See Help:Contents for all help pages

These instructions for authors aim to be a quick, self-contained and ---hopefully--- useful guidelines for Scholarpedia authors that have no knowledge in wikitext writing.

In the following the reader will find:

An introduction to some elementary actions he/she should master to become an editor--independent author.
An introduction to Scholarwiki, the dialect of wikitext markup language on which articles are written in Scholarpedia.
A few ready--to--cut--and--paste examples of useful advanced editing topics.
A review of the editorial conventions in use in Scholarpedia.
An overview of the administrative procedures.
A commented list of links for the reader wanting to improve his/her knowledge.

Remarks

This is a help page: do not use it as an example of encyclopedic article.
This page is written by using advanced Scholarwiki features. The beginner is not advised to read its source code.
Please correct misprint or signal them to help@scholarpedia.org

Notations

The following conventions will be adopted:

Important remarks you are supposed to read and ---hopefully--- to remember are written like this line.
the wikitext [[code]] you have to write verbatim in the source page is written like this line
Advanced sections that can be skipped at a first lecture are marked by (*)

Author's everyday--actions

Here is a list of the actions you should master before writing anything.

To contact the sponsors/editors: send an email to the sponsor/editor who invited you.
To sign in: click on the sign-in link on the top right zone of the page and write your Scholarpedia user--name and Scholarpedia password in the correspondent boxes. If you do not have/remember your user--name or password contact the sponsors/editors. In the following we will assume that you have signed in: to check this you should see your user name on the top right zone of the page.
To search an article page: type one or more words in the title on the search--scholarpedia box the top-right corner of Scholarpedia page.
To edit a page/article: click on the edit--this--article tab on the top of each page. After modifying the wikitext, do not forget to click the save button to save and archive the article. Each time you preview the article a temporary cache copy is saved (overwriting the previous one); you are nevertheless advised to frequently save the article. If you really do not want to save modifications and just quit the article, press the cancel link on the bottom of the page to delete all eventual changes.
To view the source code of a page: search for the page, and proceed like editing the page, but at the end click the cancel link on the bottom of the page to delete eventual changes.

The built--in on--line editor

Figure 1: Mediawiki editor toolbar

When editing a page, on the top of the page you have some iconized buttons that can help you in reducing editing, see Figure \figref{SP_edit_menu.png}. From left to right the button action on the selected text is the following: Bold, Italic, Internal link, External link, Section, Image, Media,math--tag,nowiki-tag. Try and use them!. For further reading look at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Edit_toolbar.

Off--line editors

We advice you to learn Scholarwiki and to use the on--line editor. FIXME

Converters to wikitext

For short bits of text, you can use an online Latex to wikitext converter: [1], [2] .

Your user--page

When the editor created your account, a user--page was automatically created for you. We ask you to put there a mini-CV, fields of research, best articles, awards, books you wrote, a picture and other scientific informations you'll like.

To reach a user--page: type User:USER_NAME in the search box in the top--left part of any page and follow the proposed blu link.
To reach your user--page:, if you are logged--in just click on the link with your user name in the top--right corner of any page.
To edit your user--page: reach your user--page and proceed as for editing a page.
To see an example of user--page: click this link to see an example of user--page
To change preferences, including the spelling of your name, your affiliation, email, password, the size of the edit window, your self--imposed deadline and other preferences, click on the preferences link at the top--right corner in your user--page. If you do not see this link it means that you are not logged in: sign in and restart. See Scholarpedia:User_preferences_help for a detailed review of available preferences.

Special pages

Have a look at http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Special:Specialpages, you will find some useful information and many tools.

Introduction to Scholarwiki

Basics of Scholarwiki

Web pages in Scholarpedia (including encyclopedic articles) are written in a dialect of the wikitext markup language, to which we refer here as Scholarwiki. The software that runs Scholarwiki is a development branch of a version of Mediawiki, a wonderful open source software that implements the wikitext dialect used in Wikipedia. For this reason Scholarwiki and plain Mediawiki (to which we refer as Mediawiki) are pretty similar but not totally identical, meaning that some advanced features of Mediawiki might be absent in Scholarwiki and vice versa.

