Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Singapore-related articles

This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though occasional exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

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The following guidelines apply to all

In general, a biographical article should be named in the way the name of the person who is the article's subject usually appears in English-language publications in Singapore.

Article titles should follow

Where a specific romanisation system is used, conventions used by that system should be adhered to. Hence, Pinyin names should have no spaces in the first name (Huang Wenyong, and not Huang Wen Yong), and diacritics should not be used in the article name.

Where a Chinese person usually indicates their surname at the beginning of the name, the use of the hatnote {{family name hatnote}} is recommended.

The names of Singaporeans with both Chinese and Western names are set out in a variety of ways:

• Western name + surname only, Chinese name omitted, e.g., "Janine Tan".
• Surname + Chinese name + Western name, e.g., "Tan Mei Yi Janine".
• Western name + surname + Chinese name, e.g., "Janine Tan Mei Yi".
• Western name + Chinese name + surname, e.g., "Janine Mei Yi Tan".

In most cases, the first option is the most commonly used. However, the use of this short form increases the likelihood of similarly named articles. Where it is necessary to disambiguate the article as a result, either the full name (e.g.,

{{DEFAULTSORT:Balaji Sadasivan}} <!--Do not sort by "Sadasivan" as this is
a patronymic, not a surname.-->

Article titles should follow the manner in which the subjects of the articles normally appear in English-language publications in Singapore. When persons do not usually use the words bin (Malay for "son of") or binte ("daughter of") in their names, these words should not be added (e.g., "Zubir Said", not "Zubir bin Said"). Likewise, where persons usually have these words in their names, the words should not be omitted. Use of the hatnote {{Malay name}} is recommended. Where the name of a Malay person contains a patronymic and lacks a surname, to avoid the article being incorrectly sorted by the patronymic, add a {{DEFAULTSORT}} tag and a comment as shown in the example below:

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zubir Said}} <!--Do not sort by "Said" as this is
a patronymic, not a surname.-->

The official English name for places should be used. For example, "Hougang", which is used officially in English, should be used in preference to "Aukang" even though the latter is often used locally. Also, "Punggol" should be spelt as indicated when referring to the town, but as "Ponggol" in the road name "Ponggol Seventeenth Avenue" as that is the official name of the road in English.

If a name refers to the Singapore place much more than to any other place (that is, the Singapore place is significantly more commonly searched for than other places), the article can be named after the Singapore place without any qualifications (see

Dates are usually indicated with the day before the month, that is, "9 August" and "9 August 1965". Therefore, in accordance with

• dates should be set out with the day before the month; and
• the parameter "df=yes" ("df" standing for "day first") should be used with the templates {{Birth date and age}}, {{Birth year and age}}, {{Death date and age}}, {{Death year and age}}, and related templates.

In general, see Category:Singapore infobox templates for infoboxes designed for Singapore-related articles.

• Places. To state the name of a place in Singapore in the four official languages of Singapore (English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil), use the {{SG neighbourhood}} infobox.

• Where appropriate, in the
  lead section of Singapore-related articles (such as articles about Singaporean festivals), the article title in English in boldface should be followed by translations of the title in parentheses in the three other official languages, ordered alphabetically as follows: Malay, Mandarin and Tamil.^[1]
  • For place names, use of the {{SG neighbourhood}} infobox is recommended.
  • For Chinese names, use
    zh
    }} template as follows:

{{zh|s=NAME IN SIMPLIFIED CHINESE CHARACTERS|p=NAME IN PINYIN}}

• Alternative, non-English names should usually be listed once. If the article has an infobox, the names should be listed there. If not, the names should go in the first sentence of the lead.
• If the names have a complex history or vary considerably from language to language (e.g., Tekka Centre and Pedra Branca, Singapore), this should be discussed in a separate section and not in the lead.

Measurements should be set out using the metric system, with measurements in the Imperial system in parentheses after the metric measurement. This can be done conveniently using the {{Convert}} template.

As a Commonwealth country, Singapore has inherited many elements of British culture. Singapore-related articles generally follow spelling and grammar conventions of British English: see Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English.

See Category:Singapore templates for templates designed for Singapore-related articles.