Wikipedia:GLAM/Leeds/Guides/Writing a Wikipedia Article

=Introduction= To clarify, ‘Wikimedia’ is the collective name for a global movement whose mission is to bring free educational content to the world. Wikimedia has various projects including Wikipedia, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons etc.

=Wikipedia Guidelines= There are countless Wikipedia articles containing detailed guidelines about how to contribute to Wikipedia and how to edit.

=Don’t worry too much= There are so many, in fact, that there are even guideline articles on ‘Ignoring All Rules’ or being ‘Bold’. The crux of these pages is to encourage users to ‘go for it’ and not to worry about the rules because there are always exceptions.

=Some useful ones= • The official tutorial

• The five pillars These are:

1. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia

2. Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view

3. Wikipedia is free content that anyone can use, edit, and distribute

4. Editors should treat each other with respect and civility

5. Wikipedia has no firm rules

• What Wikipedia is not

Wikipedia is a digital encyclopaedia project and not a means of promotion. Articles are not arguments like essays.

Use plain language and avoid emotive terms like ‘incredible’. Sentences should be simple and brief.

• No Original Research All material on Wikipedia needs to be backed up by reliable, published sources that already exist. Wikipedia is not a place for original thought.

However, it is also important that text in a Wikipedia article does not replicate existing web pages – i.e. that it is not copied and pasted. Text in a Wikipedia article is best when it is written especially for its purpose, and not when it is refashioned from an existing piece.

=The most important point= The main principle to take away from the guidelines about writing content for Wikipedia is:

‘Wikipedia articles follow certain guidelines: the topic should be notable and be covered in detail in good references from independent sources.’ (See: ‘Writing Your First Article’)

This means the article must evidence the topic’s significance; and the information you put in must be verifiable and come from third-party sources.

•	Notability: Notable topics have gained sufficient significant attention by the world at large and over a period of time. Reliable independent sources should evidence this notability. •	Verifiability: Other users should be able to check your facts because the sources you have used are published. E.g. academic books, academic journals, newspapers etc.

What this means for us When writing about your own collections on Wikipedia this means we need to be careful not to use only our own website as a source in the references. At the University of Leeds library resources will inevitably be used but need to be supplemented with independent sources.

Some examples of independent sources which discuss Leeds University Library: •	A Descriptive Guide to the Libraries of the University of Leeds (1946), Richard Offor •	Secret Leeds (2007) by John Edwards, David Marsh, Christopher Allen (can be accessed via google ebooks) •	International Dictionary of Library Histories (2016), ed. By David H. Stam •	Directory of Rare Books and Special Collections in the UK and Republic of Ireland (2016), Ed by. Karen Attar

To show the notability of collections it is important to cite researchers who have used our collections in their research and if applicable the Art Council’s designation scheme. The existence of books, articles, news items and websites which talk about the collections help to evidence notability. •	Designation scheme –see page 45 •	Articles about the Treasures Gallery may mention relevant items

Understanding Conflict of Interest Library staff who contribute to Wikipedia about University of Leeds Collections possess a conflict of interest (COI) because these staff are essentially writing about their employers and being paid to do so. (See: Wikipedia: Conflict of interest)

However, the Cultural Sector is an important exception to the COI rule when it comes to editing Wikipedia. (See: Cultural Sector) ‘Museum curators, librarians, archivists, and similar are encouraged to help improve Wikipedia, or to share their information in the form of links to their resources.’

Paid editing also is also regarded as benign if you are a Wikipedian-in-Residence. This is somebody who works for a gallery, Library, archive, museum or university and edits Wikipedia entries that relate to that institution’s mission and helps to enrich the institutions relationship with Wikimedia. (See: Wikipedian in residence)

Wikimedia has an outreach initiative called GLAM, which stands for galleries, libraries, archives, and museums and aims to help cultural institutes to share their resources with the world using Wikimedia. (See: GLAM) ‘The Wikipedia community is eager to help institutions improve online articles about their collections.’

This shows that Wikimedia is actively encouraging institutions like Leeds University Library to contribute to Wikipedia, as long as editors are not simply marketing their organisation. Leeds University Library staff just need to make sure that the COI is declared. This guide will show you how to do this on your user page and the article’s talk page.

Creating an account In order to create a Wikipedia article, you will need a Wikimedia account: https://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Wikipedia-Account Remember to stay logged in as you work on your Wikipedia article.

