The Mailer Review/Volunteer/Remediating Articles: Difference between revisions

If you clicked on the red link to begin creating the article, the title has been chosen for you. However, we want to tweak the display title, so we have to use a code called <code><nowiki>{{DISPLAYTITLE}}</nowiki></code>. With this element, you can insert necessary text formatting, like [[w:MOS:ITALIC|italics]]:

The <code><nowiki><span></nowiki></code> tag shrinks the root page names to highlight the title of the page. The code above will work for most article titles. However, if the title contains italicized elements, like the title of a novel, you must replace <code><nowiki>{{SUBPAGENAME}}</nowiki></code> with the actual title, so you can include the italics. For example:

Putting two apostrophes (<code><nowiki>''</nowiki></code>) on both sides of <code><nowiki>An American Dream</nowiki></code> will italicize the novel’s name in the published document (see [[mediawikiwiki:Help:Formatting|Help:Formatting]]); check out the [[The Mailer Review/Volume 1, 2007/An American Dream: The Singular Nightmare|published article]]. Once you’ve entered your title, click the “Show preview” button under the editor window to see the results.{{efn|Get into the habit of clicking this button with every bit that you add to the article. It allows you to quickly see if you’ve made a mistake, so you can fix it before saving.}} Note that the title must otherwise be exactly the same, or the system will ignore the code and spit out an error. If it does, just review your code carefully and fix what’s needed.

The byline template <code>{{tl|byline}}</code> should come next. It will include the writer’s or editor’s name, an abstract (if applicable), a note(s) (if applicable), and a short url. Here’s an example of the <code>byline</code> code:

For an explanation of all the variables, see <code>{{tl|byline}}</code>. You needn’t worry about the “abstract,” “note,” or “url” variables; I’ll fill those in later, if necessary.

This section houses an author’s explanatory endnotes or footnotes, like the “Notes” section at the bottom of this page. Notes may be inserted in the body of the text, using <code>{{tl|efn}}</code>, for example:

This note will be indicated by a superscript, small letter, like ^[a] —except it will be a hyperlink. Now, you must have place for these notes to be listed near the end of the document, just above the Citations section:

See [[The Mailer Review/Volume 9, 2015/“Up to the Nostrils in Anguish”: Mailer and Bellow on Masculine Anxiety and Violent Catharsis|this article]] for another, more complex example. For a more thorough discussion of this function, see [[w:Template:Efn|Template:Efn]] on Wikipedia.

A list of works cited should be the last section in the document. It is sorted alphabetically by author’s last name and uses [[w:Wikipedia:Citation templates|citation templates]]. This is easier for two reasons: (1) you only need to list the reference '''once''' in the article, and (2) it cleans up your body text of much of the confusing code. This section is created like this:

This might look a bit confusing, but I’ll go through it. The first line adds a new section to the article. All references should appear between <code><nowiki>{{Refbegin}}</nowiki></code> and <code><nowiki>{{Refend}}</nowiki></code> in a bulleted list (notice each reference is on its own line and begins with <code><nowiki>*</nowiki></code>.  

For in-text citations, what will usually appear as MLA-style parenthetical, we use [[w:Template:Sfn|shortened footnotes]] <code><nowiki>{{sfn}}</nowiki></code>. First, add a section where your citations will appear, just above your works cited section:

Here’s an example of the shortened footnote at work in the body of the article:

This is a Wikipedia template. “Sfn” calls the template in the code; the author’s last name follows the first pipe (this must correspond with the name that follows <code><nowiki>|last=</nowiki></code> in the detailed citation in your works cited list); the year of the publication follows the next (exactly the same as <code><nowiki>|date=</nowiki></code> in the citation); and the page number(s) are put last. This will insert a footnote in the text; when a user clicks it, she is taken to the citation and if she clicks the citation, she is taken to the longer works cited entry. Rendered on the page, it will look like:

Notice its placement of the footnote code: '''right up against the period with no space in between'''. Footnote indications should always come ''after'' punctuation; never before. Try it on the example article I linked above. Simple and elegant.