The Last of Us Wiki:Manual of style

This Manual of Style was based off WoWWiki's Manual of Style. Credit goes to the original creators.

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This Manual of Style outlines a standard of clean, consistent formatting for articles on this wiki. The formatting described here is a guideline and can be overridden where circumstances warrant it. These guidelines will never be unerringly perfect for every situation. However, please try your best to keep to the advice outlined in this article so others may use your edits as an example when creating and editing their own articles.

These guidelines are a summary of the most important guidelines for this wiki, but a more expansive set of style guidelines can be found on Wikipedia at Wikipedia Manual of Style.

General

One of the most important parts of wiki editing is how to structure an article. The structure is a powerful thing: it dictates what information the reader reads and when he or she reads it. It can influence what people contribute, where it goes, and how it might be written. Structure has the power to inform or confuse the same way good or bad writing does. Keep a well structured article, and you're more likely to have a high quality one.

Organize sections in an article in a hierarchical structure like you would an outline. Keep it logical, but feel free to forsake strict logic for readability. Wherever possible, try to have an introduction for each section. Just like the article as a whole, the section should start with an introduction and then have its subsections below it. Try using a shallow structure rather than a deep one. Too many nested sections usually leads to a confusing or unreadable article.

Above all, keep your layout consistent. Don't throw your reader a curve ball too often. The following sections will offer some good advice on keeping your articles clean, consistent, and clear.

Protagonist

• In encyclopedic articles , the protagonist of The Last of Us should be referred to as "Joel".
• In walkthrough articles and guides, second person (you) should be used.
• The term "the player" should only be used to refer to the individual playing the game, not a character.

Lead section

Unless an article is very short, it should start with an introductory lead section, before the first subheading. The lead should not be explicitly entitled == Introduction == or any equivalent header. The table of contents, if displayed, appears after the lead section and before the first subheading.

The lead should be capable of standing alone as a concise overview of the article, establishing context, and explaining why the subject is interesting or notable. It should be between one or two paragraphs long, and should be written in a clear and accessible style so that the reader is encouraged to read the rest of the article.

If possible, make the title the subject of the first sentence of the article. For example, write "Ellie is a teenage girl who appears in The Last of Us."

The first time the article mentions the title, put it in bold using three apostrophes — '''article title''' produces article title. Avoid other uses of bold in the first sentence, except for alternative titles of an article; for example:

The Infected, known as Clickers or Bloaters, are enemies that appear in The Last of Us.

The titles of all books, games, game series and comics should be in italics:

The Last of Us: American Dreams is a comic prequel to The Last of Us.

Do not put links in the bold reiteration of the title in the article's lead sentence. For example,

"[[Bill]] is a character in The Last of Us."
Versus
"Bill is a character in The Last of Us."

Table of contents

A table of contents will automatically appear in articles with a minimum of four headings (unless forced by the below options). By default this will be left-aligned above the first section heading.

• To the force a TOC position (left-aligned): __TOC__
• To completely remove the TOC from a page: __NOTOC__

The table of contents can be right-aligned - but only if it is very long (over 15 entries) and an information box (infobox) is not occupying the top-right corner of the article (rare exceptions exist).

• Right-aligned TOC that floats next to text: {{tocright}}

Section headings

Use the == (two equal signs) style markup for main headings, equivalent to <h2>. Do not use a single =. This is because a single = creates an <h1> heading which is already used by the page header and would be bad coding.

Capitalize the first letter only of the first word and of any proper nouns in a heading and leave all of the other letters in lowercase. Use "Founding and history", not "Founding and History". Note that this is different from most section title rules you'll encounter elsewhere.

Always keep headings short and simple. Headings are guidelines to your page's structure and should inform the reader rather than confuse. To keep it short, avoid unnecessary words or redundancy in headings, i.e. avoid a, an, and the, pronouns, repeating the article title, and so on. Also, try to avoid giving identical titles to different sections.

Images

Images make an article memorable and pretty. They can speak where words fail. At the same time, misplaced or untidy images can detract from an article. When choosing images, keep in mind placement, size, and the appropriateness of the image to the section. Let images flow with the text instead of break it up.

Large images such as screenshots should use the "thumb" (example:[[Image:CoolImage.png|thumb]]) option which displays large images as thumbnails. Images should generally be right aligned to enhance readability by allowing a smooth flow of text down the left margin - the "thumb" option does this by default. If an infobox is not being used in an article, a right aligned picture in the lead section is encouraged.

Galleries

When an article has many images, or can be improved by having more, and having inline images be detract from the readability of an articles, the use of a <gallery> section is encouraged.

Caption

Caption

Tables

Tables should use a "class" design when possible, and should include as little 'fancy' formatting as possible. Tables can also be made sortable by adding a "sortable" class.

For long tables, it is recommended to create an "alt" class to alternate row colours to enhance readability. The below examples use "toccolours" as a class, but this is only for the purposes of demonstration, and isn't generally recommended.

