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This Wikipedia Guide to Layout is an annotated, working guide to the basics of laying out an article. Complicated articles may be best modeled on the layout of an existing article of appropriate structure. This guide is not about how to use wiki markup (see Help:Editing for that); nor is it about writing style (see Manual of Style for that).
Lead section
As explained in more detail at WP:Accessibility, items in the lead should be presented in the following order: disambiguation links, maintenance tags, infoboxes, images, navigational boxes, and introductory text, moving to the heading of the first section.
A "for topics of the same name ..." disambiguation link is sometimes put at the beginning of an article to link to another article discussing another meaning of the article title. Do not make this initial link a section. In such cases, the line should be italicized and indented using templates. A horizontal line should not be placed under this line. See also Wikipedia:Hatnote.
As explained in more detail at Wikipedia:Lead section, all but the shortest articles should start with introductory text (the "lead"). The lead should establish significance, include mention of notable criticism or controversies, and be written in a way that makes readers want to know more. The appropriate length of the lead depends on that of the article, but should be no more than four paragraphs. The lead itself has no heading; and, on pages with more than three headings, automatically appears above the table of contents. See also Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles#Lead section.
First paragraph
Normally, the opening paragraph summarizes the most important points of the article. It should clearly explain the subject so that the reader is prepared for the greater level of detail that follows. If further introductory material is appropriate before the first section, it can be covered in subsequent paragraphs in the lead. Introductions to biographical articles commonly double as summaries, listing the best-known achievements of the subject. Because some readers will read only the opening of an article, the most vital information should be included.
The subject of the article should be mentioned in bold text ("The '''Solar System''' consists of ...") at a natural place, preferably in the first sentence, although see bolding titles and establishing the context for exceptions. If the subject is normally italicized (for example, a work of art, literature, album or ship), its first mention should be both bold and italic ("The 1656 painting '''''Las Meninas''''' by Diego Velázquez ...").
If the subject of the article has more than one name, each new form of the name should be in bold on its first appearance.
Sodium hydroxide (Na O H), also known as caustic soda or lye ...
If an article's title has a parenthetical disambiguator, it should not be included in the bold text. Egg (food) should start with:
An egg is an ovum produced by ...", not "An egg (food) is an ovum produced by...
Body sections
- See also: Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Section headings
Headings and paragraphs
The number of single-sentence paragraphs should be minimized, since these can inhibit the flow of the text. By the same token, paragraphs become hard to read once they exceed a certain length.
Headings help to make an article clearer and populate the table of contents, which users can choose under 'Preferences' to view (the default) or not to view; see Wikipedia:Section and Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Headings are hierarchical, so you should start with ==Heading== and follow it with ===Subheading===, ====Subsubheading====, and so forth.
Articles generally comprise prose paragraphs, not bullet points; however, sometimes a bulleted list can break up what would otherwise be an overly large, grey mass of text, particularly if the topic requires significant effort on the part of readers. Bulleted lists should not be overused in the main text, but are typical in the reference and reading sections at the bottom. Just as for paragraphs, any sections and subsections that are very short or very long will make the article look cluttered and inhibit the flow. Short paragraphs and single sentences generally do not warrant their own subheading, and in these circumstances, it may be preferable to use bullet points. See also Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles#Paragraphs.
Between paragraphs and between sections, there should be only a single blank line. Multiple blank lines unnecessarily lengthen the article and can make it more difficult to read.
The degree to which subtopics should appear in a single article or be given their own pages is a matter of judgment and of controlling the total length of the article.
If the order in which sections should appear is not clear, use an alphabetical or chronological order. An alphabetical order is especially useful when sections are divided for countries, states, or other divisions.
If a section is a summary of another article
- See also: Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles#Layout
When a section is a summary of another article, it should have a link before the text (but after the section heading). You can use the {{Main}} template to generate this link.[1]
"See also" for one section
If the "See also" refers to articles relevant specifically to a particular section, references to articles that are not wikilinked from the text may be placed immediately after the section heading for that section. Such additional references should be grouped together at the beginning of the section for easy selection by the reader, along with any {{Main}} templates, rather than being scattered throughout the text of a section. You can use one of the following templates to generate these links:
- {{Details}} - which generates For more details on this topic, see
- {{Further}} - which generates Further information:
- {{See also}} - which generates See also:
Standard appendices
Certain optional standard sections, when used, should be placed at the bottom of an article. There is consensus that the plural form of the section name should be used. Common appendix sections are discussed below. These sections should all be level 2 headings so that they appear as sections rather than subsections in the table of contents.[2]
With the exception of Works, sections which contain material outside Wikipedia (including Further reading, and External links) should come after sections that contain Wikipedia material (including See also) to help keep the distinction clear. The sections containing notes and references often contain both kinds of material and, consequently, appear after the See also section (if any) and before the Further reading section (if any). Succession boxes and navigational footers go at the end of the article, following the last appendix section, but preceding the "categories and interwiki links".
Works
Contents: Books or other works authored by the subject of the article.
Location: Usually precedes the other optional appendices.
Format: A list, usually ordered chronologically. May be titled "Bibliography", "Publications", or "Works."
See also
Contents: The "See also" or, less commonly, "Related topics" section provides internal links to related Wikipedia articles. "See also" is the most appropriate place to link a Portal with {{portal}} template.
A reasonable number of relevant links that would be in a hypothetical "perfect article" are suitable to add to the "See also" section of a less developed one.[3] Links already included in the body of the text are generally not repeated in "See also"; however, whether a link belongs in the "See also" section is ultimately a matter of editorial judgment and common sense. A "perfect" article then may not have a "See also" section at all, though some links may not naturally fit into the body of text and others may not be included due to size constraints. Links that would be included if the article were not kept relatively short for other reasons may thus be appropriate, though should be used in moderation, as always. These may be useful for readers looking to read as much about a topic as possible, including subjects only peripherally related to the one in question. The section should not link to pages that do not exist.
