User:MedienSPP/sandbox

Guidance to Writing Wikipedia – Articles

Preliminary Examination:

Is there already an article about the topic or is the topic mentioned in other articles?

Is there already an article in another language?

Is the topic appropriate for a common encyclopedia?

Instruction for editing

It is recommended to register at Wikipedia. As a registered User, one can create sites for tests, called user sandboxes. To create a user sandbox, go to your user page first (by clicking on the user name, after having logged in). Then go to sandbox and click “for a sandbox of your own, create here”. Your test page will be saved for the next twelve hours and will be deleted after.

If any questions or problems occur or you wish for feedback to your article from other Wikipedians, you can go to the User Help Desk, the chat room Teahouse or the New Contributor’ help page.

For each Wikipedia –article, there is at least one main – author. Mostly, these are the creators of the article or the user, who edited the article the most. Possibly, it might be appropriate to contact the main author fist, when making extensive changes.

After the article has been altered, the changes made do not appear immediately, but need to be approved by a moderator.

Formatting an article right: Recommendation: Use the Libreoffice – Media Wiki – Export

To depict an article in Wikipedia properly, one is obliged to use the Wikipedia mark – up language. For example headline need to be marked with equality signs: == Name of the Headline ==. A collection of the most important wikicodes is provided here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cheatsheet

A helpful tool is the Media – Wiki – Export of the word processor Libreoffice. Libreoffice – Writer can convert text files in Wikipedia files, which already use the Wikipedia mark – up language. For conversion click File -> Export -> Save as-> MediaWiki. Then open the Text file and copy it to the Wikipedia – Wizard. But the conversion does not always work perfectly. The text file should be checked before saving.

Style of Writing

Technical terms should be avoided. If it is not possible to avoid technical terms, the need to be

explained in the text. If available, the technical terms should be linked with existing articles explaining them.

In general, short and simple sentences are desirable. This is especially relevant for the introduction.

Avoid temporal adverbs, such as “at present”. Use a concrete date instead.

Headlines of newspaper articles can be written in italic letters.

Simple matters should be covered at the beginning of the article, complex matters in the end.

The introduction introduces the reader into the topic and provides a short definition.

The introductory sentence should categorize the topic and link it with its main topic.

The headline of the article and possible synonyms should be marked in bald letters.

In case the article requires special skills, this should be mentioned in the introduction. Articles providing an overview should be linked in the introduction.

Headlines in the main part should be short and neutral. For instance, use “ Further information” instead of “ Interesting Facts”.

References, Bibliographical Reference, Instance

Within the article only links to Wikipedia articles contributing to the intelligibility of the article should be used. No unselected linking.

No external links within the text. This is only possible in the section “Weblinks”, which is a selection of external links.

Additionally, there is the possibility to link Wikipedia articles not mentioned in the text, in the section “See also”. However Wikipedia recommends avoiding this section. Internal links can be included in the text, instead.

In the Bibliography, references to core literature and recent publications are enough. Longer Bibliographies should be annotated.

References are made by footnotes, where appropriate with page numbers.

Useful Links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:User_pages

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Avoiding_common_mistakes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Writing_better_articles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_edit_a_page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:The_perfect_article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lead_section

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Drawing_attention_to_new_pages

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tutorial

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Starting_an_article