Paragraphs, white space and indentation

A carriage return at the end of the line (new line) is ignored in layout.
Paragraphs and other structures are separated by white lines. Contrary to LaTeX, the more white lines you leave, the more vertical space is skipped.
New paragraphs are not indented by default. To indent a new paragraph start it with :, ::, ::: according to the wanted indentation.
If the first character of a non empty new paragraph is a white space you get a colored box useful for source code.Pay attention, starting a new paragraph with an unwanted white space is a typical error.

This line started with a space. Remark the different fonts-style and background color.

A source code box can also be obtained by using the <pre> tag: typing <pre> a=1; b+=a;</pre> you get

 a=1; b+=a;

To force a line break in the layout without leaving a white line write

White space inside a line is not semantically relevant: you type a b c you get a b c

To add a comment in your wikitext that should not be shown include it inside . You type  you get

Text layout

To have an italic text type ''italic text''.
To have a bold text type '''bold text'''.
To have an italic+bold text type '''''italic+bold text'''''.

Further reading: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Formatting.

Sections

To get a section title, use == section title == in a new line.
To get a subsection title, use === subsection title === in a new line.
To get a subsubsection title, use ==== subsubsection title ==== in a new line.

Further reading: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Formatting.

Bulleted Lists

To get a one-level bulleted list place a * at the beginning of each line. Higher level items are obtained by use of **, ***,...

You Get

You Type

one
two
three
- three.one
- three.two
- three.three
  - three.three.one
  - three.three.two
  - three.three.three

this is the end of the list

* one
* two
* three
** three.one
** three.two
** three.three
*** three.three.one
*** three.three.two
*** three.three.three
this is the end of the list

Further reading: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:List.

Numbered Lists

To get a one-level numbered list place a # at the beginning of each line. Higher level items are obtained by use of ##, ###,...

You Get

You Type

one
two
three
1. three.one
2. three.two
3. three.three
  1. three.three.one
  2. three.three.two
  3. three.three.three

this is the end of the list

# one
# two
# three
## three.one
## three.two
## three.three
### three.three.one
### three.three.two
### three.three.three
this is the end of the list

Further reading: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:List.

Subscripts and superscripts

To make a subscript, use the brackets. For example, ICa appears as I_Ca.
To make a superscript, use the brackets. For example, Ca2+ appears as Ca²⁺.

Do not use HTML tags for math equations, even simple ones. In the future, Scholarpedia will have wikitext->latex->pdf converter, so having all equations in latex would result in more consistent texts.

Mediawiki syntax (*)

Mediawiki and Scholarwiki markup languages are quite rich. They admit:

MediaWiki tokens: i.e. symbols like =,----,=#...Their meaning is position dependent.

MediaWiki "magic words": like __NOTOC__.

MediaWiki links: like [[Instructions for authors|text]].

MediaWiki templates: like {{templateName|p1|p2|p3}} where templateName is the name of the template and p1,p2,p3 its parameters,separated by the pipe "|" .

MediaWiki variables: like {{templateName}} are templates with no arguments

MediaWiki parser functionslike {{functionName:variable}}

XHTML symbols like &SymbolName; with SymbolName=hearts (♥),Psi (Ψ), euro (€), amp (&)...

XHTML tags like <Tag>...</Tag> with Tag=i,b,tt,sub,sup,table,tr,td,... Not all XHTML tags are supported. See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:HTML_in_wikitext.

XML tags like <Tag> ... </Tag> with Tag=nowiki,math,...

Links

A link is a tool to redirect the reader's browser to some place in the same page (in--page link), in other pages in Scholarpedia (internal link) or on an web page external to Scholarpedia (external link). The link layout is usually an underlined blue text on which the reader have to click to be redirected.

In Scholarwiki there are different types of links: user--defined intenal links, automatic intenal links, external links.

Automatic internal links

If you write in the text a sequence of words that matches the title of an existing article in Scholarpedia, the autolinker tool will create an automatic internal link to it. The autolinker tries to match the longest title first. E.g., the phrase "..using attractor reconstruction method.." will result in the autolink to attractor reconstruction, and not to attractor.

This feature is very useful but in some cases the autolinker could redirect to an existing article that has nothing to do with your subject. If this happens please inform your editor: he will create a disambiguation page to deal with the conflicting topics.

