User:Lifefeed/How to contribute randomly to Wikipedia


 * 1) Find an article. Go to the  Requested Articles page and looking at a category in which you are vaguely interested.  Within that category, pick a random article and write about it.  Helpful hint: Don't pick a math article or anything heavily scientific, almost all of those articles require specialists.  A good article to pick is a biography or a military operation, since those tend to be straighfoward to write (probably because the structure will be chronological).
 * 2) Research. Check out the what links to your article.  Google it, and find at least three or four trustworthy web sites.  It might help you out later if you copy down all of the basic facts about your subject into the basic categories of who, where, when, what, why, and how.  By the end of this step you should know what you're actually writing about.
 * 3) Structure your article. If it's going to be longish, write the headings titles now.  If it's short, just think about the basic timeline and present the information like that.  Divide it up roughly chronologically.  You might want/need to include a section at the end that talks about why it all mattered.
 * 4) Start writing. Don't wikify anything yet, just write.  Your article has four basic parts: the first-line intro, the extended intro, the body, and the external links.
 * 5) The first line should simply be a brief statement of facts about your subject. Just briefly tell what it was and when it was.
 * 6) The extended intro is a small paragraph that should establish notability. For every heading in the body of the article, have about one sentence here that briefly describes that part of the body.
 * 7) The body is the meat of the article. This is where all of the structured content goes.
 * 8) For the external links, simply use the 2 or 3 best links from your google search.
 * 9) Now paste everything into Microsoft Word and spellcheck and grammar check it. If you don't have Word, try using Spellonline.
 * 10) Preview it. Paste it into the wikiediting window and hit "Show Preview."  Actually read through it and make sure eveything sounds smooth, and make sure the paragraphs and sections logically flow from one to the next.
 * 11) Wikify it. Just add those double-brackets to absolutely every word or phrase that relates to the article that might or should exist on Wikipedia.  Then hit preview, and take out all of the excessively dumb links that don't exist.
 * 12) Once you're satisfied, hit "Save Page."
 * 13) Boom!

The followup:


 * Don't forget to submit it to the Recent additions section, which is where Wikipedia highlites its new articles. If it gets listed on the front page you'll get lots of other people editing your work.  This means you're a sucess.
 * Go find some incoming links for your article. Look at what the aricle links to, see if any of those pages can be edited to point back.  Also just do a general search for your article's title, and maybe any easy misspellings, there might already be plenty of places to drop in the link.
 * If you want a better article, go find a relevant picture for it from some free source, upload it to the wikipedia, and include it in your article.
 * Find some categories for your article. There are tons of general/useless ones, such as "Births in 1960," so you're sure to find at least one for your article.

See also: How to structure the content, Section, Contributing FAQ