Introduction
In this page you can find information about how to do some basic formatting for this site, including naming pages, inserting links and images, and uploading files. Preferences for syntax, titling and bibliographic format are also spelled out here in brief.
Create Pages
In the site navigation column on the left on every page is a window where new pages can be created. Simply enter a name for your new page and press the New Page button.
How to Name the Page
- The page name refers only to the name that appears in the url. Once you have created the page you will get a box at the top of the page that allows you to set a title for the page that looks pretty.
- The page names follow a format that looks like "category:pagename". There are three categories of pages on this wiki: "note" for pages of notes, "text" for pages of primary texts, and "biblio" for pages of bibliographies.
- Your new page name should use one of the three categories followed by a colon (:) and a short page name. For instance, "text:washington_atlanta" is the name of the page on Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Exposition Address; "note:style" is the page name for the Canon of Style.
- There can be no spaces in the page name. If your page name needs a space use an underline (_).
- For consistency, use no capital letters. For primary text page names, use the author's last name followed by (_) and a short title wherever possible. For bibliography and note pages use a very short and distinct topical name.
How to Add Content to the Page
Once you have created the page and set the title you are free to add content.
- You might be transferring a page from the old wiki or the even older Zulick Home Page. Wikidot automatically scrubs invisible code from html, other wikis, and writing programs. So it's easy to just cut and paste your text and then edit it to adjust headings, add links, etc.
- Type in your new material or paste in your text from another page.
- Link to your page from at least one of the three index pages. If you do not make a link to your page from one of the index or topics pages, you will only be able to find it through a site search, or it will show up under orphaned pages in the Site Tools.
Edit Pages
These notes tell you how to do some things in more detail, and suggest some rules of thumb on the site for different contributors to match each others' style.
Headings
Headings are created with plus signs followed by a space and the heading title. One plus sign is Heading One. Add a plus sign for each next heading level.
Attribute Everything
In the case of primary texts, give your source. In the case of notes on a text or separate: Don't copy any editorial written for another web page without full attribution. For instance if you copy the text of a historic speech from another web site and that web site included an introductory paragraph, the speech text might be public domain but the introduction is not. Cite your source, even if it's another wiki.
Table of Contents
A table of contents is created using the headings as entries. It is optional. Use a table of contents for longer pages with lots of subheadings. Tables of contents should usually be floated on the left ("float" means the text will wrap around it). It looks like this:
[[toc]]; or float left [[f<toc]]; or float right [[F>toc]]
Anchors
Anchors are useful if the page is long, has several subheadings, and you want to include a link directly to one of the subheadings rather than to the top of the page. The Table of Contents produces links to each section that can also be used as anchors when a Table of Contents is added to the page.
Speech Titles
Some speeches have titles that arise naturally from the text of the speech, or they have come to be known by these titles over time. Use the most familiar version of the title. When the title contains a quote from the text of the speech, or another nickname, use quotation marks: Frederick Douglass, "We Have Decided to Stay". When the title is a description of the speech occasion, do not use quotation marks: Franklin D. Roosevelt, First Inaugural. When you are listing the title in an alphabetized index, start with the orator's last name: Roosevelt, Franklin D. First Inaugural. When you are titling a page, or inserting a footnote, use the orator's name as written: Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Punctuation and Special Characters
Number the paragraphs in a speech text. Do not number individual sentences within paragraphs. Do not correct spelling or punctuation from the original.
To produce an em-dash: Many speech texts use em-dashes which look like this— . Produce an em-dash by inserting two hyphens followed by a space, no space before the two hyphens—
t--
Bibliographic Form
It's difficult if not impossible to use a standard style sheet in wiki format. The wiki markup has its own ways of listing footnotes and references. When inserting bibliographic titles into a bibliography, we use Author-Title with title case. Articles are in "quotation marks." Single books, volumes, and containing works are italicized. At the top of this page is a panel of buttons that will automate some of this. Some titles get cut and pasted in using Author-year, eventually that will be cleaned up but it's low priority. Make sure the reference is complete: Author, title, containing work (journal, book, web site), volume and page if any, publisher and date. If there is no author, index alphabetically by title. Whenever possible for articles retrieved online, include the stable url or doi in an active link. Our bibliographies were started when there was no online resource for most of the titles; one job to do is go back through them all and add the links.
