TypeCraft:Manual of Style

On the TypeCraft wiki you write about linguistic issues which are related to data stored in the TypeCraft database. Articles mostly belong to 3 different categories:

• Grammar Squib - a short linguistic analysis
• Typological Template - an overview table exposing important features of a TypeCraft language
• Annotating [LANGUAGE NAME] - a talk page about annotation issues

TypeCraft wiki pages can be cited

--Basic guidelines for referencing --Basic guidelines for scientific writing + data transclusion

Writing online text is different from writing articles for the print press.

The online reader is more a scanner looking for information - like this: "What this page is about?" If something catches his interest, he stays a little longer, and for example starts to scan for links that lead him more directly to what he is interested in?

This means that With most readers you do not have much time to develop your points (much less than in a book, or a long feature article). It is therefore crucial to get to the point directly (unless you have this really fantastic opening or visual clue) otherwise

 Use plain language, use informative headings and links and get to the point  

Most likely those that read your TypeCraft wikipage are language experts well familiar with linguistic terminology. You do not want to write too rudimentary, and use a shared linguistic terminology to get the information that is most important to them across in an efficient way.

Best Practices

Use clear headlines. Make them informative, do not try to get cute.

Use scientific style but get faster to the point then in a standard linguistic articles where you are expected to provide background. Rather use links instead. Use data from your annotated text to ground your analysis, exemplify a fact, or to lay out an annotation schema.

Online is always about visual effects. Break your writing up by a graphic element or white spaces. Use lists when possible or highlight elements by bold text etc.

What is unique to TypeCraft is that you can keep your linguistic writing close to the data. However avoid proliferation of examples. If interested in the data, the reader can directly go to your material in the database for further inspection.

Sign you TypeCraft wiki article. Link to your user page. If you are interested in communication with other users of TypeCraft about your data, provide a TypeCraft e-mail link from your user page. Do not provide your e-mail address directly, use the "my preferences" menu instead, and enable to TypeCraft e-mail service instead.

Your page in numbers

Rather create several TypeCraft wiki pages than one long one. Here are some primitive guidelines:

• use three headers and if needed 2 subheaders each

• do not use more than 1 link in each section or subsection.

• do not use more than two graphical element per article. Make sure that it helps readers by being informative or by breaking up the format. Random photos are boring.