Wikipedia:Outlines

This is an information page that describes communal consensus on some aspect of Wikipedia norms and practices. It is intended to clarify the type of article known as an "outline". This is not a Wikipedia policy or guideline; please defer to such in a case of inconsistency with this page.

Shortcut

WP:OUTLINE

This page in a nutshell: An outline is a list of topics arranged hierarchically that helps a reader learn about a subject quickly by showing what topics the subject includes, and how the topics relate to each other. Outlines combine the benefits of tables of contents, site maps, and glossaries. They can be stand-alone articles or can be embedded within articles. Stand-alone outlines are linked together hierarchically, with Wikipedia:Contents/Outlines an entry point to this system.

You know how books have a table of contents at the beginning? It lists all the chapters and sections so you can quickly see what the book is about. Wikipedia has something similar called "outlines."

Instead of just using the search box to look for one specific thing, outlines let you explore entire topics from a bird's eye view. It's like looking at a map of a city instead of just finding one address. A subject on Wikipedia may have many articles about it. Its outline helps you see the whole subject and navigate it faster.

Outlines combine the best parts of tables of contents, site maps, and glossaries. They let you navigate subjects easily, focus on the areas you want, and understand topics better because of how they're organized.

An introduction to outlines

How outlines are organized

The outlines are organized like trees with branches. The main topic is the trunk, and then it splits into smaller sub-topics which are the branches. You can follow the branches down to lower levels to find very specific details if you want. This is called "drilling down." Outlines support drilling down faster than searches, articles, and even categories.

Outlines vs. articles

Wikipedia has two main types of articles: prose articles and lists, while outlines are a type of list that presents topics. Prose articles are like long stories with lots of sentences and paragraphs. Outlines are like lists of important words and ideas about a topic.

Outlines are faster to read than articles because they break down the information into smaller pieces. They show you all the main ideas about a subject in one place, organized like a tree with branches.

When to use outlines

If you know exactly what you're looking for, searching is best. But if you're not sure and want to explore a topic, outlines are better. They let you browse through all the different parts of a subject without getting lost.

Outlines vs. categories

Wikipedia also has something called "categories" which groups similar articles together. Categories are good for seeing what other pages are related to the one you're reading. But outlines are better for getting an overview of an entire subject area.

Each category uses a web directory interface to show 2 levels of a subject at a time, which makes it easy to get lost if you are trying to look at the entirety of an extensive subject. Each outline shows all the levels for an entire subject on a single page, making it a lot harder to get lost.

How outlines work

Outlines use headings and indented bullet points to show which ideas are most important and how they're connected. The ideas that have their own article are linked so you can click on them.

Outlines are kind of like menus at a restaurant - they help you decide what to learn about next. Instead of full meals (articles), they give you a list of all the dishes (topics) to choose from.

While portals give you little samples of information, outlines are more like maps that show you all the different areas of a subject. But, some outlines also explain what each topic means, so they're like glossaries too.

Where to find outlines

See the top page of Wikipedia's outline system - the main subjects are presented there, and in turn lead to more refined topics. The top page can be accessed from Wikipedia:Contents which has a link on Wikipedia's sidebar in the navigation menu ("Contents" is the second link on the menu, right below "Main page").

You can see a list of most outlines in Wikipedia's alphabetical index.

Outlines should be included under Category:Wikipedia outlines. Those identified as being unfinished are usually listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Outline of knowledge/open tasks.

Why do we have outlines in addition to...?

Occasionally, an editor will notice that outlines overlap in scope and function with another type of page, and wonder why we have both. In general, it is because outlines are optimized for browsing and for showing a subject's structure. And because readers vary in their learning styles: some readers find outlines more convenient for exploring and for review than other forms of knowledge access and presentation. For more information about redundancy between Wikipedia's info navigation systems, and its benefits, see WP:CLN.

A deeper analysis of outlines

What an outline is

Outlines may be embedded in articles and other page types (See also: MOS:EMBED) or may comprise entire stand-alone articles with their own titles. See #Stand-alone outlines and #Embedded outlines below.

Regardless of where they are located, Wikipedia outlines have two main purposes:

to introduce readers to relevant topics and their relations;
to help readers navigate a subject across the encyclopedia.

Where an item is placed in an outline's tree structure conveys information about how subtopics are related to each other. Some outlines, such as Outline of the human brain, even provide annotations to provide more information within the outline than links alone provide. Outlines primarily provide readers with greater understanding about a general topic, especially to those who are not completely familiar with the subject. Since the subtopics in outlines are linked, they also serve as part of the encyclopedia's navigation system. In this respect, each outline is a navigation aid for its subject playing a similar role as a table of contents would serve in a paper encyclopedia.

