User:Mschiffler/sandbox

Some tips for professionals who begin writing and editing development-related articles on Wikipedia

These tips are directed primarily at professionals who want to write articles on Wikipedia.

Before you start...

Writing an article on Wikipedia differs from writing in traditional publications in various ways. The need for a lead section, use of hyperlinks and the existence of a discussion page are three such differences. Also, Wikipedia calls for crisp, to the point information rather than for long academic explanations.

Dos

• Do spend some time to understand how Wikipedia functions before you start. Wikipedia has tutorials and guidelines such as how to write a great article that are highly recommended.
• Do respect the Five Pillars of Wikipedia. They make a lot of sense. In particular respect Neutral Point of View and No original research.
• Do register when you start editing or before posting an article. This will allow you to establish credibility as a user and to use important tools, such as a watchlist to easily keep track of changes that others make to articles that you have created. You do not have to use your real name when registring, although it is recommended.
• Follow the Manual of Style. It is similar to broadly accepted style manuals such as Strunk and White.
• When you start a new article, do choose a topic that is neither too narrow, nor too broad. An article on “Primary education in developing countries” may be too broad. An article on the “Primary education reform project in Bangladesh” may be too narrow. Country topic overviews such as “Primary education in Bangladesh” are highly recommended, ideally as part of an effort to cover all the main countries in one region with overviews on the same topic.
• Take the time to write a good lead section. Many more people will read the lead section than those who will read the entire article. Write it as the last thing after you completed an article, because you will learn a lot while writing the article.
• When you begin writing a series of articles do form teams. For example, a junior professional with good writing and analytical skills and with some initial training on how to use Wikipedia writes the first draft, which will then be reviewed by a senior professional for accuracy and completeness.
• Do get in touch with others who have written articles on Wikipedia if you have further questions. Consider being adopted by an experienced user. He or she will be able to answer any question and monitor/edit your work if you wish so. They are normally very responsive.
• Do explore the multiple options that Wikipedia offers, such as the discussion page or Wikimedia Commons. These tools make sharing and learning through Wikipedia truly interactive.
• Do be eloquent, persistent and patient when explaining to others how Wikipedia can contribute to manage development-related knowledge, while always remaining open to constructive suggestions for improvements.

Don’ts

• Do not (ab)use Wikipedia as a marketing tool to show how great the institution for which you work is. You will receive pushback from other users if you try to do so.
• Don’t cut and paste entire paragraphs or sections from publications. It will be caught and deleted for good.
• Don’t create articles on specific projects or topics that may not fulfill the criteria for notability (such as a single project or publication, unless they are unusually high-profile)
• Don’t use terms like "last year" or "soon", when you refer to a date or period of time, since the reader of the article will not know when it was written. Instead, try to use more exact specifications like "until 2008" or "since November 2007".

Specific tips

Writing your article/edits on a Word document vs writing directly online

Some users like to write the article on a word document and others rather use Wikipedia directly. Using a Word document is useful for checking spelling and grammar errors (Wikipedia does not have that option on line .. albeit better browsers such as Firefox, Apple Safari and Google Chrome have spell checkers) and also allows you to keep a security copy of your work off line. Any work done on a word document then needs to be copied and pasted on the web site. On the contrary, writing directly on Wikipedia is a one step process.

Tips on references

• Make citations as complete as possible, including page numbers.
• Use hyperlinks to source documents whenever possible. You can also hyperlink the publisher, editor, or author's web site.

Use of technical terms and internal links

• Minimize the use of technical terms
• If you use technical terms, consider using links to articles on these technical terms that most likely already exist on Wikipedia.
• If these existing articles are of poor quality and it’s too time-consuming to fix them, don’t link to them.

Languages and translations

• If your article is on a country where English is not the main language, consider creating the article also in at least one of the country’s main languages (e.g. in Latin America we have articles in Spanish, Portuguese and French).
• If you speak English and a main language of the country, start writing in the language that you are most comfortable with. Then have it translated or translate it yourself.
• Before doing so, have it reviewed so that it is as complete and accurate as possible.
• Translations should be done by professional translators, ideally with backstopping from professionals who know the technical and institutional vocabulary in the country and sector well.
• Once the translation is posted, make sure to link the articles in the various languages with each other using interlanguage links
• Once articles exist in several languages, it is useful to choose one version as the master version for updates. This will facilitate updating of the non-master version in regular intervals.

Use of categories

All articles should be categorized into existing categories for countries and topics in order to facilitate access to the articles.