You can control the autolinking process using the "magic word" __AUTOLINKER{n|title1|title2|...|titleN} placed anywhere in the article. The first argument, a non-negative integer n, limits the number of autolinks to any particular title. The other arguments, separated by the pipe "|" are the titles of the article that should be excluded from the autolinking process.

The default state is __AUTOLINKER{1}, i.e., only the first match for any title is converted to a link to this title.
Using __AUTOLINKER{1|title1|title2} will create a link for all first match of a title apart "title1" and "title2".
Using __AUTOLINKER{0} will turn off the autolinker.

User--defined internal links and in--page links

The general syntax is: [[Title of the target page| text to be shown]]. Please remark the separating pipe "|".
The simplified syntax is [[Title of the target page]].In this case the text shown coincides with the page title.
If the target page exists the text is shown in blue or violet. If the page does not exists the text is rendered in red (broken link).
If when writing your article you feel that some correlated articles are necessary, but they do not exists, create a user--defined link to each article you need. The editors will see the broken links and they will try to invite authors for those articles.
A link to the section "my section" of some page is obtained by using: [[Title of the target page#my section| text to be shown]] or [[Title of the target pagee#my section]]. If the section does not exists the link is to the top of the page.
An in--page link to "my section" is obtained by [[#my section| text to be shown]] or by [[#my section]].

You Get	You Type
Nice reference: here.	`Nice reference: [[Main page\| here]].`
Nice reference: Main page.	`Nice reference: [[Main page]].`
Nice reference: Main poge.	`Nice reference: [[Main poge]].`
Nice reference: here.	`Nice reference: [[Main page#Curatorship\| here]].`
Nice reference: Main page#Curatorship.	`Nice reference: [[Main page#Curatorship]].`
In--page link to section figures.	`[[#Figures \| In--page link to section figures]]`
In--page link to section figures: #Figures.	`In--page link to section figures: [[#Figures]].`

User--defined Anchors (*)

The code blabla, resulting in blabla , creates an invisible "anchor" with label "mylabel" in correspondence of the text "blabla" (i.e. the text "blabla" becomes linkable). You can can create a link to an anchor with label "mylabel" in some Scholarpedia page named "mypage" by using the code [[mypage#mylabel| some text]]. The code [[#mylabel| some text here]] creates a link towards an anchor with label "mylabel" in the same page. Coming back to previous example, the code [[#mylabel| link to blabla ]] gives link to blabla .

When creating a reference with the Scholarwiki template Bibitem, see the section #Writing references, the parameter label=mylabel automatically inserts in the reference an anchor with label "mylabel".

External links

The general syntax is: [URL text to be shown]. Please remark that there is no separating pipe "|".
The simplified syntax is [URL]. In this case a numbered external link is shown.
Even simpler, if you write URL the URL is shown as a text.

You Get	You Type
The best reference is Scholarpedia.	`The best reference is [http://www.scholarpedia.org Scholarpedia]..`
The best reference is [3].	`The best reference is [http://www.scholarpedia.org].`
The best reference is http://www.scholarpedia.org.	`The best reference is http://www.scholarpedia.org.`

Mathematics, Latex and Scholarwiki

Because Scholarpedia uses the insanely powerful MathJax, nearly all Plain TeX Math macros are supported. Many ---but not all--- LaTeX and AMSLaTeX features are supported, see [4] for detailed list. For more details, visit the MathJax \(\TeX\) documentation.

Standard Latex code for a formula should be inserted in a <math> tag.

You Get	You Type
An in-line formula\[ \partial_z x^{2 y} \], end of the phrase. Another in-line formula: \( \partial_z x^{2 y} \), end of the phrase.	An in-line formula: <math> \partial_z x^{2 y} </math> , end of the phrase. Another in-line formula: \( \partial_z x^{2 y} \), end of the phrase.
A displayed equation\[ \partial_z x^{2 y}, \] end of paragraph.	A displayed equation: <math> \partial_z x^{2 y}, </math> end of paragraph.
An indented displayed equation: \[ \partial_z x^{2 y}. \] Use ::,::: to have more indentantion.	An indented displayed equation: :<math> \partial_z x^{2 y}. </math> Use ::,::: to have more indentantion.
An indented displayed equation: \[\partial_z x^{2 y}.\] Use ::,::: to have more indentantion.	An indented displayed equation: \[\partial_z x^{2 y}.\]
An indented numbered equation: \[ \tag{1} \partial_z x^{2 y}. \] Equation (1).	An indented numbered equation: \[ \label{mynicelabel} \partial_z x^{2 y}. \] Equation \eqref{Mynicelabel}.<!-- FIX to show \eqref{mynicelabel} needed --->

To get a group of vertically aligned unlabeled equations (or a multi-line unlabeled equation) use the LaTeX array environment inside the usual <math> environment or simply the AMSMath align environment. Add labels to get numbered equations like (2), (3), (4).

