Maria-sama ga Miteru:Format

Maria-sama ga Miteru Specific Formatting

These are the project guidelines and conventions to be used when working on Maria-sama ga Miteru. They are split between Translators and Editors. Seki wrote the original in 2008, which can be found on the talk page here. It has been modified to fit the current state of the project, and to address any future contributors in general.

A note

Translators and Editors are encouraged to place on-page notes whenever they are necessary. This makes it much easier to view the reference on the wiki, in PDFs, and especially in the app. See this page for details.

Translators

Translators are asked to maintain these format guidelines as much as possible, within reason and skill. They are not required to adhere to typographical standards, such as writing soeur as sœur; use and/or placement of hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes; or any other markup-related formatting.

Terminology: Titles & Names

• All honorifics are to be used, following the author's use and placement.
• The school's name has been set as Lillian Girls' Academy.
• The terms Maria-sama and Gokigenyou should be left as is.
• The Latin and French titles are to be used when applicable: Rosa Chinensis, Rosa Gigantea, Rosa Foetida as well as en bouton.
• The French terms grande sœur, sœur and petite sœur should be left as is.
• The term onee-sama should be left as is when in reference/address to a grande sœur.

Perspective

Most of the text is in third-person narrative, yet the author had a tendency to switch into first-person every now and then, so there's an abrupt switch for those moments. Maintaining the author's style is preferred.

Formality

Lillian Girls' Academy is a prestigious private institution; the speech and mannerisms of the students within should follow suit. However, much like friends in real life, the characters can talk with familiarity. As Seki put it, translators should:

 "[do their] best to make a distinction between when the characters are speaking formally and when they're not. . . . While it's a school for upper-class women, most of the students spoke quite casually to one another, particularly in the case of Yumi. Slang is out of the question, of course, but otherwise [keep] her speech rather normal.  A few characters, such as Satou Sei, diving into slang and other such 'immature' modes of speech [are acceptable and in-character]. But, for characters like Sachiko (as well as certain 'modes' for characters), [try] to maintain as formal English as [possible]."

Specific word choice isn't crucial, and can be left to the editors if a translator wishes.

Editors

Editors are asked to maintain these format guidelines as much as possible, within reason and skill. They are responsible for everything beyond the actual translation of the project, including typographical and markup formatting. Additionally, they are asked to set words or form that a translator might miss. However, they must not rewrite any text in such a manner that the meaning of the section or sentence itself changes. Should such a questionable entry appear, editors are asked to discuss the matter with the translator or project manager. If a prospective contributor feels any of these requirements are outside or above their abilities, please leave them to more experienced editors.

Terminology

Spelling, including actual markup for certain words, will be a key item to watch for. Specifically, the terms outlined for translators should be checked for spelling and their markup applied when necessary.

• Grande and petite are spelled with an e because they are feminine, referring to the female students.
• Sœur is written as sœur.
• Class and club names are to be capitalized; they are proper nouns.

Word Choice

There are a few words that come up often in translation, both in dialogue and narration, that should be in place whenever appropriate. Use your best judgement when playing thesaurus, being mindful of the character speaking or narration's point of view, as well as the tone of the section. For example, Sachiko and Shimako may be described as elegant and pure, as opposed to pretty and clean. Translators, and the project manager, will have the final say on what words are appropriate to be used.

Style Manual

Maria-sama ga Miteru editors are asked to follow a modified Chicago Manual of Style outline.

Common Punctuation

The amount of text that this outline could cover is immense, so these examples should serve as the baseline with which to compare and build upon during editing.

Serial comma	Include a comma before the conjunction. My favorite composers are Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler, and Mozart.
Spacing between initials in names	Include a space between initials. E. L. Doctorow
Abbreviations	Preference against periods. JD, BA, PhD, BCE (referring to the era), PO Box, US, UN
Possessives of singular nouns and singular proper nouns ending in s	Add only an apostrophe. Actress' phone, Texas', James', Xerxes'

Table entry from The Punctuation Guide.

Ellipses

When a complete sentence trails off without continuation, dialog or narration, the four-dot ellipsis is used without a space between the last word and the ellipsis.

• "They spent that night here. . . ."
• They walked down the path together, but something felt off. . . .

When a narrative sentence is not complete, or dialog trails off and is not the end of a sentence, OR dialog that is an incomplete sentence, a spaced three-dot ellipsis is used.

• "They spent that night here . . ." Tim said aloud, mindlessly.
• At that moment . . .
• "They were the ones . . ."

When other terminal punctuation is used in conjunction with the ellipsis, conventional rules apply. Examples:

• "They spent that night here. . . ?"
• "They were the ones. . . !"

Note that there is no space between the ellipsis and the closing quotation mark.

Hyphens & Dashes

Hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes should be cast as they normally would.

Resources For Editors

While there are innumerable resources available to us on the Internet, this project has benefitted from the following:

• The American Heritage Dictionary is used as the reference dictionary at Baka-Tsuki.
• The Punctuation Guide is a wonderful and quick guide to almost all the punctuation an editor may see or use, complete with overviews and examples.
• The Wikitext—also known as Wiki markup or Wikicode—help page is the complete resource for any markup an editor may encounter or employ.

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