Tutorial:TutorialPage7p
Now we need to make sure that you're doing things in the correct way. As a kid you learned in English all the correct protocols for writing a letter, and so on. The kids of the future may have to learn this....!
Wiki protocols
Now you're getting to be a pro, you need to learn the mores of wiki communities, including the words on the page and the behavioral norms.
Writing format
Of course, every wiki will have its own "house style." On Wikipedia, there is the Manual of Style. Chemwiki doesn't yet have such a page, so we will generally follow the Wikipedia format for articles. Here are a few highlights:
- You can use American English or British English, but be consistent. The first author of an article on Wikipedia usually gets to define which one will be used. Wikis are truly worldwide, so don't go switching colour to color or trying to fix the location of quotation marks in "this phrase". (This format for quotation marks is the wiki standard!)
- Section headings in articles should be brief and not contain links (in talk pages it's OK). They should have only the first word capitalized, unless the heading is a proper noun (as in United States or George W. Bush). Take a look at the headings on this page - we have "Wiki protocols" not "Wiki Protocols."
- Article names follow the same rules as headings. They should normally be in the singular form ("Acid" not "Acids")
- Most articles begin with an overview section, which does not have a header. The first time the title occurs, it is put in bold, as in, "An acid is a chemical compound which...."
- Links are generally only included the first time the link is needed, after that plain text is used. In a longer article it is OK to put an important wikilink in a key place in a later section.
- Inline references are generally preferred over general references. We'll look later at some of the Wikipedia citation formats, which require sophisticated templates not available here yet. Other material that was not used in writing the article but which may be useful for the reader is included under "See also" (for material on the same wiki), "Further reading" (usually books) or "External links."
- If there is a sub-article on one aspect of the topic being discussed, then a link is included at the start of the appropriate section of the main article, using italics. For example, in an article on the United States, there may be a section with the heading "History." This section would begin, Main article: History of the United States. The main article only carries a brief summary of the topic, not the whole sub-article; this is known as summary style.
OK, now go back and fix all those headings in your sandbox article, and make sure everything complies with the above protocols. Sorry to be so fussy! Now you can go to the next page and learn how to be a good citizen of the wikicommunity!