With row headings, table caption, sortable

Without row headings, with alt rows

See also, references, external links, and navigational tables

The last sections, if they exist, should always be "See also", followed by "References", followed by "External links". In the case of "See also", use bullets to list the internal links. Under the references section should be placed <references/>. Finally, in the external links should be all external links.

Categories

Categories should be added to the end of an article - a full list can be found on Special:Categories. They take the form [[Category:Categoryname]].

All articles should be accessible starting from Category:Browse, via subcategories.

Quotations

Format a long quote (over four lines) as an italicized block quotation, which will be indented from both margins. Do not enclose the block quote in quotation marks. To format a block quotation, do not use the wiki indentation mark ":" — instead, use the HTML <blockquote> element.

Grammar

Grammar is a writer's toolbox. You can't build good sentences without knowing how to use your tools. Since a wiki article must be as clear as possible for all the people reading it, editors must keep close to correct grammar standards to ensure clear communication.

Titles of works

Italics are used for the titles of works, such as books and games. The titles of articles, chapters, and other short works are not italicized but are enclosed in double quotation marks.

For example, italicize The Last of Us, and use quotes if it is only a chapter that is mentioned.

Writing

“I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs” -- Stephen King

We now come to the meat of an article: the words themselves. When you're editing wikis, you're both academic and artist. You have to be accurate, but you also have to be interesting. Neither one can dominate; you have to skillfully balance both.

Keep your writing concise. Don't use two words where one will do. Keeping your writing simple will make it easy to understand and easy to expand on. Use complete sentences whenever possible. When you write, use grammar as a toolbox: know the rules, but only break them on purpose.

Check your spelling and grammar. Do not use 'u' in place of 'you' or '2' in place of 'to'. Write the way you would for a class paper or a newspaper article.

Italice titles: We use a simple approach of italicising everything. So it's The Last of Us, Left Behind and so on.

Be bold. If you know something is wrong, correct it. If you think you could word something better, write it. If an article has a glaring deficiency, fill it. Even if your first attempt isn't golden, you can fix it later or someone else will come along and fix it for you. Don't be afraid to screw up.

Keep all of the topics you cover within the scope of the article. What that means is, you don't need to give a detailed history of humans on the page about Survivors. Consider the article's title as your point of origin and write from that perspective. Make use of the wiki's ability to link to more detailed articles or external sources for more information.

In-universe content only: This is a wikia solely about The Last of Us. As such, only content mentioned in the games and other related media can have a place on this wiki. Also, given the majority of visitors here will be "fans" of said games, it can be expected they possess a basic understanding of what they are delving into is. If it is fan fiction you are looking for or desire to make, please visit our fanon partner wiki.

Write from an impersonal perspective.' Do not use "I." Avoid drawing attention to the author (yourself) as much as possible. While our aim as part of FANDOM is to recount our own personal interpretations of the content we have experienced, editors must still write with an objective style and narrative. Personal views about certain characters, events, etc. are best kept to oneself or taken to the forums for discussion with other editors.

Use an in-universe narrative: An in-universe perspective is required for articles. Our Marlene page treats the subject like a real person who actually existed, so our article is written entirely in the past tense. For more details on our tensing rules, see below.

Past for the deceased. Present for the living: Predominantly, articles should use the past tense because the information being recalled has occurred; we are not Wikipedia. The exceptions to such are for characters who are alive, and things like chapter pages in the plot which is recalling what exactly occurred within the story.

Evidence is everything: No evidence? Can't be said. This wiki solely accepts factual information; you must have a source for near enough everything you cite on the wiki. Common knowledge for those playing the game is not expected (ie: Joel is the protagonist) but more questionable information mentioned in the real world in reviews and interviews for instance is better sourced (ie: Neil Druckmann said he envisioned Joel as a man with very few lines left to cross). Don't see something questionable sourced? Add {{fact}} to the sentence so other editors can cross ref it and add an appropriate source.

What counts as a source?

For us, the narrative is the primary source for in-universe articles, and reference books are entirely invalid, except in "trivia" sections. We believe we're capable of factually reporting the contents of stories, and that we don't need someone like Neil Druckmann telling us what we saw.

As a general rule, the source must come from the developer's officially released game to make it into the majority of articles - if it was not in the game, it can't go on the page. Although, when not in regards to stories or characters, factual sources like newspapers, interviews, videos endorsed by Naughty Dog are allowed. Fan sites and blogs cannot be allowed though, nor can self-reference; ie: Ellie is 14 years old as said in the game. If Ashley Johnson was to post a tweet stating Ellie is actually 13, we take the in-game reference as the valid source: people lie, games cannot though.

Conclusion

Every article can be improved (even this one). Following these guidelines will not ensure a perfect article the first time, but it will give the article a stronger skeleton. It's ultimately your job as an editor to put meat on it.

See also

• Help:Editing

External links

• Wikipedia's Manual of Style

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