Manual of Style

## Headings

Either use the Heading markup for headings, or in the source editor, type ==(Heading)==

If you mark headings this way, a table of contents is automatically generated from the headings in an article. Sections can be automatically numbered for users with that preference set and words within properly marked headings are given greater weight in searches. Headings also help readers by breaking up the text and outlining the article.

* Capitalise the first letter only of the first word and of any proper nouns in a heading, and leave all the other letters in lower case.
* Avoid overuse of sub-headings

## Usage and spelling

Although American English is a common standard across the internet, we mandate the use of standard Australian English spelling, grammar, punctuation and word usage. This is owing to the subject matter of this site.

### **Spelling**

Below are some examples of preferred spelling conventions in keeping with Australian English standards.

* The suffix –ise instead of –ize is to be used (eg. Summarise, rather than summarize)
* The double ‘l’ in words such as ‘travelling’
* The ending –re (as opposed to –er) in words such as ‘theatre’
* The ending –our instead of –or in words such as ‘honour’

### **Word usage**

It is understood that standard Australian English is heavily influenced by both American and British English, and constantly evolving as a result. Judgement should be made to choose the ‘most Australian’ word. If in doubt, refer to the Macquarie Dictionary.

### **Titles and names**

All titles and names should retain their original spelling regardless of its adherence to Australian English. If a play title uses American spelling, for example, do not change it to Australian spelling. If a name or title employs non-English accents (eg. é, å or ö), these should be retained.

## Tense

Careful judgement must be made regarding tense in discussion of theatre.

* If you are discussing a play, present tense should be used (eg. “*Much Ado About Nothing* is a play by William Shakespeare”). This is because the play is still in existence and available to be performed. This rule also applies to characters and actions within the play (“Beatrice has a tense relationship with Benedick”).
* If you are discussing a particular production, past tense should be used (eg. “*The Present* was an adaptation of Chekhov’s *Platanov*”). This rule applies even to productions that are currently playing at the time of writing, given the relatively short run-time of productions. The only exception to this rule is in the rare circumstance that a production runs for six months or longer, when present tense can be used for the duration of its run-time.
* If you are discussing a real person, past tense should be used for everything except their current state of being (eg. “Geoffrey Rush is a male, Australian actor” AND “Geoffrey Rush starred in a production of *The Diary of a Madman*”). The only exception is if an actor is deceased, in which case all discussion is to take place in the past tense unless there is a clear grammatical reason not to (eg. “His wife is the current Artistic Director of XYZ”).

## Titles

### Play and production titles

Generally, titles of plays and productions should have the first letters of all words capitalised, except for ‘and’, ‘the’ and ‘to’. The only exception is if the playwright explicitly specified otherwise; in that case, the playwright’s preference should be honoured.

Titles of plays, productions, books and films should always be italicised. The first mention of the subject of an article should also be bolded. For example, if you are editing a page on a production of Hamlet, the first mention of ‘Hamlet’ should be bold and italicised.

Titles of poems and songs should not be italicised. Instead, they should appear in quotation marks “ ”.

## Quotations

Quotations should follow this general format:

* If the quote is less than four lines long, simply including it in the article’s body with “quotation marks” will suffice.
* If the quote is four lines or longer, insert as a block quote
* Dialogue between two or more characters should be quoted like this:

Gloucester

> Good morrow to my sovereign king and queen:
>
>

> And, princely peers, a happy time of day!
>
>

King Edward IV

> Happy, indeed, as we have spent the day.
>
>

> Brother, we done deeds of charity;
>
>

> Made peace enmity, fair love of hate,
>
>

> Between these swelling wrong-incensed peers.
>
>

## Categories

All pages on ATDB should be assigned at least one category for ease of navigation. The following is a list of existing categories that should be used as appropriate:

* Actors
* Directors
* Playwrights
* Theatre companies
* Theatres and venues
* Plays
* Productions

Other categories should be created as the need arises. They must have the first letter of the category capitalised and all others lower-case (unless the name of a company) and they must be of the type listed below:
* Other stage or creative crew (eg. Lighting designers, Producers, Artistic directors)
* Theatre company seasons (eg. Sydney Theatre Company 2015)
* City-specific productions (eg. Brisbane productions)

## Attribution

Reliable sources should be used for the creation of pages in the ATDB and all sources should be referenced. This can include theatre company websites, interviews with directors/actors etc.

Personal observation of theatrical performances is welcome (particularly if there is little information on the production available elsewhere) but this should be of a factual nature – eg. Descriptions of sets, actors’ performances etc.

Information may be sourced from an equivalent Wikipedia article. Information on Wikipedia is available under CC-BY-SA, meaning that it is available for public use. This information, however, must be referenced to the original Wikipedia site (or, even better, the original source of material). If excessive information must be taken from Wikipedia, it is preferable to omit it from the ATDB site altogether and instead provide a link to the Wikipedia page. ATDB aims to supplement, rather than repeat, information already available in similar formats.

Theatre programmes are a good source of information on cast lists and production and rehearsal notes. All information taken from programmes **must** be either directly quoted or paraphrased **and** appropriately cited. Any blocks of text lifted directly from such sources without proper attribution will be removed or should be reworked to fit Wikia’s attribution policies.

Any pages containing unreliable or questionable sources (or no sources at all) should be tagged with a verify template by adding {{verify}} at the top of the page.