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This is the Manual of Style for the Tamora Pierce Wiki. It contains guidelines for well-written articles in order to make life easier for everyone, because they enable us to have some consistency in how articles are written and presented. As new problems arise these guidelines might be subject to change, but in almost every case there will be a general discussion on the issue in the community forum or on this article's talk page. If you have an objection, a suggestion or a question of any kind, please bring it up on the talk page, or else open up the subject for discussion on the community forum.

For help with wiki markup, please see Help:Editing.

Content

This wiki is about the works of Tamora Pierce, and is an editable online encyclopedia for the Tortallan and the Circle Universe alike, including characters, places, events and other things mentioned in said works. Therefore only information coming directly from the novels (canon) or the author herself (quasi-canon) should be included in the articles. Personal opinions, guesses on future outcomes, given they aren't supported by information given through the books or the author herself, or even fanfiction are not to be placed in the article. However, those subjects are perfect for discussion in the user blogs, which can be created by every user for their own purposes, or in your personal user space. But even with those user-related places (blog and user page), your main focus should be improving the wiki.

The written work should be your own and not just copied from wikipedia. The articles still containing whole passages from wikipedia are currently being rewritten and help is highly appreciated. Special care should be taken with images. Copyrighted pictures, which includes nearly every image, even fanart, shouldn't be uploaded at all, unless the artist (or holder of the rights on the picture) has given their permission. If so please use this template to mark the fanart as coming from a certain artist and show that you have the artist's permission. Images of the book covers or maps are also copyrighted. However, their usage on the wiki often complies with fair use and thus they don't require special permission. But those images, too, must be properly tagged as being fair use. Images released under public domain are also free to use, as long as the corresponding rules (dependant from the sort of public domain) are followed. Please make sure to add a copyright tag from this category to every image you upload (the corresponding copyright tag can be selected in the upload form). Images without proper copyright notices will be deleted.

General

Perspective

For consistency's sake, all articles about characters, places, events or things from within the novels should be written from an "in-universe" perspective as opposed to a "real-world" perspective.

First you should use years and key events instead of book titles. For example instead of writing "In order to find the counterfeiter Rebakah Cooper and Clara Goodwin went to Port Caynn in Bloodhound", you should write "In order to find the counterfeiter, Rebakah Cooper and Clara Goodwin went to Port Caynn in September of 247 HE". You can get the years for the events in question from the Tortallan timeline, if you need them. However, years can also be avoided by referencing to a key event. Thus you could write "Liam Ironarm died during the Coronation Day Battle" instead of "Liam Ironarm died at the end of Lioness Rampant". In many cases key events are preferable to dates or should at least be cited along with the according years. The same principle applies for the Emelanese Universe, for which a timeline can be found here, although it's by far not finished or comprehensive, but the most important key events, like when a certain book is set, are there.

If a book reference is still needed (and it's never wrong to cite one's source) you may put it in a footnote by using <ref>''Book title''</ref>. There you can also include the chapter or even page where the information can be found. If citing a specific page you should also include the edition you're citing from, because pages can vary between editions. Don't forget to put a <references /> at the bottom of the page or your reference won't show up. In most cases the citation of exact pages is unnecessary, because information appears in several places in the novels or is clear to everyone. However, when giving exact dates, specific details or information which might be controversial it is always best to give the other editors the possibility to look it up and verify it for themselves.

Second you should write articles in the past tense, because from an in-universe perspective the things have already happened. This can be seen most clearly in the Rebakah Cooper Series, which is set two hundred years before Alanna: The First Adventure, making all characters within long dead by the time the most current (from a timeline point-of-view) standpoint. If you stumble upon an in-universe article still in present tense don't hesitate to change it to comply with this Manual of Style.

Of course the above principles don't apply to articles about subjects in the real world, like the article about the author herself or the novels.

Citations

How to add citations:

Go to Source Mode. To do so, click edit on a page and in the scroll down menu with three bars, choose Source. In Source you can use HTML style for wiki.

