User:CaroleHenson/Getting Started Concepts
***This is a work in progress, with the article title TBD. Feel free to make edits if you'd like.***
***A subset of this article could be used for a shorter, "Essential Information" type page (i.e., without Wiki marking, etc.)
Welcome to Wikipedia! This overview will provide some information about Wikipedia, how to write a Wikipedia article, where to find help and how the collaborative process works. Assistance can be found in Help documentation, tutorials and through individuals available to support you, too. There are great tools for finding information, such as by searching categories based upon your subject. You may engage with a Wikiprojects community formed to manage subjects or administrative tasks, such as resolving issues with existing articles. A key to successfully creating an article is learning the terminology used in documentation and discussions with others. Generally, the links on this page will keep you here. If you click on any of the "For more information links" you will be taken to a page that will go into greater detail about the topic.
This page is written for people interested in creating an article, so let's get started!
Wikipedia
What it is
- Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia, offering a wide range of information. Its content has grown through the efforts of a community of individuals who write articles suitable for inclusion in an encyclopedia. Guidelines for high-quality content ensure that the information is accurate, reliable and objective.
What it is not
- Wikipedia is not a forum for promoting oneself, a product or service, or an idea.
For more information see:
- Wikipedia:Core content policies are governed by three principal core policies: neutral point of view, verifiability, and no original research.
- Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not - for more information about content that falls outside of Wikipedia guidelines.
Starting an article
An individual creates an article. A number of individuals may become involved in the article, especially if it's a topic of wide interest, by editing the article or expanding its content.
"Sandbox" or "user space"
- Users have a place of their own to draft articles, experiment with presentation and referencing, and bring them up to a level of quality suitable for Wikipedia itself. It's called the "sandbox" or "user space". The best way to begin is by creating an article in the user space. This allows you to ensure that it contains all the key components, bringing it up to a publishable state.
- During that time the article will have a name constucted with your user name, e.g. User:Jane\New article.
- Having your own work space to write and edit the article provides an opportunity to obtain direct edits and/or feedback from other editors, helping to ensure the quality of your draft.
- When the draft is finished move it out of the user space to the main Wikipedia. The best way to start out is Wikipedia:Your first article.
Article wizard
- The article wizard will help you establish the key sections, such as references and categories, that should be included in each article.
Things to consider
- There are a couple of points, though, that warrant emphasis. Information that goes into Wikipedia must be verifiable, with reliable source information. The information should be objective, written from a neutral point of view.
For more information see:
- Wikipedia:Your first article - This explains how you can write your first article and provides information about getting started, writing an introduction (or lead), creating sections, categorizing and referencing your article, and more.
- Help:Userspace draft explains how you can draft an article in your own user space.
- Wikipedia:Article wizard brings you directly to the Article Wizard.
- Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Examples - Examples of acceptable language and biased point of view.
Parts of an article
Top of the page
The very top of the page generally contains information, coded in Wiki markup, that provides information about the article, flags it for specific situations, such as the inclusion of an initial image and/or an information box containing basic details.
Templates
- Templates are specifically formatted tags that control information that is presented in the article or used in the background.
- Are inserted to flag articles for instance to indicate that they are under construction, in use (meaning an editor is working on making changes), requiring references, or more.
- Templates also control the way the page will operate. For instance, the table of contents (which appears automatically as sections are added) generally floats under the introduction, aligned to the left. If you would like it to align to the right a template can be used to do so, in which case it will appear after the introduction image and any information boxes.
- Provides links to other articles, if the title of your article is similar to another article on Wikipedia.
Images
- The top of the page often contains an initial image that is representative of the article topic. Using the basic "thumb" in the markup for the image will size it correctly and align it on the right-hand side.
Information boxes
- Information boxes are also used in the top part of an article to provide information specific to towns, people, visual arts and more.
For more information see:
Introduction
An introduction, usually called "the lead", summarizes the information in an article. If there are article sections, also called headings, then the information in the introduction does not need to be referenced as it is referenced in the body of the article.
There are no codes to identify this area as an introduction. It is the text you type after anything at the top of the page (e.g., templates, information boxes or images) and before any subsequent sections. Many short articles are limited to a text in the form of an introduction, without additional sections apart from one for references.
