Editing Asterisk (section)

===Typography===
{{more citations needed|section|date=April 2020}}
* The asterisk is used to call out a [[footnote]], especially when there is only one on the page. Less commonly, multiple asterisks are used to denote different footnotes on a page (i.e., *, **, ***).<ref>H. P. Trueman: ''The Eclectic Hand-book of Printing: Containing Practical Instructions to Learners; With Copious Quotations from Standard Works; Forming a Complete Guide to the Art of Printing.'' Second edition, Abel Heywood & Son, London 1880, p. 27 [https://books.google.com/books?id=sCMxAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA27 Google Books] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326164814/https://books.google.com/books?id=sCMxAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA27 |date=2023-03-26 }}),</ref><ref name="Rogers, 184">Walter Thomas Rogers: ''A Manual of Bibliography: Being an Introduction to the Knowledge of Books, Library Management and the Art of Cataloguing, with a List of Bibliographical Works of Reference, a Latin-English and English-Latin Topographical Index of Ancient Printing Centres, and a Glossary.'' H. Grevel & Co., London 1891, p. 184 ([https://books.google.com/books?id=tqsQAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA184 Google Books] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326164814/https://books.google.com/books?id=tqsQAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA184 |date=2023-03-26 }}).</ref> Typically, an asterisk is positioned after a word or phrase and preceding its accompanying footnote. Other characters are also used for this purpose, such as [[dagger (typography)|dagger]] (†, ‡) or superscript letters and numbers (as in Wikipedia). In marketing and advertising, asterisks or other symbols are used to refer readers discreetly to terms or conditions for a certain statement, the "[[small print]]".
* In English-language typography the asterisk is placed after all other punctuation marks (for example, commas, colons, or periods) except for the dash.<ref>{{Citation |author= United Nations Editorial Manual Online |title= IX. Footnote indicators |url= http://dd.dgacm.org/editorialmanual/ed-guidelines/footnotes/footnotes_chap_09.htm |access-date= 2016-10-03 |archive-date= 2016-10-05 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20161005112738/http://dd.dgacm.org/editorialmanual/ed-guidelines/footnotes/footnotes_chap_09.htm |url-status= live }}</ref><ref>{{Citation |author=Fogarty, Mignon |title="How to Use an Asterisk," QuickandDirtyTips.com |url=http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/how-to-use-an-asterisk/ |date=November 15, 2012 |access-date=October 3, 2016 |archive-date=October 5, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161005195751/http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/how-to-use-an-asterisk |url-status=live }}</ref>
[[File:Section break 02 by Pengo.jpg|thumb|Asterisks used to illustrate a [[section break]] in ''[[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]]'']]
* Three spaced asterisks centered on a page is called a [[dinkus]] and may represent a jump to a different scene, thought, or [[Section (typography)|section]].
* A group of three asterisks arranged in a triangular formation is called an [[asterism (typography)|asterism]]. It may be used instead of a name on a title page.<ref name="Rogers, 184" />
* One or more asterisks may be used as censorship over all or part of a word.
* Asterisks are sometimes used as an alternative to [[Bullet (typography)|typographical bullets]] to indicate items of a list.
* Asterisks can be used in textual media to represent *[[emphasis (typography)|emphasis]]* when [[bold text|bold]] or [[italic text]] is not available (e.g., [[Twitter]], [[text messaging]]).
* Asterisks may denote conversational [[Conversation analysis#Repair|repair]], or corrections to misspelling or misstatements in previous electronic messages, particularly when replacement or retraction of a previous writing is not possible, such as with "immediate delivery" messages or "instant messages" that can not be edited. Usually this takes the form of a message consisting solely of the corrected text, with an asterisk placed before (or after) the correction. For example, one might send a message reading "*morning" or "morning*" to correct the misspelling in the message "I had a good {{Typo|mro|ning}}".<ref name=":0" />{{citation needed|date=June 2020}}
* Bounding asterisks as "a kind of self-describing stage direction", as linguist [[Ben Zimmer]] has put it. For example, in "''Another gas station robbery *sigh*''", the writer uses *sigh* to express disappointment (but does not necessarily literally sigh).<ref>{{cite web |last=Zimmer |first=Ben |title=The cyberpragmatics of bounding asterisks |url=http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4466 |work=Language Log, University of Pennsylvania |access-date=24 August 2013 |archive-date=14 September 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130914011937/http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4466 |url-status=live }}</ref>