Adapted from Sean McQuaid's writing guidelines for Marvel.com's Marvel Universe.

Contents 1 Use Passive Statements Sparingly 2 Focus on Action, Seldom on Ability 3 Don't Repeat Yourself 4 Participles Are Your Pals (sometimes) 5 Use Introductory Descriptions Sparingly 6 Never Send a Phrase to do a Noun's Job 7 Possessives are your Pals 8 Avoid Unnecessary Analysis

Use Passive Statements SparinglyEdit

While good stylistic or content-driven reasons can exist to use passive voice, it's not an ideal form for encyclopedic material. Most of the time, passive statements needlessly bloat a sentence and suck energy out of the text.

• Bad: "Obi-Wan Kenobi was killed by Darth Vader."
• Good: "Darth Vader killed Obi-Wan Kenobi."

Focus on Action, Seldom on AbilityEdit

Whenever possible, let the actions speak for themselves, stripped of embellishment. There are certainly cases where content calls for a little embellishment, because of something emotional, dramatic or unusual about the act in question, but bland, generic "able to" and "managed to" phrasings like the examples below almost never add anything worthwhile.

• Bad: "Luke Skywalker was able to repair R2-D2."
• Good: "Luke Skywalker repaired R2-D2."

• Bad: "Corran Horn managed to trick Kirtan Loor and fled Corellia."
• Good: "Corran Horn tricked Kirtan Loor and fled Corellia."

Don't Repeat YourselfEdit

Duplicative information comes up most often between sections. If you've already addressed in Biography that Ackbar learned details about Imperial doctrine as Tarkin's slave, you don't need to mention it again in the Personality section.

• Bad: "Thanks to the Imperial doctrine that he learned as Tarkin's slave, Ackbar was able to organize successful campaigns against the Imperial Navy."
• Good: "Ackbar organized successful campaigns against the Imperial Navy."

Participles Are Your Pals (sometimes)Edit

These entries force us to compress many, many events and storylines into one dense narrative. Present participle ("painting") and past participle ("painted") versions of your verbs can help compress things a bit. In some cases, the space savings for a given verb are slight, but they add up over the course of an article and using fewer sentences helps keep the writing tighter.

• Bad: "Dolph donned the Hendanyn death mask and fought the Je'har regime as Kueller."
• Good: "Donning a Hendanyn death mask, Dolph fought the Je'har regime as Kueller."

• Bad: "Organa was annoyed by Calrissian's advances, and she ignored his flirtations."
• Good: "Annoyed by Calrissian's advances, Organa ignored his flirtations."

Use Introductory Descriptions SparinglyEdit

If a noun is well known, don't go overboard introducing it; famous starships, characters and planets – Home One, Han Solo and Coruscant – do not need introduction. That being said, introductory phrases are acceptable and encouraged for more obscure, but they should also be short and never peppy, unhelpful descriptive phrases.

• Bad: "The Corellian smuggler Han Solo returned to the prison world of Kessel in his modified freight the Millennium Falcon..."
• Good: "Han Solo returned to Kessel in the Millennium Falcon"..."

• Bad: "The intrepid Jedi Luke Skywalker confronted the insane unstable cloned Jedi Master Joruus C'baoth at Mount Tantiss."
• Good: "Luke Skywalker confronted the Dark Jedi Joruus C'baoth at Mount Tantiss."
  • In this case, Luke needs no introduction, but Joruus C'baoth may.

• Bad: "Luke Skywalker, the quick-thinking Wedge Antilles and ever-lucky Keyan Farlander were the only survivor's of the Death Star strike."
• Good: "Luke Skywalker, Wedge Antilles and Keyan Farlander were the only survivor's of the Death Star strike."

Never Send a Phrase to do a Noun's JobEdit

Unless a phrase contains a vital, specific description, a noun will usually serve the article better. Go with "crimes" instead of "illegal activities", "mistakes" instead of "errors in judgment", "battles" instead of "violent clashes" and so on.

Possessives are your PalsEdit

Connections can often be expressed more concisely with possessive phrasing. Like using the participle, these can quickly add up to make articles shorter and easier to read.

• Bad: "Skywalker spoke with Bib Fortuna, the major domo to Jabba the Hutt."
• Good: "Skywalker spoke with Bib Fortuna, Jabba the Hutt's major domo."

Avoid Unnecessary AnalysisEdit

We recount actions; we generally don't comment on the actions. Let's say we write a section of Anakin Skywalker's article focusing on his relationship with Tusken raiders, including the murder of a Tusken village as revenge for Shmi's death. It's a revenge act, sure, but if the Biography has already supplied the context of their relationship, we don't necessarily need to further underline the nature of their relationship while recounting the actions.

• Bad: "Skywalker exacted his revenge by slaying the Tusken raider clan."
• Good: "Skywalker slayed the Tusken raider clan."