Location: The See also section, if used, follows the Works section, if used.
Format: The links should appear in a bulleted list. It is helpful to alphabetize the links if there are more than a few of them. Also provide a brief explanatory sentence when the relevance of the added links is not immediately apparent. For example:
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Notes, Footnotes, or References
Contents: This section, or group of sections, presents the explanatory notes and a list of the references that support the information in the article.
Location: The notes and references appear after the See also section (if any) and before the Further reading and External links sections (if any).
Format: The format of these sections, their titles, and the specific information in each depends on the citation style used in the article. Implementation details regarding different citation styles can be found at Wikipedia:Footnotes and Wikipedia:Citing sources.[4] As explained in more detail at WP:MOS#Consistency, it is inappropriate to change an article from one defined style to another unless there is a reason that goes beyond mere choice of style.
Further reading
Contents: A list of any books, articles, or other publications that is recommended to readers as further reading, useful background, or sources of further information.
This section does not include publications that were used as reliable sources in writing this article; these should be cited as references. Websites and online publications should be listed in the "External links" section instead of in this section. To avoid unnecessary duplication of information, publications listed in any other section of the article should not be included in "Further reading".
Location: This section is placed after the References section and before the External links section (if any).
Format: This is a bulleted list, usually alphabetized, as explained in more detail at the guideline for lists of works. Publications listed in this section are cited in the same reference style used by the rest of the article.
External links
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Contents: Place here any relevant websites that have not been used as sources and that you recommend for readers of the article. Unlike wikilinks, which are often used within the article's text, external links are normally limited to the "External links" section. Links to external websites used as sources should be listed in the "References" or "Notes" section. External links may be listed in the section "Further reading", instead of having a separate section specifically for external links.
Location: If there is an External links section, it should be last for a number of reasons, including: So many articles have the External links section at the end that many people expect that. Some External links and references sections are very long, and when the name of the section is not visible on the screen, it could cause problems if someone meant to delete an external link, and deleted a reference instead. Keeping the External links last is also helpful to editors who patrol external links.
Format: External links should be arranged in a bulleted list, with a short description of the link and no blank lines between items. By convention, if the article is about a company or organization, then their official website is the first link in the list.
Links to sister projects
Links to Sister projects should be under the last appendix section. If there is no external links section into which to integrate the templates (e.g. {{commons}}, {{wikibooks}}, {{wikinews}}), inline versions of templates (e.g. {{commons-inline}}, {{wikibooks-inline}}, {{wikiquote-inline}}) are usually available. See Category:Interwiki link templates to check whether an inline template exists.
Navigational footers, categories, interlanguage links etc.
Various navigational aids go at the end of the article, following the last appendix section. The conventional order is:
Formatting
Images
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You should always be watchful not to overwhelm an article with images by adding more just because you can. Unless clearly better or more appropriate images are available, the existing images in the article should be left in place.
Images should ideally be spread evenly within the article, and relevant to the sections they are located in. All images should also have an explicative caption. An image should not overwhelm the screen; 300px may be considered a limit, as this is approximately half Wikipedia's text space's width on a 800x600 screen. It is a good idea to try to maintain visual coherence by aligning the width of images and templates on a given page.
When placing images, be careful not to stack too many of them within the lead, or within a single section to avoid bunching up several section edit links in some browsers. Generally, if there are so many images in a section that they strip down into the next section at 1024x768 screen resolution, that probably means either that the section is too short, or that there are too many images.
If an article has many images, so many, in fact, that they lengthen the page beyond the length of the text itself (this also applies if a template like {{taxobox}} or {{Judaism}} is already stretching the page), you can try to use a gallery, but the ideal solution might be to create a page or category combining all of them at Wikimedia Commons and use a relevant template ({{commons}}, {{commonscat}}, {{commons-inline}} or {{commonscat-inline}}) and link to it instead, so that further images are readily found and available when the article is expanded.
Horizontal rule
The use of horizontal rules (----) in articles is deprecated. They were once used to separate multiple meanings of a single article name. However this is now done with disambiguation pages.
They are occasionally used to provide separation inside some templates (e.g. {{politbox}} derivatives), within some discussions, or when needed in some format specialties.
See also
Footnotes
- ^ Syntax:
{{main|Circumcision and law}}
Which produces:
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- ^ Syntax:
== See also ==
* [[Wikipedia:How to edit a page]]
* [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style]]
Which produces:
See also
- ^ This of course refers only to links related to the topic, not links that are incidental, e.g. linking to a jargon word in a sentence
- ^ These featured articles give examples of some of the notes and references styles that have evolved over time:
- Putting linked short citations in a “Notes” section followed by a list of full citations in a “References” section. See, e.g., Starship Troopers (this article has no comments). (A variation on this approach is to put linked short and full citations in a “Notes” section followed by a list of additional full citations in a “References” section as in Palazzo Pitti.)
- Putting linked comments in a “Notes” section, followed by linked short citations in a “References” section, followed by a list of full citations in a “Bibliography” section. See, e.g., Jane Austen. (A variation on this approach is to name the last two sections "Citations" and "References" as in Pericles).
- Putting linked full citations in a “Notes” section, followed by a list of full citations in a “References” section. See, e.g., Rosa Parks (this article has no comments). (Or reversing the order of presentation, as in Absinthe.)
In addition, particularly for articles with fewer notes and references, an article may have a combined “Notes and references” section.
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