Footnotes
Adding footnotes is easy and is a good way to include useful information about texts on the site. A footnote consists of a numbered link where the footnoted is inserted in the text, and a footnote block that is generated by the wiki engine from the footnotes. Where you want the number to go, insert:
[[footnote]]This is a footnote.[[/footnote]]
This results in a footnote.1 Note there is no space between the text of the footnote and the beginning and ending code elements.
References
Sometimes you want a list of references at the bottom of the page with in-text citations. References are a numbered list like footnotes. Since the numbers are direct links to the title in the reference list, there is no need to alphabetize the reference list or place the last name first. A bibliographic citation tag in the text looks like this.
This is a reference to Corbett [((bibcite corbett))]
Here is the citation as it appears on the page: [1]
And here is the bibliography code block to which your citation will point. In order to avoid the default "bibliography" we include the attribution/value pair title="References". Bibliographies are separate stand alone documents on this site, so to avoid confusion, when citing references in the text we use "References" as the heading.
[[bibliography title="References"]]
: corbett : Edward P. J. Corbett and Robert J. Connors. //Classical Rhetoric for the Modern
Student//. 4th ed. New York: Oxford UP, 1999.
[[/bibliography]]
See the bottom of this page to look at how it comes out on the finished page.
Adding Links to Other Pages
First a general convention of wikidot markup regarding brackets: Double brackets are reserved for enveloping formatting code like table of contents, footnotes, etc. Single brackets are for external links and other wiki links. Triple brackets are for internal links to other pages on this same site.
Link to a Page on This Site — Useful for internal references and indexing. When you create a page, add a link to it from the relevant Index page (Notes, Texts, Bibliographies) and from the relevant Topic page (at this date, American Public Discourse, Rhetorical Tradition, Theory and Criticism).
In the below example, the page name is inserted between triple brackets. If followed by a vertical line and text, it creates a custom link text as you want it to appear on the page. You could also skip the vertical line and link text and get the raw page name appearing as a link.
[[[text:lincoln_gettysburg | Gettysburg Address]]]
gets you: Gettysburg Address or (without the custom link text) lincoln_gettysburg
Link to a Wikipedia Page — Often when adding footnotes and references we want to link to other wikipedia pages. The category "wikipedia" followed by colon and the wiki page name is inserted between single brackets:
[wikipedia:Abraham_Lincoln]
gives you: Abraham_Lincoln. In a few cases where the wiki page name is not compatible you might have to use a full external link.
External Link — To include any external link, use the url followed by a space and the desired link text inserted between single brackets:
[https://www.loc.gov/collections/abraham-lincoln-papers/about-this-collection/ Lincoln Papers]
gives you: Lincoln Papers.
Adding Images
To add an image, first you have to upload the image to the page you want to add it on. For this purpose an image is a "File".
- At the bottom of every page is a Files button. Press that; or press Options and then Files. You will be prompted to upload a file from your computer.
- Next you get a button to Select Files. You might have to follow the prompt to enable flash if you can't see the text on the button.
- Select Files will open a browser to pick the file from your hard drive. Then remember to press Upload, and Refresh.
- You can rename the file after you've uploaded it to get it shorter and remove unfriendly characters. Just press Files again and then Options.
After you have the image uploaded and named, you can insert it in the page. Place the word "image", the image name and the desired attributes and values in double brackets. Attributes followed by = have values in double quotes. In the example below, "f<" tells the image to float on the left, Lincoln_protrait_photo.jpg is the name of the file, width="300px" limits the width of the image to 300 pixels:
[[f<image Lincoln_portrait_photo.jpg width="300px" title="Lincoln photograph"]]
gives you:
Notice this one gives you a flat image, static on the page. You can also fix the height the same way: height="450px". You can also set a title that shows when the cursor rolls over it with: title="titletext".
The next example shows an image that will open in an image viewer when pressed.
[[f>image Tucker_RIP.jpg size="small"]]
gives you Tucker, an Acolyte now in dog heaven. The "size" attribute goes from "square" through "thumbnail", "small", "medium", "medium640", to "large". For more image options see [http://www.wikidot.com/doc-wiki-syntax:images].
Embedding Video
To embed a video you need this code element with the link text inserted required by the video page:
[[embedvideo]] video embed code content [[/embedvideo]]
To embed a youtube video:
[[embedvideo]] <iframe width="733" height="598" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QMgWGNGMAQw" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> [[/embedvideo]]
All you need to do now is use the above lines as a template and replace the unique string for your video, in this case "QMgWGNGMAQw" for "Duck and Cover", a well known propaganda video from the Cold War: