Help:Introduction to the Manual of Style/3
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 | This page in a nutshell: Complete sentences are usually a good idea. |
Images
- Tend to float right, use a caption, start with one or two
- Provide wikicommons linkage
You should add or replace images only if they are better than the existing ones or add to the article, they are there to support the text of the article.
Images should ideally be spread evenly within the article, and relevant to the sections they are located in. All images should also have an caption explains them. An image that would otherwise overwhelm the available text space on a 800×600 window should be shrunk, displayed as a thumbnail, or formatted as a panorama. It is a good idea to try to maintain visual coherence by aligning the sizes of images and templates on a given page.
Do not stack more images within a section than the text as this causes the images to continue into the next section and bunches up the edit links in some browsers ( standard layout is aimed at a 1024×768 screen resolution).
Citing
- don't use quotes much if at all
- use reliable sources damn it, don't sell us your shit jerkface. (there, that feels better).
- use basic ref tags, more complex provide linkage to harder templates
- The second half is more of a how to rather than a what style to conform to....could be shortened to 'provide references in the style already used in the article, they should be listed near the bottom of the article' - but this placement could be covered in part on section order...t
Sources should be cited when adding material that is controversial or likely to be challenged, when quoting someone, when adding material to the biography of a living person, and when uploading an image. While you should try to write citations correctly, what matters is that you add your source—provide enough information to identify the source, and others will improve the formatting if needed.
Each article should use the same citation method throughout. If an article already has references, adopt the method in use or seek consensus before changing it.
The first thing you do is to create a section where the references will appear. The references section contains either <references /> or {{reflist}}, and is placed near the end of the article, below the "See also" section and above the "External links" section. It is usually titled "References". e.g.
==References=={{Reflist}}
The next step is to put a reference in the text. Here is the code to do that. It goes at the end of the relevant phrase, sentence, or paragraph to which the note refers, without a space (to prevent separation through line wrap):
<ref> </ref>
Whatever text you put in between these two tags will become visible in the "References" section as your reference. In these reference tags you can place any identifying information; while this is frequently a website's web address it can also be basic specific referencing information about a book, newspaper or journal.
Wikipedia:Referencing_for_beginners