Declaring your conflict of interest on your user page On your User page you will need to disclose that you are an employee of a particular GLAM organisation.

To do this in Wikipedia: 1.	Click on your user name at the very top of the web page. 2.	This will take you to your ‘user page’. 3.	Click on the ‘edit source’ tab at the top. 4.	Copy and paste the following text into the box:

Conflict of Interest Statement I, User:name_at_Leeds_Uni_Library, am an employee of Leeds University Library, and a cultural institution per WikiProject GLAM. I accept the editing conditions specified at that page. I will not make any edits that would not be beneficial to the goals of Wikipedia. I will modify my editing behaviour based on problems cited by other editors or if my editing conflicts with other Wikipedia guidelines. I ask that other editors do not hesitate to contact me, via my user talk page, if I appear to be going against this declaration. Nick Sheppard (talk) 12:49, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Make sure you replace ‘name’ with your own name. The ‘Nick Sheppard (talk) 12:49, 15 May 2020 (UTC)’ at the end will automatically add your own signature. 5.	At the bottom of the page click ‘show preview’ and ‘save changes’ when you are happy.

Talk Pages All Wikipedia articles and Wikipedia users have an accompanying ‘talk’ page where users can discuss their edits and other issues.

To access an article’s talk page, view any Wikipedia article and you will notice at the top left of the page there are two tabs, ‘Article’ and ‘Talk’. Click on ‘Talk’ and you can read past communication Wikipedians have had about an article.

A user’s talk page is usually linked in brackets after a user’s name. This is an example of a user's talk page.

Writing a message If you would like to add text, a comment or a contribution to a talk page: 1.	Press the top tab of the talk page ‘edit source.’ 2.	Type your text at the bottom, beneath any existing talk. 3.	To add a heading or title to your contribution, write your title on the first line with two equals either side (see the following screenshot). 4.	Sign off your comment by writing four tilde keys, Nick Sheppard (talk) 12:49, 15 May 2020 (UTC) (- this will automatically add your signature, a link to your talk page and the time your text was written.) 5.	Press ‘show preview’ and ‘save changes’ at the bottom. Replying to a comment If you are replying it is standard practice to indent your reply so that the discussion can be read more easily. You indent by adding a colon at the start of the line.

This is aligned all the way to the left.
 * This is indented slightly.
 * This is indented more.

is shown as: This is aligned all the way to the left. This is indented slightly. This is indented more.

Sandbox The sandbox page provides you with space to experiment with the process of editing Wikipedia articles. In your sandbox you can practice editing and formatting. This is where you draft and work on your Wikipedia article. When you are logged in to your User Account you access your sandbox by clicking on the link at the very top right of your screen (‘Sandbox’). You can add text below the line like so:

and press ‘Save page’ at the bottom. To begin editing again click ‘edit source’.

Source editing and Visual Editing There are two ways of editing Wikipedia. ‘Source Editing’ is the original method and the default option. ‘Visual editing’ has been created to offer an easier way of editing which does not require users to learn any wikitext markup (this is the language / code Wikipedia uses). Nonetheless, when using the Source Editor the code you have to use is simple and the amount that you need to use it is minimal. Even though the Visual editor is supposed to be easier, I have only met users who use the source editor. In the interest of being able to speak easily with other people about editing Wikipedia, it may be best to learn to use the source editor, so this guide is for source editing. If you did want to change from source editing to visual editing, this is how you would do so: In your sandbox select the drop down pencil in the right corner and select ‘switch to visual editing’.

Beginning to research and write How do you approach and begin writing a Wikipedia article? 1.	Similar Wikipedia articles I would recommend looking at existing Wikipedia articles about similar topics. It is useful to see how the topic is broken down and what kind of information is included. These are examples of Wikipedia articles about cultural collections and archives: •	General Manuscript Collection for the National Library of Wales •	Royal Manuscripts, British Library •	University of Glasgow manuscript collection •	University Zagreb Library Map Collection •	The Cookery Collection article

2.	Gather your sources It is a good idea to gather your references and sources. Remember everything you write on Wikipedia needs to be verifiable. Make sure that you have, in addition to Library sources about the topic, some third-party independent published sources and sources which show the topic’s notability. If you are writing about a collection, ensure you have some sources which talk about the collection as a whole and not just individual items. (See the section in this guide ‘How often to reference’ to get an idea of how many sources you will need.)

