Format And Style Policy, The Official Project Galactic Guide

This article contains the bare minimum needed to correctly format Project Galactic Guide articles. Read it! Read it again!

Width: 76 columns: 1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456

Header And Footer

This is a number of consecutive lines each starting with one of the following fields:

%t = Title.  All Words Begin With Capitals, no period, short, covers the
     article contents.
%n = Article number:  editor/reality/number= erxxx = unique number.
     Reality: Real/Semi-real/Unreal.  During the submission process status
     information gets put into this field, eg "awaiting author approval".
%s = Subtitle or summary.  As %t, but gives subtitle or summary.
%a = Author:  real name, two spaces, then (email address in brackets).
     Updates are the author's responsibility.  Pseudonyms are not
     disallowed, but their use is not recommended.
*  = comments.  All comments and out of use %-tokens follow an asterisk.
%d = Date (yyyymmdd).  Updates create a second or third %d field.
%i = Alternative title; _not_ titles of paragraphs, but a title that would
     cover the whole article just like %t.  Purpose:  index browsing made
     easier.  If alternative titles start with the same few letters as
     another index or the title, then there is no point in adding it.
%x = Cross references.  Which articles (make sure the spelling of the titles
     is correct) are interesting when you read this one?
%p = Appendices.  Points to pictures or text files that go with the article.
     As with %n:  erxxx_x.gif (or jpg or txt; for instance 2R64_1.GIF).  Use
     the rest of the line for a small description of the contents.
%k = Keywords.  Each keyword in a new field.  Create as much useful ones as
     possible.
* %e = Begin of article. Body of article should begin on next line.  The
       asterisk indicates that _this_ particular article doesn't end here.
Article text here.
* %e = End of article.  Only %e, no further text on this line.
*EOA* = End of article.  Needed for browser purposes.

Body

Punctuation

Comma      (,) followed by one space.  Read your article out loud to see
               whether to add/delete some commas.
Period     (.)  followed by two spaces, except in abbreviations.
Colon      (:)  followed by two spaces.
Semicolon  (;) followed by one space.
Apostrophe (') used only for "Roel's" etc.  Preferably not to use to
               abbreviate nouns.  Plurals of acronyms or decades don't have
               apostrophes (eg. "CDs" and "the 1990s".)
Quote      (") for quotations and "special" words.
Footnotes  [1] or [,].
Hyphens    (-)  single.  Used to connect words only.  Don't break off a word
                that is hyphened.  Put the whole word on the next line
                however-ugly-it-may-seem.
Dashes     (--) double.  I am not sure what the actual rules are...
Ellipses   (...) triple.  I'm not sure about the rules here either -- a
                 wiser man than myself might now -- so don't confuse the
                 editors too much with them.

Lists And Paragraphs

Paragraph titles are underlined with "="; subparagraphs with "-". Use Capitals just like in the header titles. Titled (sub)paragraphs are seperated by two empty lines, as opposed to the untitled paragraphs within (one empty line). Lists in texts are indented 10 spaces, unless the list is longer than the "normal" body of text and/or generally doesn't look right. Sublists are indented another 10 spaces. Items are indicated as follows:

          1) With numbers.  After a number we use a bracket.  Ten and
             hundred are indicated as:
          10) and
          100) but if you want you can also begin with 001).
          a) With a small letter.  Only 26 items can be used here.
          * An asterisk goes without a ")".  A small
          o can also be used.  Try and be consistent in your article.

Further

Accentuation: don't accentuate by ALL UPPERCASE WORDS or with asterisked words, just surround the words with underscores.
Book titles: underscored.

Things Needed To Be Decided Later

How to handle lists beginning with (long) keywords.
How to handle dates in article (eg. yyyymmdd, dd-mm-yy, mm/dd/yy, etc.).

See also

• Article Writing Guide For Field Researchers And Guide Editors
• Towns Article Writing Guide For Field Researchers
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