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Some of Wikipedia's articles are comprehensive right from the outset, but most start off asstubs and ideally grow intowell-written, comprehensive articles with time.
This page describes the stages in the life of an article and lists the ways in whichyou can help an article grow into the next stage. Skipping stages is not just permissible—it is, in fact, recommended! The following categories should give you an idea of how articles typically grow on Wikipedia.
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Consider using a Wizard to help you create articles. See theArticle Wizard.
Every article starts with an idea in the mind of a contributor. You cancreate articles about anything, as long as theybelong in Wikipedia. It is a good idea tosearch first, so you are sure there has not been an article on the subject; if there is, aredirect may be appropriate. If you see ared link that strikes your fancy, create an article! (If you've not created an article before, seeYour First Article.)
For more suggestions on how to think of subjects to contribute on, seeWikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia.
Before you start, it's helpful to read theguidelines andtutorials on creating new articles to get an idea of what you should consider—such matters as the scope, format, references, and NPOV in a Wikipedia article.
Good ways to find articles to create:
If you do not have the time to write a full article, consider writing a "stub". Stubs are very short articles—generally just a few sentences. These are the "ugly ducklings" of Wikipedia. With effort, they can mature into "swans".
Good ways to find stub articles and grow stubs:
To find stub templates appropriate for an article, see these WikiProject Stub sorting sub-pages.
The article stub (or stubs) template is added after the last line of the article. For example:
Last line of the article.
(first blank line)
(second blank line)
{{stub}}
Article quality assessments are mainly performed by members of WikiProjects, who tag talk pages of articles. For beginning stub articles, theclass=Stub parameter is added to the article's WikiProject banner on the talk page.
Once a stub has real content, it is a real article and the article's stub template(s) can be removed. The vast majority of articles fall into this category. They may have weaknesses, so you are encouraged tocopyedit them and, where you have the knowledge or do the necessary research, to add content.
As an article is improved in quality it goes through stages of development. Here is anexample of the evolution of an article.
Good ways to find and improve developing articles (seebelow for more information):
In addition to these resources, there may beguidelines oressays on how to develop articles for specific topics. For instance, there isWikipedia:Manual of Style/Anime and manga for anime articles orWikipedia:WikiProject Schools/Article advice for school articles.
Thefeatured articles are what we believe to be the best articles in Wikipedia. Before promotion to featured status, articles are reviewed atWikipedia:Featured article candidates for compelling prose, accuracy, neutrality, and completeness, according to ourfeatured article criteria. Wikipedians tend to be proud of featured articles to which they have contributed.
Once an article is certified as featured, it joins an exclusive group offeatured content which is showcased across various community pages, includingPortals andWikiProjects. The article could also receive the distinction of being featured on themain page. Before the article is scheduled to appear on the main page, it should receive a last review and polishing where possible.
Featured articles present our best work to people who might not know about Wikipedia. This is an excellent way torecruit new Wikipedians and obtaindonations, both of which help Wikipedia immensely.
Featured articles are well polished, but there are usually small improvements that can still be made.Do not ever be afraid to correct mistakes or update information when you see an opportunity. No article isperfect, even though perfection is always our goal. We have a formal procedure for encouraging Wikipedians to review and improve featured articles:Featured Article Review.
Featured articles
What constitutes a featured article
Good ways to display our best articles:
Suppose you want to create a good, or evenperfect, Wikipedia article that deserves to be listed among ourfeatured articles (those considered by consensus to be Wikipedia's best articles). Your goal is then to meet thefeatured article criteria. Here is a guide to achieving this.
Once you have decided on anencyclopedic topic, useWikipedia's search engine to find out what related material we already have. That way, you discover what already exists and can later create good links to and from other relevant articles.
Additional research is usually necessary to write a great article. A great article has to be verifiable andcitereliable sources which ideally should include books or peer-reviewed journal articles. Consider visiting a university or public library to identify and study the best sources. Consider searchingWikipedias in other languages, looking at whatsearch engines such asGoogle can bring up, and reading the relevant articles from other encyclopedias, to form an idea of what topics should be covered, in what depth, to achieve a comprehensive summary coverage. The following sites may help you:Encyclopedia.com andEncyclopedia Britannica Online.
There are several ways to find and retrieve articles online, without having to leave home.Google Scholar is an excellent source for finding sometimes-free online peer-reviewed articles; note that the free articles' entries are quickly identifiable for having a "View as HTML" link in the result page. Other search engines for scholarlyopen access articles includeCORE andBASE. For a host of free, searchable newspapers, seeWikipedia:Free English newspaper sources.
Many libraries have agreements withpaywalled database providers under which library users with current library cards can connect free to the databases from their home computers—that is, the users do not need to be physically present in the library. Check with your local public or academic library to find out to which databases it subscribes, and whether they have a mechanism in place for remote access. Some high-end databases (like InfoTrac andProQuest) even carry scanned versions of articles as they were originally printed.
Wikipedians are also eligible to apply for access to paywalled research databases via theWikipedia Library. Partners with the Wikipedia Library include:
Other paywalled general interest databases that may be available through your local library are:
Academic libraries often subscribe to special interest databases with in-depth coverage, of which there are far too many to list here.
If you are doing in-depth research on a complex or controversial subject, you should obtain relevant books in addition to articles. If the subject is of historical interest, you may have to visit a library to obtain articles that were published before 1980, since few online databases contain such old articles.