3.	Draft the content I found it easiest to write the main content of my Wikipedia article in a word document first, before putting it into my sandbox.

As you prepare your text, remember that it is important that the text doesn’t closely replicate existing prose on the topic. As usual, don’t copy and paste but put phrases into your own words. It is best to write the text for the Wikipedia article specially instead of reusing something that you have already written.

To keep track of which source backs up which sentence, you may find it helpful to: 1.	Number your list of sources in one document 2.	Write your draft article content separately 3.	As you go along, indicate the relevant source or reference by adding its number in brackets at the end of the relevant part of the draft article. 4.	When you’re ready, copy and paste your draft article into your sandbox on Wikipedia. Then work through it, adding the appropriate references in and formatting it. (See the section in this guide ‘How often to reference’ to understand how many references each statement will need.) This is just a suggested approach. You may prefer to write your draft directly into your sandbox on Wikipedia and reference it as you go along.

Alternatively An alternative approach which new editors may find helpful: 1.	Find an example or model Wikipedia article covering a similar topic. 2.	Click the ‘edit source’ tab at the top of the page. 3.	Highlight and copy all the code and paste it into your own sandbox. 4.	Replace the text with your own relevant content, keeping the basic layout. This may be the best approach if your article is similar to an existing article. For example, if somebody writes a Wikipedia article for another Designated collection at Leeds University Library, it may be sensible to use the existing format of the Cookery Collection article.

References How to add a citation As you draft your article in your sandbox, to cite or add a reference after a statement: 1.	Click ‘cite’ at the top of the sandbox toolbar.

2.	Click on ‘templates’ and select the appropriate type of source you are editing.

3.	Fill in the box that pops up. You don’t need to fill in every field. For a website citation I would recommend filling in the following fields:

To add the access date, simply click on the picture of the calendar and today’s date will automatically be inputted.

To cite a book on Wikipedia, you just need to enter the ISBN number and Wikipedia will automatically generate a reference, drawing on information from WorldCat.

Click ‘Cite’ > ‘Templates’ > ‘Cite book’, Enter the 9 digit ISBN number with no spaces or dashes and press the magnifying glass.

Information about the book will be automatically inputted:

If you don’t have the ISBN number, then for a book citation fill in the following fields:

If the book is available on google ebooks, and especially if a preview of the text is accessible, it is helpful to put a link to the ebook in the URL field above also. It is only necessary to give the access date for sources with an URL.

4.	Press ‘Preview’ and ‘Insert’ when you are happy with your reference. Wikipedia will input the reference for you: Make sure the reference is immediately after your text – i.e. don’t leave a space between your text and the ‘<ref’ which begins the reference.

When you preview your sandbox, a reference like above will show as a footnote:

Reference list For all your references to be listed automatically at the botom of your article, simply add this text to the bottom of your sandbox:

Conflict of Interest
If any users would like to discuss with me any potential problems caused by my conflict of interest, then I am happy to do so. I have tried to edit without bias and comply with Wikipedia guidelines at all times. I have a full declaration on my user page which explains that I am contributing towards the Wikimedia initiative GLAM. Please contact me at my talk page. Nick Sheppard (talk) 12:49, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Making the article live on Wikipedia When you have finished working on your article and you are happy with the result, the draft article will need to be moved from your sandbox over to Wikipedia’s article pages. This will make it live on Wikipedia. This can be done in two ways:

1.	The article can be submitted for review. This process involves other experienced Wikipedia editors checking the article and giving feedback before it is made live.

Or,

2.	You can simply add the article yourself to a Wikipedia page, bypassing the review process.

You will need to decide which of these two methods is more appropriate for your particular article and situation.

Submitting an article for review takes longer than simply creating it yourself. You have to wait for feedback and then respond to it, so you will probably end up working on your article for another week or so. However, the advantage of submitting an article for review is that it gives other editors the opportunity to check and critique your work. When another editor has approved the article and it goes live, it will be marked on its talk page as ‘accepted from draft by reviewer’. This means that in future the article will be less likely to be challenged, critiqued or deleted by other editors. This is particularly useful if your article may be considered controversial or if you are not certain that the Wikipedian community will accept it. For example, when the Cookery Collection article was written, I was worried about the conflict of interest presented by a library staff member writing about the Library’s collections on Wikipedia. Because of this, submitting for review was important and allowed the Library to make sure we had handled the conflict of interest correctly. Adding the article yourself to a Wikipedia page is a much quicker process because the article will become live immediately.

