Help:Structure of a Venipedia Article

Articles in Venipedia cover a wide range of topics; the following is a general structure that applies to articles regardless of the article topic. In addtion to this page, some of the best guidelines for article structure are existing articles. While the information here pertains specifically to Venipedia, for more information look at the Wikipedia Manual of Style’s layout section.

Lead Section

The lead section of an article is the section before the table of contents and the first section heading. This section acts as an introduction to the article, as well as a summary of its most important aspects. The definition of the topic should appear first in the introduction and the Italian name of the topic should also be present (when applicable). Additionally, any maintenance tags that apply to the article should appear at the top of the lead section, followed by infoboxes, and finally the introductory text itself. The lead section should appear at the very top of the article. Its location is a key feature and in order to ensure this, do not put a title or heading above the lead section.

The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview of the article. It should define the topic, establish context, explain why the subject is interesting or notable, and summarize the most important points. The emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic. The length of the lead section depends on the importance of the subject in relation to Venice.

Table of Contents

The table of contents is the next important feature of every Venipedia article. Immediately following the lead section, the table of contents provides an overview of the material of the entry. Once at least three headings are added to an article , a table of contents will automatically be generated from these headings. There are many features available for the table of contents- these features and any instructions associated with them can be found in Wikipedia's help section for the table of contents function

Body

This where the bulk of the article’s content lies. The information should be broken into sections that facilitate the readers understanding of the topic. The sections should also allow readers to look at specific aspects of the topic independently.

Careful consideration should be put into the selection of titles for the sections. General titles are not helpful; introduction, background, etc. The meaning of the section title should also be clear; ambiguity in the meaning of the section title only causes confusion for readers.

Population of these sections provides the reader with useful content. A complete coverage of the topic in relation to the City of Venice is the ultimate goal, and this should be kept in mind when the sections are populated. While completeness is important, repetitive information is counterproductive. If the topic of the entry is related to other topics covered in Venipedia, links should be provided to the other entries.

For assistance with the formatting of the body see the syntax page in Venipedia and the section Help:Section in Wikipedia for additional formatting assistance.

See Also

The See Also section appears after the body of a page and contains a bullet-ed list of links to related entries in Venipedia. This list can consist of links that occur in the body of the article as well as additional links to related topics of interest.

• Infoboxes
• syntax
• Venice

For most pages the See Also section will also contain a navbox, which is a page structure that contains grouped lists of similar pages that pertain to a certain category such as the navbox for the Help Section, show below:

References

This is a very important secion in any Venipedia article. Whenever information from an outside source is used, the original source must be cited, giving the original author credit for his or her work. Here is a section in the syntax page that explains how to create references within a Venipedia article.

External Links

This section provides a list of relevant links to web pages that are outside of Venipedia.