To find books or periodicals stored as bound volumes, the best place to start is with the catalog of your local public library. If you have searched the catalogs of several local libraries without success, try searching library "union" catalogs. With one search in a union catalog, it is possible to determine which books are available on a subject in an entire county, state, province, or country. The largest union catalog is OCLCWorldCat, which claims to have worldwide coverage, though most of its member libraries are inNorth America.
Only by citing the best sources in a field can a Wikipedia article be taken seriously by its critics. For more on this issue, seeWikipedia:Verifiability.
If you are creating a brand-new article (seeWikipedia:Your first article), there are a couple ofnaming conventions that you should follow.
Start your article with a concise lead section or introduction defining the topic and mentioning the most important points. The reader should be able to get a good overview by only reading the lead, which should be between one and four paragraphs long, depending on the length of the article. SeeWikipedia:Manual of Style (lead section).
Remember that, although you will be familiar with the subject you are writing about, readers of Wikipedia may not be, so it is important to establish the context of your article's subject early on. For instance, if you are writing an article about a sports event you should mention the sport and, if relevant, any national details: rather than
TheRed Cup was a domestic league competition that ran between 1994 and 1996
it would be more helpful to write
TheRed Cup was a domestic rugby league competition in New Caledonia that ran between 1994 and 1996
Again, rather than
Bobby the Salmon is a goalkeeper who joined the club in 2006
say
Bobby the Salmon is afootball goalkeeper who joined Fulchester United in 2006
See ourediting help for the format we use to produce links, emphasize text, lists, headlines etc. Make sure to link to other relevant Wikipedia articles. In addition, where appropriate, add links in other articles back to your article.
Do not simplycopy-and-paste from one of the external resources mentioned above. SeeCopyrights for the details.
It is often a good idea to separate the major sections of your articles with section headlines.For many topics, a history section is very appropriate, outlining how thinking about the concept evolved over time.
If different people have different opinions about your topic, characterize that debate from theNeutral point of view.
Try to get your spelling right. Wikipedia does not yet contain a spell checker, but you can write and spell-check your article first in a word processor or text editor (which is a lot more comfortable than the Wikipedia text-box anyway) and then paste it into said text-box. Another option is an extension (such as ieSpell for Internet Explorer or SpellBound for Mozilla and old versions of Firefox – Firefox 2 and up feature built-in spell checking) that can be installed on your web browser and used as a spell checker in text boxes.
Keep the article in an encyclopedic style: addetymology orprovenance (when available), look for analogies and eventual comparisons to propose. Be objective: avoid personal comments (or turn them into general statements, but only when they coincide), do not use personal forms (I found that...). TheWikipedia Manual of Style can help you with your English. You can post questions about English grammar and usage at theWikipedia language and grammar desk.
Try to avoid usingeuphemisms, such as "passed away" for "died", or "made love" for "had sexual intercourse".
At the end, you should list the references you used and the best available external links about the topic. These references are what will allow Wikipedia to be the most trusted, reliable resource it can be.
Finish the article with a good relevant image or graphic. SeeGraphics tutorials for practical help on drawing diagrams and modifying images, or make a request on theGraphic Lab. Many copyright-free image sources are listed at ourpublic domain image resources. Please do not link to images on other servers; instead use theupload page. The sizing of images and other issues concerning images in articles are set out inthe Manual of Style.
One way to get a good article is to bounce it back and forth between severalWikipedians. Use theTalk pages to refine the topic, ask for their confirmations, note their doubts: it is usually interesting to discover that, perhaps from the other side of the planet, after a while, some other contributors can check other sources, or propose different interpretations. The composition of a commonly agreed interpretation is the most important ingredient of a serious Wikipedia article.
It may also be useful to look up your subject in one of the foreign-language Wikipedias, such as the German or French editions. While the English-language Wikipedia is the biggest one in terms of the total number of articles it contains, you may find that other Wikipedias sometimes contain more in-depth articles, especially if the subject is of local importance. Even if your foreign language skills are not particularly developed, you may still glean important information from those articles, like birth dates, statistics, bibliographies, or the names of persons that are linked on the page. If you have incorporated the additional information, please also make the appropriateInterwiki links at the end of your article.
Do not neglect theExternal links andReferences sections. The most useful and accurate material that you have found with your Internet research might make good links for a reader, too. In addition, sometimes a standard work is mentioned repeatedly in connection with your topic. Mention it, with its author and publication date. Even better, obtain a copy and use it to check the material in the article.
In addition, remember to create links to your article from related articles and subjects. This includes anyredirects your article may need, for instance, redirects for other capitalizations of your article title, abbreviations, plural versions, alternative spellings or common misspellings. This helps people find your article and may even help you find a related, already-written article. You can also create redirects from related subjects or subtopics which do not yet have their own articles (redirects with possibilities).
You are encouraged to ask for feedback about the quality of an article at any time. Ask your fellow editors for their opinions, list outstanding issues, and areas to improve on article talk pages, get other editors involved. Networking to identify like-minded Wikipedians is one of the most important (and enjoyable) aspects of the project. It is best to have a reasonably well-developed article before you do this so that those giving feedback have something substantial to analyze.Wikipedia:Peer review is the normal route for evaluating articles.
