Citation Needed! A Guide to Writing and Editing on Wikipedia
- Editing an Existing Wikipedia Article
- Creating a New Wikipedia Article
- Women's History Month
- Need More Help?
The Process
- Create your account and practice editing. Try to make 10 edits before you get started on your assignment. Information on account creation can be found on the ENL 3895 section of this guide.
- Make sure your article doesn't already exist! Search for it on Wikipedia. If it does exist, you can simply edit the existing article.
- Use the Article Wizard to start creating your new article. This will help you create a draft space for your article. Make sure to bookmark it and share with your group. Multiple people can edit the same draft, so only one person in your group needs to create the draft.
- Write! Check out the links in the Helpful Resources box if you need some more guidance.
- Hit the blue "Publish page..." button when you're done! This will allow the page to either be published, or be sent for review by other Wikipedia editors. Consider saving a copy of your article somewhere to ensure you have an extra copy of it. The 'download as PDF' link on the left is great for doing just that.
Helpful Resources
- Manual of Style From Wikipedia. "The MoS presents Wikipedia's house style, to help editors write articles with consistent and precise language, layout, and formatting, making Wikipedia easier and more intuitive for users. Plain English works best. Avoid ambiguity, jargon, and vague or unnecessarily complex wording."
- Your First Wikipedia Article Everything you need to know about writing and creating your first Wikipedia article.
- Article Development The process by which articles turn from short 'stubs' into useful, longer articles.
- Examples of Good Articles Language and literature articles that are considered 'good articles' by Wikipedia. These can serve as good examples of what your finished article should look like.
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- Next: ENL 3895 >>
- Last Updated: Jan 17, 2023 3:01 PM
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How to Write a Wikipedia Article
Last Updated: January 13, 2023 References Tested
Proposing a Draft
Writing an article, choosing a topic, using wikipedia standards.
This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Nicole Levine, MFA . Nicole Levine is a Technology Writer and Editor for wikiHow. She has more than 20 years of experience creating technical documentation and leading support teams at major web hosting and software companies. Nicole also holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Portland State University and teaches composition, fiction-writing, and zine-making at various institutions. There are 19 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. The wikiHow Tech Team also followed the article's instructions and verified that they work. This article has been viewed 601,075 times. Learn more...
This wikiHow will teach you how to write and publish an article on Wikipedia. Anyone can create a Wikipedia page, but it's important to follow their writing guidelines and choose topics that fit their standards. Your topic should be "notable" (it should be a subject covered elsewhere in reasonable detail), and your article should be verifiable with authoritative sources. Once you've decided what you want to write, we've got you covered! The steps below will walk you through the whole process.
Things You Should Know
- Before creating a new article, check to see if an article about that topic already exists.
- If you don't want to commit to writing an entire article, you can submit an article proposal as a draft.
- To write a new article from scratch, you'll need to create and confirm a Wikipedia account.
- The Articles for Creation page contains a lot of useful information about submitting proposed articles as a non-autoconfirmed user, including things you should keep in mind when choosing a topic and how your article will be reviewed.
- While not required, it can be helpful to read over this information before clicking through to the Article Wizard.
- The first page of the Article Wizard asks you if you want to go to the next page, or use the Wikipedia Sandbox to practice editing and writing articles. Click Next to go to the next page.
- The second page in the Article Wizard briefly goes over Wikipedia’s copyright, notability, and referencing guidelines. Click Next to go to the next page.
- The third page of the Article Wizard details a few of the most common mistakes that Wikipedia contributors make. You can then click I’m not connected to the subject Draft Creation page. Or, click I’m writing about something close to me or I’m paid to edit to create a discloser at the top of your article that explains your relationship with the article. [3] X Research source
- If you need help writing your article at any point, you can live chat with a Wikipedia help channel representative at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IRC_help_disclaimer .
- As long as your article remains in the drafting area, you will be able to edit it as needed.
