Difference between revisions of "Help:Guide to Layout"

Latest revision as of 14:22, 13 February 2006

The Cacheopedia Guide to Layout is an annotated, working example of some of the basics of laying out an article.

This little article is not about markup; see Help:How to edit a page for that. This little article is not about style; see Wikipedia:Manual of Style for that. This little article is just a summary of what some fairly clean, simple Cacheopedia articles look like. For more complicated articles, you may want to copy the markup of some existing article you like the looks of.

[edit] Introductory material

The subject of the article should be mentioned in bold text ('''subject''') at a natural place in the first sentence, or at least the first paragraph. The name of the subject may appear slightly different from the title of the page, or may include variations, but normally it is identical to the page title.

If the article is long enough to contain several paragraphs, the first paragraph should be short and to the point, with a clear explanation of what the subject of the page is. If further introductory material is needed before the first header, then this can be given in additional paragraphs. It is common for introductions to biographical articles to dual as summaries, mentioning the most prominent achievements of the subject.

Introductory paragraphs should precede sections; in particular, they should not be in an ==Introduction== section of their own. The table of contents will automatically follow the introduction, preceding the first named section.

[edit] Structure of the article

Paragraphs should be relatively short, as the eye gets tired of following solid text for too many lines. Similarly, articles themselves should be kept relatively short.

Headers also help make an article clearer and determine the table of contents; see Help:Section. Since headers are hierarchical, and some people set their user preferences to number them, you should start with ==Header== and follow it with ===Subheader===, ====Subsubheader====, and so forth.

On the other hand, overuse of sub-headings should be avoided, as it can make the article look cluttered. Short paragraphs and single sentences generally do not warrant their own sub-heading, and in these circumstances it may be preferable to use bullet points or bolded text instead.

The degree to which subtopics should be kept on a single page or given their own pages is a matter of judgment.

[edit] Images

If the article can be illustrated with pictures, find an appropriate place to position these images. For more information, see Wikipedia:Picture tutorial.

[edit] Standardized appendices

Certain optional standardized sections go at the bottom of the article, as you see below.

[edit] Related topics

Put here, in a bulleted list, other articles in Cacheopedia that are related to this one.

• Contents
• Neutral point of view

Related topics ought to be grouped by subject area for ease of navigation. Please also provide a brief explanatory sentence, when the relevance of the added links is not immediately apparent - like so:

• Related person made a similar achievement in 2005.

Or for a less formal feel you can simply use this:

See also: Main page, Recent changes

[edit] References

Put under this header, again in a bulleted list, any books, forum entires, articles, web pages, etcetera that you used in constructing the article and/or recommend as sources of further information to readers.

• Pooh, W. T. & Robin, C. (1926). "How to catch a heffalump" in A. A. Milne (Ed.), The Karma of Kanga, pp. 23–47. Hundred Acre Wood: Wol Press. ISBN 999999999

The most important thing is to include the complete citation information, just as you would for any other bibliography; the precise formatting is still debatable and can be fixed later. See also: Wikipedia:Cite your sources and Wikipedia:ISBN.

[edit] External links

Put here, in list form, any web sites that you have used or recommend for readers of the article. Describe it if possible.

• Yale Web Style Guide for web pages

(Some editors prefer to list external links under "References"; there is currently no consensus on the desirability of a separate section for online citations.)