Wikipedia:WikiProject Animation/Family Guy work group/Episode citation style

Further information: Template:Cite episode

Episode citation style for events and character actions

Many FG articles read like this:

<Statement about character>, as when <character action> in "[[Long Episode Name]]", and also evidenced by <character action> in "[[Another Episode name]]" and "[[Maybe Another]]". <Continuing statement about character> ...

This is really hard to read, and the better-referenced the article is, the worse this problem becomes.

Readability can be improved by moving episode citations to footnotes, like so:

Before

Quagmire opposes homosexuality, refusing for example to sign a petition for gay marriage in "You May Now Kiss the...Uh...Guy Who Receives". He said "two halves cant make a whole without a hole!"

After

Quagmire opposes homosexuality, refusing for example to sign a petition for gay marriage.

Besides making text easier to read, offloading episode references has the side effect of makes this article more about the character, and less of a joke book. Not everything makes sense with the episode not mentioned, but usually with a little rewriting it is unnecessary to explicitly name every episode.

The best citation template for this is {{Cite episode}}. Syntax:

<ref name="s04e25">{{cite episode
 | title        = You May Now Kiss the...Uh...Guy Who Receives
 |episode-link= You May Now Kiss the...Uh...Guy Who Receives
 | series       = Family Guy
 |series-link= Family Guy
 | network      = Fox
 |air-date= 2006-04-30
 | season       = 4
 | number       = 25
 | minutes      = 5:56
 | quote        = Two halves cant make a whole without a hole!
}}</ref>

The <ref> name is taken from the season and episode (2 digits each) — always including this makes it easier to cite the same episode in different sections of the article. The reference reads like this:

There's plenty to be done. Helps a lot to have the DVDs (or handy AVI bootlegs) so you can find timings for events referenced.

See also

• Wikipedia:Citing sources
• Wikipedia:Citation templates
• Category:Television templates