You get	You Type
\( \begin{array}{lcl} f(n+1) & = & (n+1)^2 \\ & = & n^2 + 2n + 1 \end{array} \)	:<math> \begin{array}{lcl} f(n+1) & = & (n+1)^2 \\ & = & n^2 + 2n + 1 \end{array} </math>
\begin{align} e^{\mathrm{i} z} &= \cos(z)+\mathrm{i}\sin(z) \\ \sin(z) &= \int_0^z\!\mathrm{d}x \cos(x) \end{align}	\begin{align} e^{\mathrm{i} z} &= \cos(z)+\mathrm{i}\sin(z) \\ \sin(z) &= \int_0^z\!\mathrm{d}x \cos(x) \end{align}
\begin{align} e^{\mathrm{i} z} &= \cos(z)+\mathrm{i}\sin(z) \tag{2}\\ \sin(z) &= \int_0^z\!\mathrm{d}x \cos(x) \tag{3} \end{align}	\begin{align} e^{\mathrm{i} z} &= \cos(z)+\mathrm{i}\sin(z) \label{exp}\\ \sin(z) &= \int_0^z\!\mathrm{d}x \cos(x) \label{sin} \end{align}
\begin{align} x^2&= f'''(z)\tag{4}\\ &= \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t}\left(x^{y^{z^t}}\right)\\ &= \sin(f(z))+J(z) \end{align}	\begin{align} x^2&= f'''(z)\label{fun}\\ &= \frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}t}\left(x^{y^{z^t}}\right)\\ &= \sin(f(z))+J(z) \end{align}

Further reading: http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Help:Math.

Figures

You can insert figures as follows.

You Get

You Type

aaaa aaa aaa.

Figure 2: Upload the file and replace this figure. See Upload page

bbb bbb bbb.

ccc ccc ccc.

ddd ddd ddd.

eee eee eee.

fff fff fff.

ggg ggg ggg.

hhh hhh hhh.

iii iii iii.

jjj jjj jjj.

kkk kkk kkk kkk kkk kkk kkk kkk kkk kkk kkk kkk kkk kkk.

aaaa aaa aaa.

[[Image:Your_article_title_Main_figure.gif|thumb|300px|right|
     Upload the file and replace this figure. 
     See [http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Special:Upload Upload page]]]

bbb bbb bbb.

ccc ccc ccc.

ddd ddd ddd.

eee eee eee.

fff fff fff.

ggg ggg ggg.

hhh hhh hhh.

iii iii iii.

jjj jjj jjj.

kkk kkk kkk kkk kkk kkk kkk kkk kkk kkk kkk kkk kkk kkk.

Remarks:

You can cite figure Figure 2 by writing <figref>Your_article_title_Main_figure.gif</figref>. (I.e. figures are labeled by the corresponding file name.)
The figure is vertically aligned to the text that follows it.
If the file is not uploaded, Scholarpedia will create a red link directing you to the upload page.

Further reading: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Images and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Extended_image_syntax.

Other medias

See the main Help:Authors page to learn how to insert movies, mp3 files and Java applets.

Tables (*)

Compare, learn and generalize.

Table 123: International system of units (SI)
Fundamental units
Physical quantity	Name	Symbol
length	meter	m
time	second	s
mass	kilogram	Kg
electric current	ampere	A
luminous intensity	candela	cd
mass	kilogram	Kg
amount of substance	mole	mol
temperature	kelvin	K

{| align="center"
   width="100%"
   border="5" 
   frame="hsides" 
   rules="all" 
   cellpadding="10" 
   cellspacing="10" 
   style="caption-side:bottom;"
|+ style="font-style: italic" | <span id="Table_123_label">Table 123:</span> International system of units (SI)
|-
! colspan="3" | '''Fundamental units'''
|-
! Physical quantity
! Name
! Symbol
|-
| length
| meter
| m
|-
| time
| second
| s
|-
| mass
| kilogram
| Kg
|-
| electric current
| ampere
| A
|-
| luminous intensity
| candela
| cd
|-
| mass
| kilogram
| Kg
|-
| amount of substance
| mole
| mol
|-
| temperature
| kelvin
| K
|}

The same table can be obtained by using XHTML.

