Indiana Jones Wiki:Manual of Style

The hat, the whip, the lopsided grin... Indiana Jones had a sense of style. And so does the Indiana Jones Wiki.

For information on the most basic writing techniques and styles, which are used here, see Wikipedia's Manual of Style.

Below are some basic formatting do's and don't's. Note that many of these guidelines were adapted from the Wookiepedia Manual of Style.

In-universe
All in-universe articles should be structured as follows:
 * 1) Title/Infobox
 * 2) Main article
 * 3) Stub
 * 4) Behind the scenes (notice the capitalization)
 * 5) Appearances
 * 6) Sources
 * 7) Notes and references
 * 8) See also
 * 9) External links
 * 10) Category
 * 11) Interwiki links

OOU articles on reference works
All out-of-universe articles on books, comics, etc. should generally be structured as follows. This list is typically more flexible than main articles.
 * 1) Title/Eras/Infobox
 * 2) Introduction
 * 3) Stub
 * 4) Editions
 * 5) Publisher's summary
 * 6) Plot summary
 * 7) Excerpts
 * 8) Appearances
 * 9) Behind the scenes
 * 10) Cover gallery
 * 11) Notes and references
 * 12) See also
 * 13) External links
 * 14) Category
 * 15) Interwiki links

Naming articles
There are some rules regarding how articles on the Indiana Jones Wiki should be named.
 * Article names should be in singular form, not plural.
 * The titles of articles about individual characters should be the name by which the character was most commonly known in the the Indiana Jones universe, with later names preferred to earlier names, and full names preferred to partial names or nicknames. Titles, such as military ranks or titles of nobility, should be omitted.
 * Unless the name of the article contains (or is) a proper noun, none of the words should be capitalized.

Perspective
The people, places and things encountered by Indy during his adventures are described as in-universe; they belongs to the world of Indiana Jones. Other elements of interest reside exclusively in the real world, and are termed out-of-universe (or OOU). So a character like Marion Ravenwood, for example, is in-universe; while the actress who portrays her, Karen Allen, is out-of-universe.

Of course, there is a great deal of overlap between Indy's world and the real world, and that is part of the appeal of the franchise. T. E. Lawrence's friendship with Indy may be fictional; his struggle for Arab independence was not. For the purposes of this wiki, though, the fictional world must take precedence. Historical figures &amp; events and real world locations, appearing in-universe, should be treated the same as other in-universe subjects.

In-universe articles, such as those dealing with characters or artifacts, should be written from an in-universe perspective; that is, as though the author inhabits the world of Indiana Jones. In this context, out-of-universe (or "behind-the-scenes") information should be noted as such. Out-of-universe articles&mdash;about actors, movies, books, etc.&mdash;should obviously be written from an out-of-universe perspective.

Headings
Use the  (heading) markup for headings, not the   (bold) markup. Example:



which produces:


 * This is a heading 

If you mark headings this way, a table of contents is automatically generated from the headings in an article. Sections can be automatically numbered for users with that preference set and words within properly marked headings are given greater weight in searches. Headings also help readers by breaking up the text and outlining the article.


 * Capitalize the first letter only of the first word and of any proper nouns in a heading, and leave all of the other letters in lower case.
 * Avoid links within headings.
 * Avoid overuse of sub-headings.

Usage and spelling
Though the readers and editors of the Indiana Jones wiki speak many varieties of English, we prefer standard American English spelling, grammar, punctuation, and word usage. This is the variety of English used in the first printings of most primary sources.

Tense
All in-universe articles should be in past tense.

The reasons for this are twofold. First, in-universe articles are intended as a sort of history, and history is a record of the past. Second, Indy's adventures are said to have occurred, for the most part, in the first half of the twentieth century. Writing in-universe articles in past tense properly relates those adventures with our own time.

Quotations

 * Please be sure to provide as much information as possible (for instance: source, page if applicable, and characters speaking if applicable).
 * Users should not correct the capitalization, spelling, grammar, or word usage within direct quotes taken from copyrighted sources as such modifications jeopardize our Fair use claim on that material. Article quotes ought to be verbatim and any changes, edits, or exclusions should be explicitly noted by using square brackets ("[ ]"). Any errors made by the author may be noted by using "[sic]."
 * Redundant internal links should not be added to quotes because they serve little purpose beyond making the quotes appear cluttered and messy. Links should only be added to quotes if they contain a specific article's ONLY mention of a particular concept, but even then, it is better to integrate the internal link into the body of the article's text.
 * Per standards of American English, double quotation marks (" ") should be used and the period (full stop), comma, question and exclamation marks should be within the quotation.
 * Single quotation marks (' ') should only be used when there is a quotation inside a quotation.