In most cases it is easiest to create the article page yourself when you would like your article to go live. I would recommend submitting for review if there is a strong potential conflict of interest connected to Library staff writing articles so that we can make sure that other editors are happy with our contributions.

How to add the article to a Wikipedia page This process is simply creating the article. If you would like to make an article live without submitting for review: 1.	View you draft article in your sandbox and click the ‘Edit Source’ tab at the top. 2.	Copy all of the Wiki code for your draft article from your sandbox. 3.	In the Wikipedia search bar, search the name of the article you would like to create. 4.	Under the search bar, your article name will be written in red between quotation marks. Click on this red link.

5.	Paste your wiki code into the page. 6.	Press Save page. 7.	Remember to add a conflict of interest statement to the article’s talk page if necessary.

How to Submit an Article for Review This is an alternative method to creating the page yourself and involves your article being formally submitted and reviewed by other experienced editors. 1.	You can do this by viewing your sandbox and clicking the blue button at the top.

2.	In the bar ‘subject/headline’ write the title of your page. Click ‘Save changes’ when you’re finished. 3.	A message will appear saying that a Wikipedia editor will review the article within a week. However, in my experience the article will probably be reviewed within 24 hours. You will receive an email once it has been reviewed. If it is accepted it will be made into a Wikipedia page. If it is not accepted it will be made into a ‘draft’ page and you will receive feedback from the reviewer. You can continue editing it and resubmit when it’s ready.

Review feedback and criticism When you submit an article for review it is likely that it will not be accepted the first time. Here are a couple examples of feedback I have received from reviewers. This can give you an idea of some things to watch out for.

“This submission's references do not adequately show the subject's notability. Wikipedia requires significant coverage about the subject in reliable sources that are independent of the subject—see the guidelines on the notability of people and the golden rule. Please improve the submission's referencing (see Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners), so that the information is verifiable, and there is clear evidence of why the subject is notable and worthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia. If additional reliable sources cannot be found for the subject, then it may not be suitable for Wikipedia at this time.”

“Much of the article appears to be about the things in the collection rather than being about the collection itself as an independent noteworthy thing. Similarly, many or most of the references appear to be about a piece or about a person but not really about the collection itself. You need sources that deal mostly with the collection as an entity, and the article should be about the same, not a catalog of the items in the collection.”

If you receive criticism which seems unfair, here are some ways you can proceed: •	Respond to the criticism and edit your article accordingly, as far as you think is beneficial for the article. •	You can speak to the reviewer by writing a message on their talk page about the feedback. However, if they seem to be hostile, it’s best not to engage in a debate. •	Wait a few days or up to a week. The longer your article is up as a draft, the more editors may see it. A different editor may well defend the article or disagree with the unfair editor. Editors who seem unduly negative or hostile tend to lose interest after a few days. •	After a few days or a week, resubmit your article.

A note on barnstars Barnstars are awards which Wikipedia editors grant each other to show their appreciation for work done on Wikipedia. Here is the list of barnstars and their meanings. If another editor helps you, you may want to award them a barn star. Simply choose a barnstar from the list, copy and paste the wiki code and add it to the bottom of the user’s talk page under the heading:

A Barnstar for you!
Mention your article on, and link to it from other relevant Wikipedia pages Once your article is live, make sure you add links to your article from other relevant Wikipedia pages. (See: adding hyperlinks to Wikipedia pages.) This is important because it will: 1.	Help embed the article within the enclyopedia. And, 2.	It will cause more people to discover the article. Somebody who is reading about a related topic in a Wikipedia article could follow a link to your own. This will help the article and its topic to be reached by a larger audience. For example, on the Wikipedia page for the Designation Scheme I added a link to the Cookery Collection article: I also wrote about the article on ‘Cookbook’ page in the section ‘Cookbook Collections’. After making this contribution it was necessary to declare my conflict of interest on the article’s talk page. This can be done by adding the following code to the start of the article’s talk page, replacing the username as appropriate:

You may also wish to leave a personal explanation of the edit you have made and your conflict of interest. See the Cookbook talk page for an example of the message I wrote explaining my contribution.