Page:Wikipedia Training Manual.pdf/11

3–Creating a new article

1. The first step is to decide what you want to write an article about. Research your topic, and check that it is not already on Wikipedia! Ensure that you have online references, so that the authenticity of the article can be verified. Books can also be used as a reference, with the usual bibliographic details including the ISBN. Choose very specific topics, not general. For example, an article on frogs in Queensland is considered too broad, but an article on the green tree frog (Litoria caerulea) is acceptable. When putting together the structure of your article remember the following writing style points:

• NPOV–Neutral point of view–write you article in a factual, informative way and not promotional.
• NOR–No original research–All the content in your article should be referenced and the information should come from valid sources.

2. Wikipedia already has a lot of articles. Before creating an article, you should search to check that there is no similar article that already exists. If there isn’t continue to Step 3.

If there is an article on the topic you want to create, you can add your content by editing the current article. For instructions on editing an article see the Editing part of this manual pg 10. If there is an article similar to yours and, it’s just under a different name or spelling, create a Redirect page. A Redirect page can be created like any other page, following these instructions except in Step 4. When the editing box is displayed don’t write any text about your topic, instead just type #REDIRECT [[xxx]], replacing "xxx" with the title of the target page you want to redirect too. Make sure there is no text before the #REDIRECT keyword, or the redirect will not work. The edit summary box can be left blank; the summary will then be automatically generated stating that the page has been redirected to the given target. Click Save As.

More detailed information Redirecting can be found through Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Redirect

3. If no article exists. Now’s your chance to create one. Type in the search box help:Userspace draft..

4. This will bring you to the Userspace help page. Articles are best drafted in Userspace as they can be stopped and started then accessed later by clicking on the My Contributions tab in the top right corner of the page. Once you are happy with your draft article in Userspace you can then submit it to be included on Wikipedia. Type the name of your new article in the create a userspace draft text box and click on the Create a userspace draft button to confirm. Make sure your page name is spelt correctly and you are happy with it before confirming.