1. To add citation that only comes up once in article:

<ref>''Lioness Rampant'', Chapter number (pg. number; Name of publishing company)</ref>

2. To add a citation that comes up multiple times per article:

<ref name="nameofcitation">''Lioness Rampant'', Chapter number (pg. number; Name of publishing company)</ref>

3. To recall a citation (only for repeats of above example):

<ref name="nameofcitation" />

Please don't call the ref names nameofcitation but reference the chapter in the name? Like:

<ref name="c1" />

Remember, it doesn't matter where the citation goes in the article even if it is called multiple times. Your new citation can come before or after the original, or even in an infobox. Please be sure that there are not repeats of specific citations!

Referencing outside sources:

If referencing a specific website, like tumblr or wordpress, please link to the website in the citation. E.g.

<ref>[https://www.wikipedia.org/ Article link]</ref>

How to call citations at end:
Standard:

==Notes and references==
<references />

If there are too many citations and it seems disorganized:

==Notes and references==
{{reflist|colwidth=20em}}

Be sure to italicize the title of the book by using two separate apostrophes before and after the word (as seen in the examples). You don't need to do the publishing company for every single reference, but please do so if there are specific page numbers or if you skip to different editions with page numbers.

Spelling

Due to the fact that all of Tamora Pierce's novels are originally American books the appropriate spelling should also be used on this wiki, especially in cases of alternative spelling like "colour" and "color", in which case the latter version should be used. Also make sure that you spell names of characters, places or anything else coming from the books correctly, especially when also linking those names as false-spelt will render as red links and thus create the impression that an article about the subjects doesn't exist yet, while it really does. For spotting those "false red links" using the "Preview" button right next to the "Save page" button has proven to be helpful because you see with one glance where a red link would be created and can double-check if this red link might perhaps be the result of a false spelling. To verify your spelling the glossaries at the end of most novels give you a good point to start with.

Naming of Articles

Articles should go by the name usually associated with the character or place. This is especially tricky for characters which have changed their name in the course of the books, for example because of marriage or because they were awarded with another fief. Possibly the best example for this is Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Olau. We're using this name for her article because that's what she's known under in all the later series' (from The Immortals onwards), although she has been known under "Alanna of Trebond", "Alan" and "Alanna of Trebond and Olau" in her own books. Daine, on the other hand, has only recently (in-universe) married Numair Salmalín and become "Veralidaine Salmalín". As she had been known throughout the majority of the novels as Veralidaine "Daine" Sarrasri, and as most people would know her from the books by that name, her article is named Veralidaine Sarrasri. Again the same principles apply to the Circle Universe. Aymery Glassfire was originally born Aymery Chandler, but because he's generally known under Glassfire in Tris's Book (his only appearance), that's what his article is named. Sandry's mother on the other hand was still the clehame of Landreg and thus known as "Amiliane fa Landreg": that's her article's name. It's also possible that noblewomen who have their own fiefs do not change their names in the Circle Universe, as Inoulia fa Juzon was married to a member of House Toren, but she is not styled as Inoulia fa Toren.

These distinctions aren't always easy or absolute. So if you think an article would be better suited to be under another name, just bring it up on the article's talk page.

Linking to Other Pages

When adding information to articles it is appropriate to link names, places, and events to their corresponding articles in the wiki. Linking is done by adding [[ ]] around the name of the page you want to link to. You should add a link the first time a character's name, a place, or an event appears in an article. Do not relink every time you mention the same name/place/event. Please only re-link if you go into a different section of the article, and re-link only once per section. There is no need to link the name of the article to itself. This only results in bolding the name of the article and increased clutter in source editor. The reader is already on the article page and clicking the link would only take them back to where they already are.

Some characters and miscellaneous things in Tamora Pierce's books have very similar names (sometimes they share exactly the same name). Take care when linking that you are adding the link for the correct target page. All character pages on this site have unique names, but it's still possible to accidentally link to the wrong one in your article. To help with this, there is a category on this wiki called "disambiguation" that contains all pages tagged as ambiguous. These pages all include a note to help you figure out exactly where to find the page you're looking for and a short description of that page.

The disambiguation category includes not only the pages with similar names, but also special pages that only contain links to the ambiguously-named articles. You can find a comprehensive list of the special disambiguation pages here. Do NOT link directly to these disambiguation pages, only link to the article of the actual character that you've mentioned.

