all nordic languages: names of chapters/sections/etc. (punctuation)

Imagine that you're reading a book about fishing, and you see the following sentence:

For more details on the migration habits of these fish, see chapter 21, "Stickleback".

In standard English writing, I would say that the comma and quotation marks (or something similar like italicization, underlining, etc.) are important in the highlighted phrase.

It would be considered poor punctuation to write "chapter 21 Stickleback", where nothing except the capitalization of "Stickleback" indicates any separation between the phrases.

Based on my limited experience reading Swedish texts, my sense is that the form with no punctuation ("kapitel 21 Spigg") is quite common, and perhaps considered standard.

Is this an accurate impression?

Does the same apply to other Scandinavian langauages and Icelandic?

Thanks

I would say that the correct way to write this in Norwegian would be as in your English example, with a comma and quotation marks around the chapter name. That said, you will see a variety of practices, I think.

I would probably write "Mer information om de här fiskarnas migrering finns i kapitel 21, "Spigg". To me, the habits feels a bit superfluous.

Here's a relevant example I just saw in a Swedish court document:

Kontakta domstolen om du vill begära offentlig försvarare, och motivera i så fall varför du behöver det (se rubriken Skäl för offentlig försvarare).

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"Contact the court if you would like to request a public defender, and if so, please provide justification as to why you need one (see under the heading 'Justifications for a public defender')."

The writer has seemingly assumed that the capital letter alone ("Skäl") is enough to indicate the beginning of a multi-word title, and that it's completely unnecessary to mark where the title ends.

Again, I'm curious whether the Swedish (and other Scandinavian) speakers here would consider this example to be good/normal punctuation?

Regards,
Gavril

To me it feels as it's something that was originally from a web page, where the "Skäl ..." was a link to another webpage, and someone had forgotten to make the changes needed for a paper document.

I agree that it might be a copy from a web page. But nevertheless, this sentence does not look so wrong from my Norwegian perspective.

I think your first post (the stickleback case) is about two separate issues: the missing comma and the missing quotation marks. That sentence is incorrect without a comma, but the missing quotation marks is no big deal for me -- although I suppose it would be better with quotation marks.

Your new post (the public defender case) is different. A comma would be wrong here, so we are left with the issue of quotation marks.

Gavril said:

Based on my limited experience reading Swedish texts, my sense is that the form with no punctuation ("kapitel 21 Spigg") is quite common, and perhaps considered standard.

Is this an accurate impression?

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Yes, it is, see below.

Since 1991, a document titled Myndigheternas skrivregler has been the standard used by most governmental organisations. The current edition is the eighth one and dates from 2014. Educational institutions and many companies also use these rules, and the printed edition is required reading in certain university courses.

The rules on the use of quotation marks are found in section 13.11, and subsection 13.11.5 states that quotation marks (or italics) can be used for book and film titles, etc., but need not be used if the context makes clear what the title or name is, or if that name is well known:

13.11.5 Runt titlar och namn
Namn och titlar på publikationer, dokument, filmer m.m. kan markeras med citattecken (eller kursiv) för att markera att det rör sig om just ett namn eller en titel. Det gäller särskilt om gränsen mellan titel eller namn och den övriga meningen är otydlig:

"Modern psykologi" tilltalar mig.​

​

"Varannan damernas" var ett av de mer uppmärksammade betänkandena.​

Citattecken behövs inte om namnet eller titeln föregås av ett förlarande substantiv eller om namnet redan är allmänt känt:

Många läser tidskriften Modern psykologi.​

​

När kommittén publicerade sitt betänkande Varannan damernas, vaknade debatten till liv.​

​

Dagens Nyheter har många fler läsare.​

I vetenskapliga sammanhang markerar man av konsekvensskäl alla publikationstitlar med citattecken (eller kursiv).

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In fact, subsection 9.6.1 already makes clear that the use of citation marks for titles should be an exception:

9.6.1 Titlar som skrivs med stor begynnelsebokstav

Titlar på böcker, skrifter, betänkanden, skådespel och liknande skrivs med stor bokstav bara i första ordet:

Demokrati och makt i Sverige, Det sjunde inseglet, En midsommarnattsdröm, Röda rummet, Svenskt språkbruk​

För tydlighetens skull kan sådana namn vid behov kursiveras eller omges med citattecken (> 13.11.5).

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As for how these rules are applied to chapter titles, examples of that are dispersed throughout the document.

The following is from the introduction:

Tre nyskrivna kapitel har lagts till: Att skriva klarspråk, Att skriva för webben och Källor och hänvisningar.

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This is from the end of subsection 1.2.3:

Se även > 1.5.2 om rubriker och > kapitel 3 Text och form.

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Gavril said:

Does the same apply to other Scandinavian languages and Icelandic?

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I'm not intimately familiar with the Danish and Norwegian rules, but my impression is that they are similar to the Swedish ones. In Icelandic, it's not always clear what the rules are, and I'm unable to say whether people are more likely to write the names of chapters with or without quotation marks.