- Draft articles that aren’t published or further edited for 6 months will usually be deleted from the drafting area.
- If your article is declined, you will still be able to edit it. Once you feel like you’ve edited it enough and that it’s ready for resubmission, you can request a re-review by adding {{subst:submit}} at the beginning of your draft.
- If you make an edit that is later deleted, this will still count towards your total number of edits. [7] X Research source
- When you’re directed to your unpublished user page, you’ll see an empty text box above the Publish page button. This space allows you to write something about your Wikipedia user page. Writing in this box will not create an article.
- Before writing your first article, read through Wikipedia’s article creation and writing guidelines to help ensure that your article gets published. To read through Wikipedia’s article guidelines, visit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Your_first_article .
- See this method for tips on choosing your first article topic.
- Writing a Wikipedia article isn't as simple as typing plain text into a box. Familiarize yourself with Wikipedia's Manual of Style and Markup syntax to ensure your article is properly formatted before submitting.
- If your article does not contain proper formatting or violates any of Wikipedia's rules, it may be deleted immediately. Don't save the page until you are sure the finished work is suitable for publishing.
- There are, however, several general and subject-specific notability regulations for Wikipedia articles, many of which are determined by experienced editors after your article is submitted. [14] X Research source
- If you’re able to find several reliable, independent sources that cover your topic, it’s likely that it will be considered notable enough for a Wikipedia article.
- Writing an article about yourself or your company is strongly discouraged, as this is considered a conflict of interest. [17] X Research source
- In addition, try to keep your article to 50,000 characters of text or less. Articles that exceed this length generally need to be split into smaller articles to keep them easily readable. [20] X Research source
- Using headings to organize your article is particularly important because your headings are then shown in the table of contents that appears at the beginning to help readers navigate your article.
- The key feature of both summary style and pyramid style articles that is used in most Wikipedia articles is a lead section at the beginning of the article that summarizes the article and provides an overview of the most important information.
- To help keep your tone formal, avoid using any slang, colloquialisms, doublespeak, or jargon in your article.
- For example, to bold a word or phrase in your article, surround the word or phrase with 3 apostrophes.
- To create a heading, for example, add 2 ‘=’ signs before and after the heading title. For a subheading, include 3 ‘=’ signs before and after the subheading title.
- In some cases, the reliability and accuracy of a resource is subjective. In such cases, it may be helpful for you to do an internet search on the resource itself to better grasp how reliable people tend to believe it is.
- Fact-checking your information will also ensure that your references are sound and that you are providing the best information possible. [24] X Research source
- It may be helpful for you to copy and paste your article into a word processor so you can run it through a spelling and grammar check before submitting it. Be aware, however, that your word processor will likely read wiki-text as incorrect.
Community Q&A
- Don't forget to leave reliable sources. Users can nominate to delete articles they suspect contain "original research" (information you made up; cannot be verified by reliable sources). If an administrator or bureaucrat agrees with them, they will delete the article. ⧼thumbs_response⧽ Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
- Be sure to familiarize yourself with Wikipedia's policies. For example, if you did correctly cite the sources, another user may still nominate to delete it but if you're very familiar with Wikipedia's policies increases your chances of winning any dispute from users who may come across as hostile toward you. ⧼thumbs_response⧽ Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
You Might Also Like
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_creation
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Article_wizard
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Article_wizard/HowToDisclose
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Your_first_article
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Why_create_an_account%3F&gettingStartedReturn=true
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:User_access_levels#Autoconfirmed_and_confirmed_users
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Drafts#Creating_and_editing_drafts
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_create_a_page
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Editing
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_comparisons
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Autobiography
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requested_articles
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Writing_better_articles
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Writing_better_articles#Structure_of_the_article
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Writing_better_articles#Information_style_and_tone
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tutorial/Citing_sources
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Writing_better_articles#Check_your_facts
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Writing_better_articles#Pay_attention_to_spelling
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