Wiksteria Lane:Manual of Style

Wiksteria Lane's Manual of Style is a collection of guidelines and rules of thumb that are designed to set a rough standard for the appearances of all articles. Although style is generally not considered the most important factor in the writing of an article, it is an important factor in the writing of good articles (or even the perfect article!). The manual of style is designed to make articles easier to read and comprehend, to make articles better organized and easier to edit.

Above all, realize that these rules are not set in stone! They are considered guidelines for making an article appear more attractive to the reader, to make them easier to work with. If you think you have a better way of writing your article, by all means go ahead and be bold! Why not add your own idea to the page as an additional option for adding style to an article. (However, please don't remove existing guidelines, just add your own new ones.)

If you're looking for information on how to write an article in wiki markup, please see how to edit a page for instructions. As that article is more about how to use markup, this article is concerned about the when, where, and why of using specific markup. Please also read the Guide to Layout for suggestions on how to organize your article.

In all cases, examples of styles will be indented from the main margin for emphasis.

Introducing an article
At the beginning of every article, the title or subject of that article should be bold in the first line. Even though the article title is already listed, it is useful to emphasize the article's subject for the reader. (Don't forget to also use italicized text when necessary. See Manual of Style (titles) for further information.)


 * Wisteria Lane is...

If the subject in the article has more than one name, each new form of the name should be in bold, to mark its first appearance.


 * Susan Delfino (née Bremmer, previously Mayer)...

Headlines & Sections
To create a new section in an article, surround the text with two or more == (equal signs). When you have the header, there is no blank line needed beneath the header.

The wiki engine will automatically create a table of contents based on the headers in an article.

In all cases, you should capitalize the first word and all proper nouns of the header, and leave all other words lowercase. The only place this does not apply is on songs articles. In addition, all words should be spelled out and not use numerals (such as "Season One" rather than "Season 1").

Avoid using links in headers. Depending on the browser's default settings, some users may not be able to see the links properly. It is much more useful to place the appropriate link in the first sentence after the header.

Paragraphs & Formatting
Inexperienced writers have a tendency towards "run on" paragraphs. Some of these may number dozens of lines and many column inches without a break. This makes the articles difficult to read as everything seems to flow together. It also makes it tough to quickly skim articles for data points.

A good paragraph (grammatically speaking) is two to five sentences in length on average. It covers one thought or idea or piece of information. Any time there is a change in the thought, idea, or piece of information, there should also be a paragraph change.

When formatting paragraphs, adding an empty line between paragraphs looks better in the articles than the traditional "paragraph indent" on the first line. It makes for a more definite "break point" visually, and allows the reader to more easily see that they are reading a new paragraph at that point.

As an example of what NOT to do, here's everything just typed as one big block (the way many articles tend to be done):

''Inexperienced writers have a tendency towards "run on" paragraphs. Some of these may number dozens of lines and many column inches without a break. This makes the articles difficult to read as everything seems to flow together. It also makes it tough to quickly skim articles for data points. A good paragraph (grammatically speaking) is 2-5 sentences in length on average. It covers one thought or idea/piece of information. Any time there is a change in the thought/idea/piece of information, there should also be a paragraph change. When formatting paragraphs, adding an empty line between paragraphs looks better in the articles than the traditional "paragraph indent" on the first line. It makes for a more definite "break point" visually, and allows the reader to more easily see that they are reading a new paragraph at that point.''

Quotations
When quoting a person in an article, and the quote is at least a full sentence, the quotation should be "italicized and quoted" or by using the quote templates, which are available.

Mary Alice said, "We all face moments of desperatation, but when we face the problem head on; thats when we find out just how strong we really are'."

However, if the quote is just a single word or a sentence fragment, it should not be italicized.

Eva Longoria Parker said the episode was her "favourite."

For quotes around titles, any punctuation that is not part of the title should follow the quote.

Bree Hodge made her first appearance in the episode "Pilot".

For uniformity and to avoid problems with the wiki software and the search utility, use straight quotation marks and apostrophes, and avoid curved marks such as the backtick or so-called "smart quotes". Punctuation marks should be placed inside of the quotation marks, unless the quotation marks surround a title (i.e., episode, comic, etc.), as shown in the third example above.

Other Styles
There are undoubtedly styles that this tutorial does not cover. Although we try to keep this article simple, consider adding a new section to help new (and old!) readers out in creating styles for articles.

When all else fails, we recommend referring to the "official" resources for styles, such as The Chicago Manual of Style or Fowler's Modern English Usage.

Keep it simple
Above all else, you are encouraged to keep your articles simple! Don't try to get too fancy with your markup (like embedding tables within tables). The easier the markup is, the easier it will be for anyone to edit the article later on. Our first goal is to reliably and accurately display the information. The goal of wiki markup is to keep the articles simple and to emphasize the information as much as possible. We prefer content over form!

For this and other reasons, HTML markup should be avoided in most circumstances.

Spellings & Style Choices
Because Desperate Housewives is an American TV show, Wiksteria Lane has chosen to use American spellings of words, instead of the British way. E.g -- The word color, shall be spelt as it just has, and not the British way -- colour.

See Also:

 * Wiksteria Lane:Introduction
 * Policies