Outlines always have a hierarchical structure which sets them apart from other types of lists such as "Index of", "Glossary of", and "Timeline of" lists. Indexes and glossaries list articles alphabetically, while a timeline is a chronological list of events organized by date. Outlines are also different from portals which provide a collection of excerpts about the subjects without seeking to provide a comprehensive overview of the subject area. Outlines seek to be comprehensive overviews to give the reader the broadest understanding possible of the subject.

For examples of well-developed outlines, see:

Outlines are hierarchical lists about subjects

"Outline" is short for "hierarchical outline", which is a hierarchically-structured list about the subject of the list.

Outlines present their content as subheadings and list entries: an outline article breaks its subject down into a taxonomy in which the levels are represented by list entry indentation, subheading levels, or both. A list with indented levels without subheadings is still an outline.

Where the subtopics are placed in the taxonomy shows how they relate to the other topics and to the overall subject.

Wikipedia outlines are hybrids

Wikipedia outlines are a hybrid of topic outlines (outlines made of terms) and sentence outlines (outlines made of sentences), and many outlines include elements of each.

Many outlines provide descriptive annotations in their entries, to assist readers in topic identification and selection, to help them at a glance to understand the terms and choose which one to click on to read more about.

An outline provides links to subtopics. When there's an article about a subtopic, the subtopic should be linked. This makes outlines useful navigation aids.

Stand-alone outlines

Outline articles are a type of stand-alone list utilizing a tree structure and graphical elements such as indents to display relationships between concepts and subtopics. It should not be confused with other types of articles such as item lists like List of national parks, alphabetical indexes, glossaries, or timelines. Outline articles are usually named "Outline of x", where "x" is the name of the subject being covered to distinguish them from these other kinds of articles. Just like other articles and other stand-alone lists, outlines are subject to the five pillars of Wikipedia and must comply with the core content policies.

Comparison of Wikipedia's and Britannica's outlines of knowledge

An outline of knowledge is an outline whose scope is everything known by humankind. Outlines of knowledge are typically large, though some are more in-depth than others. Wikipedia's outline of knowledge has been under construction under various names since 2005, combining all outlines on Wikipedia. Its main page is Portal:Contents/Outlines. Universal library classification systems, such as the Dewey Decimal Classification and Library of Congress Classification also serve as kinds of outlines of knowledge. Encyclopaedia Britannica presents its Outline of Knowledge in the Propædia volume.

Britannica's Outline of Knowledge is currently broader and more refined than the English Wikipedia's, covering the spectrum of subjects more evenly. Britannica's original Outline of Knowledge took a large team 8 years to complete, and has 517 pages (including suggested reading lists, which aren't part of the subject classification outline itself). The English Wikipedia has been developing its Outline of Knowledge since 2005, with the bulk of the development being done by a small team of contributors and so far it has grown to about 935 pages. Wikipedia's outline goes into more depth on some subjects, but has many gaps Britannica's does not have.

Embedded outlines

As outlines are a type of list, and we have embedded lists (MOS:EMBED), some of those are embedded outlines.

Any branch of an outline that has multiple sections, is itself an outline. Therefore, most embedded outlines are found in outlines, but embedded outlines can be found in non-outline articles too.

When an embedded outline gets too large for an article, it is time to split it off to its own page.

Examples of embedded outlines

Some examples of outlines embedded in non-outline articles include:

What an outline is not

Not a prose article

An outline is not a mere copy of the lead section of the main subject article followed by an unstructured list of links. Even the lead section should be in outline format, to differentiate the outline at first sight from a regular article. There should be a lead sentence identifying the contents of the page as an outline, optionally followed by the primary entry of the outline (a list item presenting the main subject). The name of the subject is the top of the outline's hierarchy.

Unlike prose articles, outlines are formatted as a series of lists, and the list items may be in the form of a topic term, a sentence, or a topic term and an annotation. Outlines should not be in paragraph format.

Not merely an item list

Outlines are not merely a list of items. Outline of sharks is a guide to topics relating to sharks while List of sharks is a list of shark species. Articles which simply list members of a particular class are not outlines, though outlines may contain lists of things as branches within their hierarchies. For example Outline of James Bond contains a list of James Bond novels, but this list is part of a larger structure which organizes them by author and places them in the wider context of topics about James Bond.

Wikipedia outlines differ from conventional outlines in the following ways...

Problems and opportunities presented by the nature of Wikipedia, the Mediawiki software, and the Wikipedia community have resulted in design features in Wikipedia outlines that differ from traditional outlines. The following sections describe the differences.

