User:NYMFan69-86/How to create a quality turtle article

A hodge podge of ideas: Before setting out to expand a turtle article, whether it be a species, genus, or any other level of taxa, or a cultural turtle article, make sure you know your stuff. Gather the best, most reliable sources at your disposal and learn about the topic. Notice which things the sources tend to emphasize, these may one of the most important things about the topic. For instance, the overwhelming majority of sources on the bog turtle talk about the large, orange spot on each side of its neck thus, thus it is an important characteristic of the turtle and the article would be remiss without it.
 * How to create a quality turtle article
 * Identify reliable sources
 * Identify current sources
 * Choose the best layout for the article based on sources
 * Locate appropriate images on commons
 * Not crucial, but try to get a distribution map
 * Be sure you know how to format references and citations
 * Make triple sure your taxonomic information is the most current (Important!!)
 * Include citations during article expansion, not after
 * Take full advantage of the sources here, if you have access to them and they cover your turtle
 * Make sure the content flows logically, don't have two paragraphs that both talk about foot anatomy located three sections apart
 * Now for some prose:

Once you know a sufficient amount about your animal (or whatever is to be written about), you can begin preparing for article expansion. A couple preliminary things must be taken care of before this can happen though:
 * 1) Be sure you know how to generate and format references
 * 2) Be able to recognize quality sources
 * 3) Reliability
 * 4) Current
 * 5) Develop the outline of the article in your head. You may or may not want to follow the one offered here (link to area on project page).  Or, and this may be a better choice for some articles, you can follow the basic outline of your best source(s).  What outline do they use?  Was it easy to follow and read?  Did it seem to jump around too much?

Once you feel like you know your topic well enough and you have gathered an appreciable amount of sources (8-10), you can begin writing! Sort of. No matter what article you are poised to expand, there is likely to be some content and references in the article already, before you even show up. In this instance, it may be best to work in a sandbox: this is an example of one. (link to wiki: sandbox). This allows you to generate content without removing everything from the article; you can replace sentences, paragraphs, and sections AS you go.