Table 124: International system of units (SI)
Fundamental units
Physical quantity	Name	Symbol
length	meter	m
time	second	s
mass	kilogram	Kg
electric current	ampere	A
luminous intensity	candela	cd
amount of substance	mole	mol
temperature	kelvin	K

<table width="100%" 
       border="5" 
       frame="hsides" 
       rules="all" 
       cellpadding="10" 
       cellspacing="10" 
       style="caption-side:bottom;">
<caption style="font-style:italic">  <span id="Table_124_label">Table 124:</span> International system of units (SI) </caption>
<tr>  <th colspan="3"> '''Fundamental units''' </th>                           </tr> 
<tr>  <th>Physical quantity</th>      <th>Name</th>           <th>Symbol</th>  </tr>
<tr>  <td> length </td>               <td>meter</td>          <td>m</td>       </tr>
<tr>  <td> time </td>                 <td>second</td>         <td>s</td>       </tr>
<tr>  <td> mass </td>                 <td>kilogram</td>       <td>Kg</td>      </tr>
<tr>  <td> electric current </td>     <td>ampere </td>         <td>A</td>      </tr>
<tr>  <td> luminous intensity </td>   <td>candela</td>        <td>cd</td>      </tr>
<tr>  <td> amount of substance </td>  <td>mole</td>           <td>mol</td>     </tr>
<tr>  <td> temperature </td>          <td>kelvin</td>         <td>K  </td>     </tr>
</table>

Cite Table 123 by writing [[#Table_123_label|Table 123]], and cite Table 124 by writing [[#Table_124_label|Table 124]].

Further reading: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Tables.

Editorial guidelines

Rules for writing an effective Scholarpedia article

Scholarpedia is a peer-reviewed encyclopedia. It does not publish "research" or "position" papers, but rather "living reviews", written for the community of scholars by worldwide acknowledged experts. These articles will be maintained by future generations of experts via the process of curatorship.

The ideal article of Scholarpedia fulfills two challenging requirements:

it is written in a clear, concise and pedagogical style, as appropriate to be useful at least for graduate students;
it satisfies Einstein's razor "make it as simple as possible, but no simpler".

In practice the author should use his wisdom to find a good compromise among simplicity and precision which fulfills the main goal of obtaining an article useful for graduate students and non-expert researchers.

Style and structure conventions

Use bold for definitions and italic for emphasis. For example, "... Washington, DC is the capital of the USA. Do not confuse it with the state of Washington..."
Do not use "I", "we", "our", or other first- and second-person pronouns. Twenty years from now somebody else will be the curator of your article, so using "I" or "we" will be confusing or misleading.
Just state the facts.
Avoid using abbreviations. Spell out all phrases; this increases the Google PageRank of your article and puts it up in Google search results.
Be concise if not terse, making a good use of bullet points.
The article should starts with a one-sentence or one-paragraph dictionary-like definition of the main topic.

Use ... brackets in the definition of your topic (so your article comes first in Google search results). Example: Pizza is an aliment... Pizza is an aliment...

Write section titles in "Sentence case", i.e., only the first word capitalized.
Do not number sections
Keep references to the minimum, citing only major books and review articles.
Please, PLEASE use Scholarpedia's Harvard referring style for writing and citing references.

Put an introductive encyclopedic definition at the top of the article.
Mention alternative eponymous naming conventions for the topic you are discussing (even if you do not agree with their use). Ex: "The X pizza, also known as XYZ pizza, and sometimes erroneously attributed to QWRT is a...".
Provide a full description of the topic, starting from simple aspects and possibly ending with details/references useful for experts.
Explain in detail only the terms essential for the article. Link to other articles in Scholarpedia whenever is possible.
Provide examples, illustrations written in a style understandable to non-experts.
Anticipate questions and give answers as soon as possible.
Be neutral, mentioning alternative points of view if they are widely accepted.
Avoid presenting just one point of view (yours?) on open and questioned subjects and warn the reader that the subject is still open.

