This page describes how to structure articles of different types on the Ace Attorney Wiki.
Quality templates
Certain warning messages are sometimes placed at the very top of a page. The most common ones are Template:Expand, Template:Cleanup, Template:Japanimages, Template:JReleased and Template:Released. If any of these apply to a page, please use them.
Characters
In short, character articles should read like biographies of actual people. This means that they should be written in "in-universe" style, as if someone from inside the Ace Attorney universe is writing about them. For more on this concept, see Ace Attorney Wiki:Perspective.
At the beginning of each character article, right below the article quality templates, Template:Character should be implemented with all of the fields filled with the proper information if possible. More information on how to do this is in the template's page.
A character article should begin with a general description of the subject. This is generally called the lead section. The description should include the subject's name (in bold) and perhaps a brief summary of what makes the character noteworthy. A short quotation giving a general "feel" for the character may precede the description.
Immediately following the lead section should be a biography, split into appropriately titled sections ("Early life", "Career", etc.) detailing the character's life and actions in roughly chronological order. A "Personality" section should immediately follow the biography. Readers should be able to find out pretty much everything they need to know about a character just by reading the character's article.
Following the personality section, it may be appropriate to have additional out-of-universe sections, including but not limited to the following:
- Name
- Development
- Notes/Misc/Trivia
"Trivia" sections are usually discouraged because it is usually possible, and therefore more appropriate, to categorize even trivial info into appropriately named sections like "Development".
Story content
| This policy is in a beta phase. | |
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This policy exists for the sake of consistency across the Ace Attorney Wiki. It is supposed to reflect trends in editing, or set a single standard to compromise between conflicting viewpoints. It has not necessarily been approved by the wiki's active users. This policy can be discussed on its talk page. |
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This article is under construction. While it is not short, it still needs expansion as outlined in the manual of style. The article most likely needs expansion near the end of the tagged section or sections. |
There are three categories of articles about in-game story content, and details about how they should be used can be found in the following links:
Content about game episodes should be written from an out-of-universe perspective, while content about incidents (and, by extension, cases) should be written from an in-universe perspective, reading like real historical accounts. For more on this concept, see Ace Attorney Wiki:Perspective. Game episodes and cases often line up, resulting in both game episode content and incident content residing in a single page. Each portion should still be written in the proper perspective.
At the beginning of each episode/case article, right below the article quality templates, Template:CaseData, Template:Investigation, or Template:Adventure should be implemented with all of the fields filled with the proper information if possible. More information on how to do this is in the template's page. Template:Episodes should be implemented at the end of each episode/case article, which can be done by typing in {{Episodes}}. The template itself should also be updated with the episode or case in the row labeled by the name of the game or other medium in which the episode or case appears.
Game episodes
An episode article should begin with a general description of the episode. This is generally called the lead section. The description should include the subject's full title (in bold) and perhaps a summary of the noteworthy aspects of the episode. Consider the following example:
- Episode 1: Turnabout Memories is the first episode of the video game Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations. It takes place five years prior to The Stolen Turnabout; the player assumes the role of Mia Fey in her second court trial, set to defend Phoenix Wright in the murder of Doug Swallow. Dahlia Hawthorne debuts in this case. Like all first cases in the series to date, there is no investigation stage, only a court trial.
A short quotation giving a general "feel" for the episode or case may precede the description. Quotations should not come from an unofficial source.
The lead section should be followed by sections like the following:
- Intro: A description of the opening cutscene at the beginning of the episode.
- Episode contents: Most episodes are divided up into multiple "acts", which can comprise an investigation, a trial, or part of an investigation or trial. Acts have titles in-game such as "Day 2: Trial Latter". The act titles should be listed.
- Case information
- "Trivia" style sections like "references to other cases" and "notes".
Following the lead section should be an account of the events in the episode or case in chronological order and in past tense. This account may begin with an out-of-universe description of the prologue (the movie that inaugurates each episode), and then the rest of the account should be divided into sections by date, which should then be subdivided into "Investigation" and "Trial" sections, if appropriate. The "ending" of an episode, which refers to events that occur after the final verdict is given, should be in its own section named "Aftermath" or "Epilogue" or something similar. "Aftermath" may be more appropriate for non-playable cases like the DL-6 Incident.
Other articles
Other in-universe articles often have very little information to go with, so a short description is usually enough. Ideally, a detailed history should be given if it is reasonably doable (e.g. Fey clan, MASON System, Solitary Cell 13).
More on Trivia and Notes
Articles may include a section to point out the relationship the subject may have with an out-of-universe object. Please use common sense and use points that are notable.
References
Articles may include a References section at the bottom. This may be done by adding the following:
- ==References==
- <references/>
or
- {{ref}}
or for pages with lots of references
- <div style="height:200px;width:100%;overflow:auto;"> {{reflist|2}} </div>
For specifics on referencing, see the referencing guide.