarcs that comprise multiple issues) vs publishers (the Detective Comics 52 'verse would not get italics because it is a setting, not a storyarc).

edited 26th Jan '16 6:50:13 AM by crazysamaritan

It seems to me, then, that this reduces to "Long works are italicized. Story arcs count as long works." I like it.

• The Dresden Files is a 15+ book series following one character and comprising one story arc. Franchise.The Dresden Files is that plus ancillary media.
• Heralds of Valdemar is a 33+ book series comprising multiple arcs.
• Star Wars may be italicized if referring to a trilogy, or not if referring to multiple media.

edited 26th Jan '16 3:54:01 PM by HeraldAlberich

That is a great way to put it. That means the rules can be reduced to....

1. Any work of standard/long length is emphasized with italics. Multi-work storyarcs count as a long work.
2. Any work that is considered short or a portion of a standard length work is emphasized with "quotes".
3. Any page that is an organization of multiple storyarcs without a central theme receives no emphasis aside from capitalizations.
4. If you can't figure out which of the above applies, use italics for emphasis.

edited 26th Jan '16 4:21:34 PM by crazysamaritan

I would recommend including something like:

5. Characters with works named after them should not be emphasized (italics or quotes) when referencing the character and not the work.

That is supposed to be covered under "State the source: The name of the work the example comes from should be clearly stated". Whether you write it as Hermione Granger or Harry Potter, it is wrong to Sink Hole the work name as the character name.

Right underneath it is "Emphasis for Work Names", which is basically rules 1, 2, and 4 with a couple of exceptions spelled out.

I think the above rules would be a good starting guideline, although there will be problematic cases, and it may take some time to enforce.

To clarify, where would the Looney Tunes and Classic Disney Shorts, as well as their individual cartoons, would fall into this?

Also, is italicizing fanfiction titles the correct way to do it?

Fanfiction is a work, so it would follow the same rules. As most fics take the form of a short story, they would go in double quotes.

My instinct is still to treat Looney Tunes like a TV series title—italicize it and put each short in quotes. A collection of short works (a TV show, an anthology of short stories, etc.) gets italics; that's a pretty settled convention. The whole discussion is about what sort of emphasis a collection of long works gets.

Classic Disney Shorts, on the other hand, is a name referencing the works' creator, not a title in itself. The shorts themselves still get quotes, because they're shorts.

edited 29th Jan '16 5:32:29 PM by HeraldAlberich