Help:Article structure
This article is part of the WikiNorthia Style manual and is based on Wikipedia Manual of Style.
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[edit] Article titles
If possible, the article’s title is the subject of the first sentence of the article, for example, “The Style Manual is a style guide” instead of “This style guide is known as …” If the article title is an important term, it appears as early as possible.
[edit] Headings and subheadings
- special characters such as the slash (/), plus sign (+), curly brackets ({ }) and square brackets ([ ]) are avoided, and the ampersand (&) is spelled out as and unless it is part of a formal name;
- the title should be short (more than 5 words is usually too many);
- articles (a, an, the) and pronouns (you, they) are typically avoided unless part of a formal name;
- the wording is, where possible, not identical to that of any other heading or subheading in the article.
[edit] Section management
Headings and subheadings provide an overview in the table of contents and allow readers to navigate through the text more easily. Subheadings are particularly appropriate for breaking up longer sections.
[edit] Hyperlinks
Make only links relevant to the context. It is not useful and can be very distracting to mark all possible words as hyperlinks. Links should add to the user’s experience; they should not detract from it by making the article harder to read. A high density of links can draw attention away from the high-value links that you would like your readers to follow up. Redundant links clutter up the page and make future maintenance harder. A link is the equivalent of a footnote in a print medium. Imagine if every second word in an encyclopedia article were followed by “(see:)”. Hence, the links should not be so numerous as to make the article harder to read.
Check links after they are activated to make sure they direct to the correct concept.