For more information see:
Section headings
--info to come with links --discuss "main article" and "see also" links
For more information see:
References
As in any encyclopedia, Wikipedia content must be verifiable on the basis of information published on the web, in a journal or in a book.
For more information see:
- Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners
- Gathering Resources - information about selecting sources and documenting references.
- Wikipedia:Citing sources - How to write the citation for the reference. If you are familiar with writing citations, you may want to jump to #A quick how-to to see how the information should be documented in Wikipedia.
Categories
--info to come with links
For more information see:
Wiki markup
If you've written primarily in word processing applications, you may not know that behind the scenes there are codes the control how the information is used and displayed. Individuals who write articles in Wikipedia control the way the information will appear. That can include:
- The sections and automatically created table of contents
- References to provide the source of information
- Images to documents
- Information boxes, such as geographical information, visual arts information, city information and more
- Categories which are used to group articles with a similar topic
For more information see:
Review and editing
Article creation is very much a collaborative effort. In the beginning it is good to ask for review by the appropriate Wiki Project. The individual who started the article is subject to guidelines and input from editors to ensure accurate, quality, verifiable and objective article writing.
In the process of getting the article ready for inclusion in the main Wikipedia space, it may be updated by other Wikipedia editors. Their edits could be based upon:
- Wikipedia guidelines
- Wikiproject guidelines
- Individual style
- Clean-up of information to proper formatting
- Some other reason
There is an opportunity to undo editors revisions. Before doing so, though, it's best to determine if the reason for the revision was due to guidelines or for proper formatting. Often when an someone makes a revision they will leave a reason or type of change in the edit history. On the article page you are reviewing, click on "View History". You will see one row for each change that was made to an article. On a given row the edit summary is at the right-most portion of the row. As an example: (→Color theory and technique: caption ce) (undo) means that the individual updated the "Color theory and technique" section, specifically copy editing the caption for an image.
Your article may be edited by several editors. There are some editors who specialize in areas such as spelling, formatting references, the applicable Wiki Project (topical content), objective point of view, layout of images and more. Just as in everyday life, there are a lot of people with different approaches and opinions. If there's doubt about how something should be managed, it's usually resolved through consensus, and likely with key individuals from the applicable Wiki Project.
For more information see:
- Wikipedia:Your first article for information about creating your first article, starting the article in your user space, things to avoid and things to be careful about.
- Wikiprojects for information about groups that are established to monitor and maintain topical related articles.
- Help:Page history for more information about page history.
Discussion
The best way to manage questions that you have about an article or determine why certain changes have been made is to start a discussion.
There are several ways to start a conversation.
- Start a discussion on the article that is being written. Click on "Discussion" and start a new section or edit an existing section. If you are making a change that is opposition to an edit from someone else, it's wise to create a new section on the "Discussion" tab with your concern or reasoning.
- For more information see:
- Help:Page history for more information about page history.
- Start a discussion with a specific person. From the page history or another location, click on (Talk) after the user name and begin a discussion on their page. You may want to click on the "*" left of the search window so that it appears in your "watchlist".
- For more information see:
- Help:Introduction to talk pages - How to manage a conversation on user talk pages
- Help:Watching pages - How to identify when changes are made to articles or talk pages
Wikiprojects
--info to come with links
For more information see:
- Wikipedia:WikiProject
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory - Directory of WikiProjects
Terminology
- Article - an encyclopedia entry. All articles are pages, but there are also pages that are not articles, such as this one.
- Bibliography
- Categories - a collection of pages linked by topic. Category tags are in the form Category:Computers and are listed at the bottom of a page. The part after the ":" is the name of the category. A list of basic categories to browse through can be found at Category:Fundamental categories.
- Default sort A device to make an article file alphabetically (in a category or other list of articles) other than by the article title, e.g., "John Smith" under "Smith, John", or "The Who" under "Who, The". Can be assigned as a {{DEFAULTSORT}}.
- Link will take the user to another Wikipedia article. A link is accomplished by placing a set of double brackets around the article name (e.g., United Nations). The color font of the link indicates whether it is:
- a broken link, meaning a nonexistent page, which is usually colored red.
