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Chalo Chatu:Writing better articles: Difference between revisions
From Chalo Chatu, Zambia online encyclopedia
Chalo Chatu:Writing better articles (view source)
Revision as of 09:40, 8 January 2018
, 8 January 2018→Inverted pyramid (news style)
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The lead section common to all Wikipedia articles is, in essence, a limited application of the inverted pyramid approach. Virtually all stub articles should be created in inverted-pyramid style, since they basically consist of just a lead section. Consequently, many articles begin as inverted-pyramid pieces and change to summary style later as the topic develops, often combining the approaches by retaining a general inverted pyramid structure, but dividing the background material subtopically, with summary pointers to other articles. | The lead section common to all Wikipedia articles is, in essence, a limited application of the inverted pyramid approach. Virtually all stub articles should be created in inverted-pyramid style, since they basically consist of just a lead section. Consequently, many articles begin as inverted-pyramid pieces and change to summary style later as the topic develops, often combining the approaches by retaining a general inverted pyramid structure, but dividing the background material subtopically, with summary pointers to other articles. | ||
''' | ===Tone=== | ||
'''Chalo Chatu is not a manual, guidebook, textbook, or scientific journal'''. Articles, and other encyclopedic content, should be written in a formal tone. Standards for formal tone vary a bit depending upon the subject matter, but should usually match the style used in [[Chalo Chatu:Featured articles|Featured]]- and [[Chalo Chatu:Good articles|Good]]-class articles in the same category. Encyclopedic writing has a fairly academic approach, while remaining clear and understandable. Formal tone means that the article should not be written using [[:Wiktionary:argot|argot]], slang, colloquialisms, [[doublespeak]], [[Legal writing|legalese]], or [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Technical language|jargon]] that is unintelligible to an average reader; it means that the English language should be used in a [[:Wiktionary:businesslike|businesslike]] manner. | |||
Articles should not be written from a first- or second-person perspective. In prose writing, the [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style#First-person pronouns|first-person]] (''I/me/my'' and ''we/us/our'') point of view and [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Second-person pronouns|second-person]] (''you'' and ''your'') point of view typically evoke a strong narrator. While this is acceptable in works of fiction and in monographs, it is unsuitable in an encyclopedia, where the writer should be invisible to the reader. Moreover, pertaining specifically to Wikipedia's policies, the first person often inappropriately implies a point of view inconsistent with the [[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view|neutrality policy]], while second person is associated with the step-by-step instructions of a how-to guide, which [[WP:NOT#HOWTO|Wikipedia is not]]. First- and second-person pronouns should ordinarily be used only in attributed direct quotations relevant to the subject of the article. As with many such guidelines, however, there can be occasional exceptions. For instance, the "[[Clusivity|inclusive ''we'']]" is widely used in professional mathematics writing, and though discouraged on Wikipedia [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Mathematics#Writing style in mathematics|even for that subject]], it has sometimes been used when presenting and explaining examples. [[WP:IAR|Use common sense]] to determine whether the chosen perspective is in the spirit of the guidelines. | Articles should not be written from a first- or second-person perspective. In prose writing, the [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style#First-person pronouns|first-person]] (''I/me/my'' and ''we/us/our'') point of view and [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Second-person pronouns|second-person]] (''you'' and ''your'') point of view typically evoke a strong narrator. While this is acceptable in works of fiction and in monographs, it is unsuitable in an encyclopedia, where the writer should be invisible to the reader. Moreover, pertaining specifically to Wikipedia's policies, the first person often inappropriately implies a point of view inconsistent with the [[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view|neutrality policy]], while second person is associated with the step-by-step instructions of a how-to guide, which [[WP:NOT#HOWTO|Wikipedia is not]]. First- and second-person pronouns should ordinarily be used only in attributed direct quotations relevant to the subject of the article. As with many such guidelines, however, there can be occasional exceptions. For instance, the "[[Clusivity|inclusive ''we'']]" is widely used in professional mathematics writing, and though discouraged on Wikipedia [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Mathematics#Writing style in mathematics|even for that subject]], it has sometimes been used when presenting and explaining examples. [[WP:IAR|Use common sense]] to determine whether the chosen perspective is in the spirit of the guidelines. | ||
