Style Guide

From RhetorClick

Revision as of 14:46, 17 April 2012

Purpose of Style Guide

This style guide will enable wiki contributors to keep a consistent voice, style, and design when adding or editing content. To make the wiki as effective as possible, it is important for both writing and design to remain consistent and accessible. Refer to the following guidelines for rules on grammar, punctuation, headings, form, and layout.

Style Guidelines

• When adding a new page, give a brief description (one or two sentences) of what information is found on that page immediately beneath the title.

• When using Level 2 Headlines, put one line space between the title and the first line entry.

• For bulleted and numbered lists, put one space between the bullet point and the first word.

• For bulleted and numbered lists, put one line space between entries.

• For all headings (titles and level 2 headlines), use up-style. (Example: This Is How It Should Look / This is not how it should look)

• In the convention of Wikipedia, at the bottom of each page, put "See Also" for links to other pages within the wiki and "External Links" in level 2 headlines for useful links that are not easily integrated into the body of text.

Writing Guidelines

• Follow the rules of American grammar and spelling.

• Follow MLA style when using citations

• Refer to Diana Hacker's online[1] guide to research and documentation for citation guidelines

Article Summaries

• Should be written in third person

• If using quotations, use footnotes to cite

• If possible, use hyperlinks to link to an online source

• Divide the article summary into four sections: Abstract, Summary, Possible Implications, and References

• The abstract should provide a succinct summary of the article, no more than 200 words long

• The article summary should provide a comprehensive overview of the article. If possible, include quotations (with footnotes).

• Following the summary, the "Possible Implications" section is a space for a more subjective analysis of the article. While this should still be written in third person, feel free to propose alternative interpretations or links to outside sources that may be related to the article.

• Lastly, end the article summary with the "References" section. Refer to the footnotes instructions at the end of the style guide for creating the references.

• List article summaries in alphabetical order by author's last name.

• Title should be the article title (within quotation marks), followed by the author's full name. (Example: "Definition of Man" by Kenneth Burke)

• Link to the author's page somewhere within the summary.

Glossary

• Bold the word being defined, followed by a colon

• If using a word/definition from an article, link to the article summary using a parenthetical reference after the definition

• Example definition-- Aesthetics: study of the mind and emotions in relation to the sense of beauty (see "The New Rhetoric: A Theory of Practical Reasoning" by Chaïm Perelman)

Author Pages

• List authors in alphabetical order by last name. For links, write authors' names as Last Name, First Name.

• Title should be the author's full name (include middle initials, if commonly used).

• Repeat author's full name to start entry, followed by birth year and death year (if still living, write "present").

• Link to article summaries by that author under an "Article Summaries" Level 2 Headline.

• Follow this general format for all author pages: summary, biography (including education, early life, family, occupations, awards, etc.), article summaries, additional works/ publications, further readings, references, and external links. Other sections can be added as desired (such as Notable Quotes).

Definitions of Rhetoric

• List authors alphabetically by last name. (Example: Burke, Kenneth)

• Do not use Level 2 Headlines for authors' name -- make the names bold.

• Use a bulleted list for definitions beneath author's name.

References

• Use a numbered list -- not a bulleted list.

Timeline

• List authors by First Name, Last Name.

• Link authors' names to their corresponding Authors Page.

• List authors in order by birth date, from earliest to most current.

Footnotes

• Use these instructions to create footnotes:

(If linking the footnote to a citation instead of a URL, put the citation within the brackets instead)