Animation Wiki:Layout guide

The layout guide is an official guide as to how articles should be written and structured.

Order
A simple article should have, at least, (a) a lead section and (b) references. The following is a typical order of articles on this wiki.


 * 1) Article status and protection tags (Icons)
 * 2) Tabs template
 * 3) Hatnotes
 * 4) Maintenance and spoiler notices
 * 5) Quote template
 * 6) Infoboxes
 * 7) Lead section
 * 8) Table of contents
 * 9) Body
 * 10) See also
 * 11) References/Notes and references
 * 12) External links
 * 13) Stub template
 * 14) DISPLAYTITLE
 * 15) DEFAULTSORT
 * 16) Interlanguage links
 * 17) Navboxes

Article status and protection tags
Article status icons (good and featured articles) and protection locks are denoted by using the Icons template.

Tabs
If possible, a tabs template should be placed on the top of the article. Example (from SpongeBob SquarePants (character)):

The following order should be followed in placing tabs:
 * 1) Topic of article (Film/TV series/character/person)
 * 2) Gallery pages
 * 3) Relationships
 * 4) Quotes

Hatnotes
Hatnotes are short notes placed at the very top of a page or a section, and is mostly italicized. They provide links to the possibly sought article or to a disambiguation page. Examples include:
 * 1) Other uses (example seen at Mickey Mouse)
 * 2) About
 * 3) Redirect
 * 4) Distinguish

Maintenance and spoiler notices
Maintenance tags may be added, if needed.

Quotes
Quotes should always go first before infoboxes. They are placed by putting the Quote template at the top of an article.

Infoboxes
Like Wikipedia, infoboxes provide a summary of information about the subject of an article. They are mandatory, except for some instances (i.e. lists), for every article. A list of infoboxes can be found here.

Lead section
A lead section is an introduction to an article and a summary of its most important contents.

Headings and sections
Sectioning is essential to presentation and navigation. This is accomplished by adding headings and subheadings as appropriate.