Administrators, upwizcampeditors
0
edits
User:Icem4k/Work space1: Difference between revisions
From Chalo Chatu, Zambia online encyclopedia
no edit summary
No edit summary |
No edit summary |
||
| (One intermediate revision by the same user not shown) | |||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
Wikipedia 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 | |||
depending upon the subject matter, but should | |||
follow the style used by reliable sources, while | |||
remaining clear and understandable. Formal | |||
tone means that the article should not be | |||
written using argot , slang, colloquialisms, | |||
doublespeak, legalese, or jargon that is | |||
unintelligible to an average reader; it means | |||
that the English language should be used in a | |||
businesslike manner. | |||
Articles should generally not be written from a | |||
first- or second-person perspective. In prose | |||
writing, the first-person (I and we) point of | |||
view and second-person (you and your) point of | |||
view typically evoke a strong narrator. While this | |||
is acceptable in works of fiction, it is generally | |||
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 WP:NPOV , and | |||
second person is inappropriately associated with | |||
step-by-step instructions of a how-to guide | |||
(see WP:NOTHOWTO ). 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 are exceptions: for | |||
instance, the " inclusive we " is widely used in | |||
professional mathematics writing. Use common | |||
sense to determine whether the chosen | |||
perspective is in the spirit of this guideline. | |||
Gender-neutral pronouns should be used where | |||
the gender is not specific; see Gender-neutral | |||
language for further information. | |||
Punctuation marks that appear in the article | |||
should be used only per generally accepted | |||
practice. Exclamation marks (!) should be used | |||
only if they occur in direct quotations. | |||
