User:Styracosaurus Rider/Manual of Style idea

Anyone on the Wiki Prehistorica can create articles, but for the article to become excellent for resource and reference, it needs to be consistent with other pages and yet suitable for comfortable reading. The Manual of Style is designed for this purpose.

This manual is for wiki-related style, for more basic styles/techniques such as capitalization, punctuation, and grammar please see Wikipedia's Manual of Style.

If any change to the Manual of Style wishes to be made, other than orderly spelling or grammar correction, please bring it up on the talk page beore making any changes.

Guidelines to keep in mind
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The article name
In general, articles for a prehistoric animal or plant should be written as the genus, e.g. "Megaloceros" as opposed to "Irish elk" (with some exceptions). Information for the species level should be included in the appropriate genus article, unless the species is particularly notable and/or important. For example, Velociraptor osmolskae would be included within the Velociraptor article, because V. osmolskae is known only from a few skull fragments and is not very well known. If a species in a genus is particularly well known, the article will probably focus on that species, with any relevant information on other species included in the article as well.

Layout
The layout of an article can vary greatly depending on the subject, but here are some recommended plans.

Fauna
This is the ideal layout for a top-of-the-class fauna article:
 * A taxobox should be at the top of the article.
 * Introductional paragraph
 * Description (which will include details such as anatomy)
 * Classification (where the subject fits in to a family tree, relationships with other ancient and modern animals, and complications surrounding its classification)
 * History (the history of discovery)
 * Paleobiology (under level 3 headings, include information under Diet and Locomotion, and then anything else of particular note for the genus [for example, the Sinosauropteryx article would include a heading about its feathers])
 * In special cases, an animal article might include a section about its relevant appearances in popular culture. Very well-known animals (e.g. Stegosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, Mammuthus etc.) only get this section.
 * Any other information of note
 * Each article must have a references section at the bottom of the article with valid references. These references are cited using the tags, and under the References heading the template should be written to collect these sources.

Flora
Much less is known about prehistoric plants than animals, so these articles will typically have fewer sections.
 * Taxobox
 * Introductional paragraph
 * Description
 * Classification
 * History (if applicable, not a lot of information is available on the history of fossil plants)
 * As with fauna, each article must have a references section at the bottom of the article with valid references. These references are cited using the tags, and under the References heading the template should be written to collect these sources.

Completed manual soon