Memory Alpha:Guide to layout

Contents → Guide to layout

The Memory Alpha Guide to Layout is an in-depth description about how to lay out an article. It is not a guide for wiki markup or a Manual of Style; it is simply a summary of how to write a clean, simple, and well-organized article.

Introductory material

Start your article by strongly emphasizing the subject of your text. This serves to highlight what your article is about, making the subject as clear as possible for the reader's benefit.

If the article is several paragraphs long (or more), it's best to keep the first article as short and succinct as possible, with a clear explanation of what the article is about. However, do not title your introductory text with an "Introduction" or similarly-titled header. Leave the opening paragraph(s) without a header, so that the table of contents is generated after the introductory text.

Structure

Keep your paragraphs relatively short; break up longer ones so that the reader's eye doesn't start to drift and gloss over the article. (Avoid extremely long sentences for the same reason.) By the same token, articles as a whole should also be as short as possible while still covering all relevant information adequately. (This balance is often difficult to achieve!)

Headers are a useful way to divide the content of an article into appropriate parts (see Section). However, do not use an excessive number of headers, because the article will start to look cluttered, the more headers there are. Try to avoid creating one-paragraph sections, for example. (In these cases, perhaps bullet point lists would be more appropriate.)

Appendices

Any or all of the following five sections may be added to the end of an article as a means to provide the reader with resources at which to find further information. To separate this meta-information from the main content, create a section Appendices and add all necessary subsections there.

Note: It is not necessary to italicize the whole content of these sections!

Apocrypha

Writings in different medias (principally in books) whose authenticity are questionable.

Appearances

A complete list of episodes/movies in which the article subject appeared, sorted chronologically.

Background

Further information about the subject, originating from official but non-canon materials such as interviews, technical manuals, encyclopedias, novels, etc.. Avoid putting fan speculation here.

External links

If you know of any external websites that you believe are useful to the reader who is interested in more information on the subject, include them here in list form. Describe external links when possible.

• Ex Astris Scientia - Bernd Schneider's website focuses on everything related to starships.

References

If you used an outside resource (for example, a book) to help write your article, it's sometimes useful to cite it so that other readers may consult that resource if they wish to find more information. Use a basic list layout, and include the ISBN number for reference.

• Michael Okuda and Denise Okuda; Star Trek Encyclopedia; Pocket Books; ISBN 0-671-53609-5 (3rd edition, paperback, 1999).
• Geoffrey Mandel; Star Trek Star Charts; Pocket Books; ISBN 0-7434-3770-5 (paperback, 2002).

Related topics

This section is for articles that are related to the current one (see Manual of Style).

Exceptions

Exceptions to this basic article structure include pages for the episode guides. For these types of articles, use the templates that are already provided.