How to write a totally unuseful article ;)

To waste readers' time and your own time the editorial board suggests you to follow as close as possible the following points (and to train yourself in this art with your students if you have any).

Be sloppy: it is well known that Scholarpedia readers are not very receptive.
Be unuseful: who knows, a reader of today might be your competitor tomorrow.
Be tedious: hide important ideas behind your best and lengthy prose.
Be unprecise: no one will be able to discover your errors.
Avoid details, especially those which are important: it is well known that only who already knows a subject can learn it.
Never define the concepts you use, especially those which are essential to really understand your article.
Use your own notation and conventions and be careful to avoid any form of clarification.
Do not respect your own conventions: cut and paste is at the hearth of knowledge.
Wait the last day before your self--imposed deadline to avoiding wasting your time in thinking about what to write.
Report only your personal opinion on the topic: that's what readers are looking for!
Cite only your articles and your books: they are the best!
Do not care about layout: it is not a scientist's job (and in Scholarpedia we have thousands of volunteers which will improve layout for you).

The structure of a Scholarpedia article

Contributions to Scholarpedia are quantized in terms of web--pages. A web--page should not be longer than 50 KBytes (all formulas, figures and multimedia content included) that is around 10-15 A4 pages of a text with mathematical formulas. Ideally, if compatible with the topic to be treated, an article is sized three-four A4 pages.

According to the size of subject he wants to cover, author can contribute in three ways:
A) writing an encyclopedic article in a single web page,
B) writing an article consisting of a main web--page and a number of appendices (subpages) containing, say, examples or more technical details,
C) splitting the contribution in many articles of type A.
The editor will be pleased to help the author in finding the best format for his contribution.

Single--page article

The single--page article is the standard contribution. A single web--page encyclopedic article is structured in sections and subsections and ends with the following sections:

The optional section "Acknowledgments". All acknowledgments there should be signed with the initials of the corresponding author(s).
The "References" section. As usual, it should contain a short list of academic references to peer reviewed journals, proceedings or books. The Scholarpedia's Harvard referencing style should be used there. The list should contain only the most essential references.
The "Internal References" subsection. This subsection will be created automatically before publishing. It will contain the list of all published articles in Scholarpedia to which your article links (user--defined or automatic links). You will have one month to eventually discard some of these references.
The "Further reading" section may contain less formatted bibliography. It is a good place to cite introductory books, tutorials, and reviews. These references can also be commented for a better use.
The "External links" contains links to online tutorials, author websites, etc.
The "See also" provide an alphabetical list of links to other relevant articles in Scholarpedia.

A skeleton template article is available: Template:article. You are advised to cut and paste the code you need from that template.

Subpages

Subpages are not currently well supported in Scholarpedia 2.

The user willing a subpage "Appendix A" of an article located at http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/SomeArticle can create a subpage http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/SomeArticle/Appendix_A and cite it in the main article as

== Appendix A: nuts == [http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/SomeArticle/Appendix_A Appendix A: nuts]

See the example #Appendix: First Subpage.

Scholarpedia's Harvard citation style

Writing references

In Scholarpedia an Harvard referring style is used, see example below.

Albero, Antony (1999). Pizza Margherita. Journal of pizza eaters 19(3): 13. arXiv:0808.000
Albero(2001). Pizza Capricciosa. Journal of pizza eaters 27: 121-127. arXiv:0808.000
Albero, Antonio; Bocca, Bill and Cuoco, C T (2003). Pizza Quattro Stagioni. Journal of pizza eaters 34(4): 12.
Albero, Antonio; Bocca, Bill; Cuoco, C T and Dude, David B (2007a). Pizza Napoletana. Journal of pizza eaters 37: 121-127.
Albero, Antonio; Bocca, Bill; Cuoco, C T; Dude, David and Elica, E Q (2007b). Pizza Marinara. Journal of pizza eaters 43(4): 1-13.
Albero, Antonio et al. (2008). Pizza Piccante. Journal of pizza eaters 45(5): 1-13.
Alto, Antony (1999). La Pizza! Mangiare bene, Volume 3. Albero and Bacca editors. Food Publishers, Genoa.
Alto, Antony and Bocca, Bill (2000). La Pasta! Mangiare bene. Albero editor. Food Publishers, Genoa. Chapter 1.
Alto, Antony; Bocca, Bill and Cuoco, C T (2002). Pizza: prepare it yourself. Food Publishers, Genoa. Page 22. ISBN 1-234-99929-0.
Alto, Antony; Bocca, Bill; Cuoco, C T and Dude, David B (2005a). Italian Pizza. Food Publishers, Genoa.
Alto, Antony; Bocca, Bill; Cuoco, C T; Dude, David B and Elica, E Q (2005b). Napolitan Pizza. Second edition. Food Publishers, Genoa.
Alto, Antony et al. (2005c). American Pizza. Food Publishers, Genoa.

