Submission Guidelines

1. If you are submitting a written entry, please run it through a Spell Check and/or Grammar Check program before submission. Note, however, that such programs do sometimes miss incorrectly used words, or offer solutions that change the meaning of what you've said.

When submitting data alone (without a true written entry), grammar checks are not necessary, but please take care to elaborate on elements which may be unfamiliar to those who are not acquainted with the character, ship class, or universe.

2. Please avoid sentence fragments. Consider the following example:

"Their ships are quite powerful. Although they are slow."

The first part of the line, "Their ships are quite powerful," expresses a complete idea. However, the second part, "Although they are slow," is a sentence fragment because it cannot stand on its own. It does not express a fully formed concept in and of itself, and therefore is grammatically incorrect.

To correct this, the line should form a single sentence:

"Their ships are quite powerful, although they are slow."

This is grammatically correct and is easier to comprehend during reading.

3. Be aware of simple mistakes like confusing "its" and "it's." The word "its" indicates that "it" possesses something; "it's" means "it is." Similarly, avoid such mistakes as confusing "captains" (more than one captain), "captain's" (belonging to a captain) and "captains' "(belonging to several captains). Avoiding this kind of basic mistake makes the entry look more professional.

4. Aside from using proper spelling and grammar, an entry should be as thorough as possible without going deep into details. You can describe all the major features of a ship without detailing all its internal components; you can write an informative biography without going into all the minor events and personal thoughts of the character; and you can describe a civilization without covering every aspect of its known history. A typical entry should be at least several paragraphs long and no more than about a page and a half in length (single-spaced), at most.

5. Please refrain from using hyperbolic or "poetic" statements. For example:

"These mighty warships strike terror into the hearts of all who see them" is over-the-top. It chooses to convey a subjective opinion rather than providing useful information.

"The sight of such ships can be very intimidating to enemy pilots," is much better, as it gives us a more specific fact without the unnecessary emotive description.

Also, please refrain from "advertising" in an entry, such as trying to compare one character or universe's cababilities to those of another. Your entry should stick to providing information about the entry's topic itself.

6. Finally, do not, under any circumstances, simply cut and paste an entry from another website. The SFDB cannot be held responsible for copyright violation in these circumstances, and we do our best to thoroughly check entries prior to approval.