Wikipedia:Tip of the day/May 12

List building

There are three basic steps to building a topic list for Wikipedia: the first is to search Wikipedia to make sure it doesn't already have a list on the subject. The second step is to hunt down every word you can find on the subject, from your own memory, books, web directories, dictionaries, etc. Surround each term with double square brackets, and save the page.

Because Wikipedia has become so extensive, don't be surprised if most or even all of the links turn out blue (those are live links, each leading to an article on Wikipedia). Dead-end links are red, but don't remove them, because they show what articles Wikipedia is missing &mdash; anyone can click on a red link to create an article on that topic. The third step is checking each live article in the list for links to related topics. When you find one, add it to the list.