In the reference list, references must be lexicographically ordered according:

surname1,
given name1,
surname2, (no surname2 first, then etal, then any surname2)
given name2,
Third and subsequent authors are not used for ordination
publication-year.

Groups of authors having the same first two authors and publishing year must be disambiguated with a label suffix (a lowercase letter) to the publication year. (add "|letter=<lowercase letter>|" in the Bibitem text) E.g.:

Wilkinson, Julie (1999a). Apocalypse Pizza. Jane's Defense Weekly 1563(74): 2818.
Wilkinson, Julie (1999b). Pies à la Mode. French Firefighters' Journal of Flammable Food 3(14): 159-256.

In next section a Scholarpedia tool to help the author in writing references is introduced.

How to use the Template:bibitem to write your references

To build up your reference list you can use the bibitem template we provide. This way, the list of references you write will always be updated if a change in the conventions is performed. The syntax of templates follows.

Below, N=1,2,3,4,5 or N=etal is the number of authors.
The order of unnamed parameters should be respected.
Unnamed parameters are mandatory; eventually they might be replace with a " "(one blank space), but this might result in a bad layout. If this is the case write the reference without using the template.
The order of named (optional) parameters is arbitrary and their position does not influence unnamed parameters.
No ending white space should be added to parameters' values.
No punctuation should be added in the values of the unnamed parameters, apart the parameter corresponding to the TITLE.
The named parameters should be instead terminated by fullstop, apart LABEL and LETTER.
No dots in authors initials.
Dots in other abbreviations are allowed.
LABEL below is a label that could be referred with an internal link like [[#LABEL| this text links to LABEL]], see #Citing references.

{{Bibitem article N |TITLE|JOURNAL|VOLUME(NUMBER)|YEAR|PAGES|SURNAME1|FORNAME1|...|SURNAMEN|FORNAMEN|letter=LETTER|label=LABEL|preprint=PREPRINT}}
- - TITLE, JOURNAL,..., PREPRINT should be replaced by their actual values.
  - No punctuation should be added in parameters' values, unless TITLE and PREPRINT that should terminate with a fullstop/mark.
  - FORENAME= Antony or Antony D or A D (Initials without punctuation).
  - (VOLUME) is optional.
  - See also Template:Bibitem article 5 for more detailed informations.
{{Bibitem book N |TITLE|PUBLISHER|ADDRESS|YEAR|SURNAME1|FORNAME1|...|SURNAMEN|FORNAMEN|letter=LETTER|label=LABEL|series=SERIES|editors=EDITORS|pages=PAGES|isbn=ISBN}}
- - TITLE, PUBLISHER, ...., ISBN should be replaced by their actual values.
  - No punctuation should be added in parameters' values, unless TITLE, SERIES, EDITORS, PAGES and ISBN that should terminate with a fullstop/mark.
  - FORENAME= Antony or Antony D or A D (Initials without punctuation).
  - See also Template:Bibitem book 5 for more detailed informations.