- an existing article, a blue link or bluelink, shows up blue.
- an existing article which has been visted by that reader will show up purple.
- Notes
- Redirect- A page title which, when requested, merely sends the reader to another page.
- References
- Sections (also headings)
- Table of contents (TOC) - lists the subsection headings within the page. This is usually close to the top left of the page, but may be placed at the top right, floated, or omitted entirely.
- Tag
- 1. A wiki template, in general.
- 2. Specifically, a template that will assign an article to a category (most often a stub template)
- 3. Specifically, a template applied to an article that indicates that it needs cleanup or that something about it is disputed.
- 4. Specifically, a template applied to a page that indicates that it has been nominated for deletion.
- 5. Specifically, a WikiProject banner template applied to a talk page.
- 6. Frequently: A category. Alternative for category declaration.
- 7. Verb: To apply any such template to a page, or to add a category.
- 8. An HTML element. See also Help:HTML in wikitext and Help:Table
- 9. A mediawiki tag, brief message applied next to certain revisions by the software
- Wikiproject
Resources
Welcome pages
- Wikipedia:Welcoming committee/Welcome to Wikipedia – main welcome page.
- Wikipedia:Introduction – Wikipedia introduction page.
Tutorial and reference material
Click on "show" to see more information about starting an article."
| Editing tips for new editors |
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Stay polite and reasonable, and if you mess up, let the other person know you're a new editor, so they understand it's not deliberate. Avoid battles and serial reversions or you'll get a block: see WP:3RR. Leave it for a bit and work on something else instead.
See how other people interpret things, and also what other people are doing wrong, so you can avoid it. Check out WP:AN/I and WP:AFD to get an idea of how things are viewed.
Never put your own knowledge, views or analysis in an article. Everything has to come from a sound published source. First of all find a good source—something mainstream, not a blog or a fan site. See what it says and use that information, but paraphrase it: never copy and paste. Then put in a reference to show where the information came from. Referencing is key to good editing. You should be especially careful when adding material about living people.
Some of the coding (mark up) on Wiki is difficult, or other things like categories might not be easy to work out. Find another article similar to the one you're working on, click the edit button, then copy the relevant code, categories, stub notice or whatever, and paste it into your own article, changing the text where necessary. You can also do this for the coding for images (NB no need to specify "right": that's the default). There's a row of useful buttons above the edit box (highlight the text, then click the button) and various options below it.
It is also a very good idea to study existing articles to see how they are written, the tone used, the headings and references etc, but make sure you look at one that's done well. The highest standard is a featured article: check some out.
It's best to get experience before you do this. However, the first thing is to make sure the subject is notable. This means that it has to be written about in existing sources (see "Content" above). To be on the safe side, prepare it in a user sub-page (aka sandbox), where it will be safe, and get an experienced editor to check it out before uploading it to the main encyclopedia (aka article space).
You can create extra pages from your user page. Type:
on your user page or talk page. Then click the red link to start the page. Obviously replace "Tyrenius" with your own user name. You can change "Draft" to any title you prefer. You can create several such pages for different purposes.
Make your own reference store of all the things you find useful—coding, templates, links to useful pages, names of editors you might want to consult etc. You can do this on your user page or create a sub-page for it.
If you want your edits to last and your articles to be kept, the key is to reference them. You can put the guide below on your user or talk page by pasting:
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- Wikipedia:Tutorial – Wikipedia editing tutorial.
- Wikipedia:Your first article – with information about how to create a good first article.
General reference information
Questions
- Wikipedia:Questions – the "where to ask questions" directory.
- Wikipedia:FAQ – quick answers to the most common questions.
Getting help
- Wikipedia:New contributors' help page – a place for new users to post questions and get answers by volunteers who monitor or frequent the page.
- Wikipedia:Help desk – where volunteers answer questions on how to use Wikipedia. Many new users go there for help too.
- Wikipedia:Adopt-a-User – where a new user can be adopted by an experienced user who will be his/her mentor.
| This is a Wikipedia user page, not an article. If you find this page on a site other than Wikipedia, be aware that you are viewing a copy of the page on a mirror site, with which the user "Tyrenius" is not personally affiliated. The original page is located at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tyrenius. |
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