Below are some guidelines to follow when creating articles.
Naming articles[]
- Article names should be in singular form, not plural.
- The titles of articles about persons real or fictitious should be their full names rather than partial names or nicknames, unless they are more commonly referred to by only their nicknames. Personal titles, such as "Dr.", should be excluded; these can be mentioned in the article itself.
- Unless the name of the article contains (or is) a proper noun, none of the words after the first should be capitalized. This includes the phrase "Coen brothers."
Headings[]
Use the == (heading) markup for headings, not the ''' (bold) markup. Example:
===This is a heading===
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 or titles 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 Coen Brothers Wiki may use many varieties of English, we prefer standard American English spelling, grammar, punctuation, and word usage.
If a word has two acceptable variants in American English, the one that is considered "more American" is to be used. One such example is the spelling of judgement as judgment. The only exception of this rule is the spelling of words ending in -ogue: while dialog is an acceptable version of dialogue, the latter is preferred.
Italicizing[]
Italicize the names of all movies (ex.: Raising Arizona), books, magazines, and newspapers.
Dashes[]
Use the following guidelines and codes for dashes.
- - (Regular hyphen) - Used for listing items, as in this line before the word "used." (Colons may also be used for this.) Also used for hyphenated terms, such as "ex-wife."
–- Used for ranges, such as 1988–1999.—- Used to create parenthetical-style "em dashes"—as here.
Perspective[]
In-universe[]
If something is in-universe, or is described as such, it belongs to the universe within a Coen work exclusively and not to the real world. Characters, for example, are in-universe, but the actors who play them are out-of-universe. Companies (like Hudsucker Industries) should likewise be written about from an in-universe perspective, as though they actually existed.
In an in-universe article, the only section where out-of-universe information is appropriate is the "Behind the scenes" section and its subsections. See below for more details.
Out-of-universe[]
Out-of-Universe refers to the perspective in which an article is written; it is the opposite of in-universe. Something written from an out-of-universe (OOU) perspective is written from a real life point of view. It will refer, for example, to real life publications, actors, authors, events, and so on, acknowledging that its subject is fictional. In contrast, an in-universe perspective will strive for verisimilitude; that is, it will be written as though the author existed within the Star Wars universe. Articles about any in-universe things, such as characters, vehicles, terminology, or species, should always be written from an in universe perspective. If a section in the article is not, such as the listing of a character's published appearances or behind the scenes details, it should be tagged as such. In contrast, articles about books, movies, games, or other real-life Star Wars material should obviously be written from an out-of-universe perspective, but should still be noted as such. Basically, in-universe articles should never refer to Star Wars by name, or any other real life things such as publications, actors, or the like.
Tense[]
Present tense should be used in OOU plot summaries, as in movie articles such as The Big Lebowski.
Past tense should be used in all IU article sections; when writing in-universe, consider the events of the Coens' films to have already taken place. Past tense should also be used, where appropriate, in OOU (real-world) articles—to describe a real person's career history, for example.