Examples. If you type:

*{{Bibitem article 1|Pizza Margherita.|Journal of pizza eaters|19(3)|1999|13|Albero|Antony|preprint=arXiv:0808.000|label=albero1999}}
*{{Bibitem article 2|Pizza Capricciosa.|Journal of pizza eaters|27|2001|121-127|Albero|Antonio|Bocca|Bill|preprint=[http://arxiv.org/abs/0808.0000  arXiv:0808.000]|label=albo2001}}
*{{Bibitem article 3|Pizza Quattro Stagioni.|Journal of pizza eaters|34(4)|2003|12|Albero|Antonio|Bocca|Bill|Cuoco|C T}}
*{{Bibitem article 4|Pizza Napoletana.|Journal of pizza eaters|37|2007|121-127|Albero|Antonio|Bocca|Bill|Cuoco|C T|Dude|David B|letter=a}}
*{{Bibitem article 5|Pizza Marinara.|Journal of pizza eaters|43(4)|2007|1-13|Albero|Antonio|Bocca|Bill|Cuoco|C T|Dude|David|Elica|E Q|letter=b}}
*{{Bibitem article etal|Pizza Piccante.|Journal of pizza eaters|45(5)|2008|1-13|Albero|Antonio}}
*{{Bibitem book 1|La Pizza!|Food Publishers|Genoa|1999|Alto|Antony|series=Mangiare bene, Volume 3.|editors=Albero and Bacca editors.}}
*{{Bibitem book 2|La Pasta!|Food Publishers|Genoa|2000|Alto|Antony|Bocca|Bill|series=Mangiare bene.|editors=Albero editor.|pages=Chapter 1.}}
*{{Bibitem book 3|Pizza: prepare it yourself.|Food Publishers|Genoa|2002|Alto|Antony|Bocca|Bill|Cuoco|C T|isbn=ISBN 1-234-99929-0.|pages=Page 22.|label=this work is false}}
*{{Bibitem book 4|Italian Pizza.|Food Publishers|Genoa|2005|Alto|Antony|Bocca|Bill|Cuoco|C T|Dude|David B|letter=a}}
*{{Bibitem book 5|Napolitan Pizza. Second edition.|Food Publishers|Genoa|2005|Alto|Antony|Bocca|Bill|Cuoco|C T|Dude|David B|Elica|E Q|letter=b|label=11}}
*{{Bibitem book etal|American Pizza.|Food Publishers|Genoa|2005|Alto|Antony|letter=c}}

You will get the example reference list in section Writing references.

Citing references

Groups of authors larger than 2 can be cited with "et al.".

As proven in (Albero A, 1999).
As Albero (2009) said.
As proven in (Albero and Bocca, 2001)
As proven by Albero and Bocca (2001)
As proven by Albero et al. (2003)
As proven by Albero, Bocca and Cuoco (2003)
As proven by Albero et al. (2007a), confirmed by Albero et al. (2007b) and discarded by Albero et al. (2007c)

If a label has been defined via the label=mylabel parameter in Bibitem template, than the citation can be put in a link: [[#mylabel|text]] (in--page link, see #User--defined internal links and in--page links).

To get: as proven in (Albero A, 1999), type: as proven in [[#albero1999|(Albero A, 1999)]].
To get: as proven by Albero and Bocca (2001), type: as proven by [[#albo2001|Albero and Bocca (2001)]].

Administrative stuff

Article publication process

See the main Help:Authors page

Using copyrighted materials

See the main Help:Authors page

Appendix: First Subpage

First Subpage

Help:Instructions for authors (Physics)

Contents

Author's everyday--actions

The built--in on--line editor

Off--line editors

Converters to wikitext

Your user--page

Special pages

Introduction to Scholarwiki

Basics of Scholarwiki

Paragraphs, white space and indentation

Text layout

Sections

Bulleted Lists

Numbered Lists

Subscripts and superscripts

Mediawiki syntax (*)

Links

Automatic internal links

User--defined internal links and in--page links

User--defined Anchors (*)

External links

Mathematics, Latex and Scholarwiki

Figures

Other medias

Tables (*)

Editorial guidelines

Rules for writing an effective Scholarpedia article

Style and structure conventions

Contents

How to write a totally unuseful article ;)

The structure of a Scholarpedia article

Single--page article

Subpages

Scholarpedia's Harvard citation style

Writing references

How to use the Template:bibitem to write your references

Citing references

Administrative stuff

Article publication process

Using copyrighted materials

Appendix: First Subpage

See also

Scholarwiki and Mediawiki

General Help on Mediawiki

General editing in Mediawiki and Scholarwiki

Scholarwiki-only features

Images in Mediawiki and Scholarwiki

Tables in Mediawiki and Scholarwiki

Lists in Mediawiki and Scholarwiki

Mathematical Formulas in Scholarwiki (MATHJAX)

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XHTML in Mediawiki and Scholarwiki

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