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.
- Article status and protection tags ({{Icons}})
- {{Tabs}} template
- Hatnotes
- Maintenance and spoiler notices
- {{Quote}} template
- Infoboxes
- Lead section
- Table of contents
- Body
- See also
- References/Notes and references
- External links
- {{Stub}} template
- DISPLAYTITLE
- DEFAULTSORT
- Interlanguage links
- Navboxes
Before the article content[]
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)):
{{Tabs
|tab1=Character
|tab2=Gallery
|tab3=Relationships
}}
The following order should be followed in placing tabs:
- Topic of article (Film/TV series/character/person)
- Gallery pages
- Relationships
- 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:
- {{Other uses}} (example seen at Mickey Mouse)
- {{About}}
- {{Redirect}}
- {{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.
Article content[]
Lead section[]
A lead section is an introduction to an article and a summary of its most important contents.
For people, full names are not used. For example: (at Tom Kenny)
- Tom Kenny is an American actor, voice actor, comedian, and singer.
If the person has different credited names, it must be mentioned in the parentheses after the name. For example: (at Grey DeLisle)
- Grey DeLisle (also credited as Grey Griffin and Grey DeLisle-Griffin) is an American voice actress, comedian, and singer-songwriter.
If the person has a credited name/s who has a birth name, it must also be included. For example: (at Tara Strong)
- Tara Strong (née Charendoff) is a Canadian-American actress and voice actress.
Body[]
Headings and sections[]
Sectioning is essential to presentation and navigation. This is accomplished by adding headings and subheadings as appropriate.