Formatting

  1. Open every article with an introductory sentence that contains the name of the article, bolded. E.G. "Corus is the capital city of Tortall." Other names for one subject or character are also written in bold letters on their first, e.g. "Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Olau, born Alanna of Trebond ...". Only bolden the first occurance of an article's name.
  2. Use complete grammatical sentences. Do: "Pasco is an ambient dance mage." Don't: "Dance mage. Harrier. Student of Sandry."
  3. Use the English language to the best of your ability. Mind spelling, grammar, punctuation, paragraphing and capitalization at all time.
  4. Spell the names of characters, places and concepts correctly; capitalize when capitalized in the text, but not otherwise. Double-check resources like character lists.
  5. Note ambiguities in an extra section, most properly under an heading like "Trivia", or in a reference (see above) for the ambiguous fact. Make sure to cite them. E.G. "In Alanna: The First Adventure Jonathan is said to be three years older than Alanna, but later in In the Hand of the Goddess he's nineteen when she is fifteen."
  6. Italicize the titles of books, short stories and comics on every occurance in any article. On their respective article put the title's first occurance both in italic and bold letters.
  7. Italicize foreign words and titles, real or fictional. E.G. jian, trangshi, shukusen. However, if foreign words are not italicized in the text (like raka and luarin) they needn't be italicized in the wiki.
  8. Link to other pages whenever another character, place, event or anything else comes up. However, any page should only be linked once on any other page, normally on the topic's first appearance in the text.

Special Articles

Characters

  1. Open the article with the character's full, current name according to the latest canon. E.G. "Alanna of Pirate's Swoop."
  2. Note nicknames and previous names. E.G. "Sandrilene "Sandry" fa Toren," or "Ilane of Mindelan, formerly of Seabeth and Seajen."
  3. Put every name a character is or was known under bold.
  4. Recount the character's history in chronological order, for them. Start with early life and progress through known milestones. Note significant unknowns. Depending on how much biographical information about the character is known it would probably be a good idea to give this point its own section under the heading "Biography" and then even subdivide it further into "Early life", "Page training", "Life in Winding Circle" or whatever fits as a stage for that character's history.
  5. Avoid character commentary. State objective fact swithout embelishments, and attribute subjective facts to their owners. E.G. "Alanna instantly dislikes Roger, although she thinks that she should be attracted to him."
  6. Avoid flowery language, especially when describing a character's physical appearance. Do: "Tris is overweight and considers herself unattractive." Don't: "Tris is fat and ugly."
  7. You might also want to use a template like an infobox, a navbox or a family tree. Just choose the appropriate template(s) for the character in question from the above cateories and add it to the page. The infobox is best placed at the top of the page, even before the content begins, while the navbox should be placed at the bottom, under "See also" and a family tree fits best under "Relationships".
  8. Quotes might also be nice, if they really fit. They should say something about the character and give some insight. They should be under that heading where they best fit. For example a quote about Beka's strange eyes would be best under "Physical description", while a quote about Sandry's fear of the dark would be best under "Personality and traits". You can find different quote templates here.
  9. Whenever possible and appropriate (this structure isn't needed for very short articles; even longer ones only need those sections really mentioned in the text, otherwise just leave them or adjust them to the article's needs) use the following structure for an article about a character:
==Biography==
==Physical description==
==Personality and traits==
==Skills and abilities==
===Magical abilities===
===Physical/mental skills===
==Relationships==
===Family===
===Friends===
===Romance===
==Appearances==
==Trivia==
==Notes and references==
<references />
==See also==
==External links==
[[Category:]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Last name, first name}}

Works

  1. Use an infobox to aggregate the basic necessary information about the work.
  2. Bold and italicize the work's name in the first sentence, and italicize only in subsequent appearances.
  3. Note the work's place in the timeline.
  4. As with the character following a basic structure might be a good idea:
==Inside the book==
===Cover flap summary===
===Dedication===
===Maps===
==Plot==
==Summary==
==Characters==
==Editions==
===Foreign translations===
===Audiobook adaption===
===Cover gallery===
==Trivia==
==Notes and references==
==See also==
==External links==
[[Category:]]

See also

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