User talk:AATT24

Welcome
Hello, AATT24 and welcome to Wikipedia! It appears you are participating in a class project. If you haven't done so already, we encourage you to go through our training for students.

If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on, or ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Please also read this helpful advice for students.

Before you create an article, make sure you understand what kind of articles are accepted here. Remember: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and while many topics are encyclopedic, some things are not.

Your instructor or professor may wish to set up a course page, and if your class doesn't already have one please tell your instructor about that. It is highly recommended that you place this text:  on the talk page of any articles you are working on as part of your Wikipedia-related course assignment. This will let other editors know this article is a subject of an educational assignment and aid your communication with them.

We hope you like it here and encourage you to stay even after your assignment is finished! ReaderofthePack (formerly Tokyogirl79)  (｡◕‿◕｡)  14:03, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Draft notes
Hi! I wanted to give you some notes on your draft.

Make sure that you write in a neutral, encyclopedic fashion. This is often one of the more difficult things to get used to on Wikipedia as it's very different to both everyday writing as well as writing for school or work. Tips on how to do this are:


 * You want to avoid anything that could be seen as a personal opinion. Be careful of descriptive words that sound like opinions, such as "exciting", "beautiful", as well as words such as "boldly", "easily", and so on. The word "resonate" is an example of a word that should be avoided. At best it's not very neutral and can be vague, at worst it can come across as a marketing buzzword. It's the type of word that I would only use if you are going to be directly attributing it to a specific person, such as the artist stating that she "wants her work to resonate with (group) because (reason)" or a critic stating something along those lines.


 * Avoid or be very careful of MOS:WEASEL words such as "some". They can come across as vague or like we're trying to take a specific stance on the topic. It's much better to be specific, such as "Some authors, such as John Smith" - however even then you have to be careful. It's important to make sure that you're accurately summarizing the source material and attributing anything that could come across as an opinion.


 * On that note, attribution is very important. If something is an opinion or a viewpoint, it should be clearly marked as such in the article. Quotes can be a good way to do this, such as "Jane Smith has praised the work for its color and stance on...". You want to avoid it coming across as us putting opinions into the article. You also want to avoid being vague by saying things like "It's said" and so on because that poses the question of "who said this?" and "what are their qualifications to say this?".


 * Quotes should be used sparingly. This is partially because it can overwhelm an article and make it seem non-neutral, but also because it can pose a copyright issue if they're used too heavily.


 * We can only summarize what has been stated in reliable sources. This is one of the areas where Wikipedia greatly differs from most other forms of writing, as most anywhere else it's not only fine to synthesize and draw your own opinions, it's also encouraged. For an example of how limiting it can be on here, imagine a situation where someone describes a cat and its behaviors but never actually calls the animal a cat or even uses the word feline. Even if it seems very obvious that they're talking about a cat, we can't assume that they're talking about a cat. It may be that they're actually talking about another animal entirely, like a fox. Depending on how they phrase things, they may even be talking about a cat-like person. Now if someone were to write about that description and say that it looks like they were describing a cat we can include that in the article, but we would have to specify that this was the viewpoint of X person, rather than a solid truth.


 * Make sure that you have coverage to establish notability. By this I mean coverage in independent, reliable and secondary sources such as newspaper articles about the topic/person. You can use primary sources to back up basic info, but they can't establish notability and if the sources claim something major then it's often better to get a secondary source. An example of this would be if say, an author wrote that they won the Nobel Prize on their website. You'd want to find mentions of it somewhere else. An exception to this would be if you were to use the Nobel Prize website as a source. It would be primary for the award, but could still give notability.
 * You also want to make sure that you're using the best possible sources, while also avoiding sources that are dodgy or aren't considered to be reliable on Wikipedia. An example of a good reliable source would be an article about the artist in the New York Times, a page on a museum website showing that her work is being held in a major museum or part of a major exhibit, or coverage in a scholarly or academic book or article. Weaker sources would be something like coverage in a local magazine. An unreliable source would be an article posted by a random blog.
 * On the subject of blogs and other self-published sources (WP:SPS), be extremely careful with these. Most self-published sources aren't going to be reliable as they undergo little to no editorial oversight, are written by random people (who may not mention their qualifications on the topic), and have little to no fact checking. If we can show where the self-published source has been routinely used/cited as a reliable source by other reliable sources, especially academic and scholarly sources, then they can be used but that is typically pretty difficult to find.


 * With exhibitions, be cautious here. Most galleries won't be notable enough to give notability on that basis alone, so in those cases it's all about the coverage.

I think you have a good start here. I hope this advice doesn't overload you too much, but I also want to make sure that you have some good pointers since Wikipedia can have a steep learning curve. Let me know on my talk page if you have any questions - you can also let your fellow students know that they can reach out to me as well. ReaderofthePack (formerly Tokyogirl79)  (｡◕‿◕｡)  14:39, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh! It actually looks like Jennifer Moon already has an article. Definitely read over the training modules in the link above - it gives advice and explanations on how to work on an existing article. ReaderofthePack (formerly Tokyogirl79)  (｡◕‿◕｡)  14:40, 11 May 2022 (UTC)