Wikipedia outlines use headings as additional level indicators

Conventional outlines use indents to indicate levels in the hierarchy. Wikipedia outlines use indents too, but also employ section headings to represent levels as well. In outline articles, the top few levels are usually represented by section headings, with levels further down consisting of indented list entries.

Wikipedia outlines have limited entry-prefixes

Unlike Wikipedia outlines, conventional outlines often include alpha-numeric prefixes on their entries, like this:

Chess

A. Nature of chess

B. Chess equipment

Essential equipment
Competition equipment

C. Rules of chess

1. Initial set up

2. Moves

a. How each piece moves

3. End of the game

4. Competition rules

D. Game play

1. Pawn structure

2. Chess tactics

a. Fundamental tactics

b. Offensive tactics

i. Checkmate patterns

c. Defensive tactics

i. Possible responses to an attack

3. Chess strategy

etc...

Entries in Wikipedia outlines do not include the standard alpha-numeric prefixes because they would make headings look awkward in the Table of Contents generated by the wiki-software which automatically includes prefix paths. Manually adding prefixes to headings would cause the Table of Contents to have interfering prefixes.

List entries within an outline article's sections are usually prefixed by bullets or numbers, because these don't show up in an article's automatically generated Table of Contents. Standard outline alpha-numerics are not employed even at this level, because having not been used in the higher levels contained within the section headings, they would make no sense and would be useless for representing entry paths (similar to the file paths on a home computer, using prefixes instead of filenames).

Wikipedia outlines are a hybrid between topic outlines and sentence outlines

Traditional outlines come in two basic types:

Sentence outlines – outlines comprised of sentences. Sentence outlines are usually created in preparation for writing a document such as an essay or book.
Topic outlines – outlines in which the entries are topics. Topic outlines are often used to summarize the itineraries of academic courses in college, breaking a course down into the topics planned for study.

Wikipedia outlines are not limited to one or the other. In an open working environment like a wiki, where expansion is easily facilitated and innovation is encouraged, topic outlines provide excellent starting points for building sentence outlines. Sentences are useful for clarification, wherever it is needed.

Many outlines present entries that include both a topic and a sentence (in the form of an annotation). In many cases the topic is linked, and a descriptive annotation has been included to aid in topic selection (to help the reader choose which topics he wishes to click on to learn more about).

Most Wikipedia outlines are reverse outlines

Traditional outlines are usually created as a planning tool for a writing project, such as for writing an essay assigned to students by their teacher, or by an author writing a book. Such outlines are developed before the document is composed. This was the role in which the Encyclopedia Britannica built its Outline of Knowledge: as a tool for planning what that encyclopedia would contain.

Only a few of the outlines here were created for early content planning on Wikipedia (and those weren't even in outline format at the time). By the time the rest got started, Wikipedia was already quite extensive (due to its wiki-nature), so outline development took advantage of this by outlining what was already there and using that as a starting point for the further development of each outline.

In academic and writing fields, reverse outlines serve as a revision tool, for improving an existing work, and while they work well for this purpose on Wikipedia, Wikipedia outlines are intended as published documents in their own right. This is because the terms presented in them are hyperlinked to the rest of the encyclopedia (making outlines an excellent navigation aid), and because tree structures are a useful form of presentation (due to their graphical format and degree of organization).

Wikipedia outlines are subject outlines

While traditional outlines summarize other documents, the scope of each Wikipedia outline is an entire subject independent of any specific written work about it, Wikipedia and its articles not withstanding. The focus of each outline is its subject, not necessarily Wikipedia's or any other publication's (incomplete) coverage of it. They are subject outlines as opposed to document outlines. (Wikipedia outlines are a type of article, and like other articles, they describe the external world. As structured list articles, outline articles differ from standard articles primarily by their format.)

Wikipedia outlines are list articles, and share list article features

Being a type of list article on Wikipedia, outlines include Manual of Style list features such as article leads, headings, section leads, {{Main}} article links, bullets, pictures with captions, annotations, reference citations, categories, page footers, and specialized end sections (See also, References, and External links).

Naming outlines

An outline is an outline regardless of its title. An article is an outline if it is a stand-alone list of hierarchically arranged topics. A section is an outline if it is a list of hierarchically arranged topics.

While the title "Outline of" is preferred, there are many outlines named "List of foo topics" (where foo is the name of the subject). An embedded outline might just be named "Outline".

Note that the title "List of foo topics" is ambiguous, and does not indicate the format of the page or section. Some pages or sections named that are alphabetical lists of topics (that is, indexes) and not outlines at all.

The titles of outlines on Wikipedia usually start with "Outline of". But, this is not mandatory.

The word "outline" in the title is never plural ("Outlines of" or "X-related outlines", or "List of x outlines" or "List of outlines of"), since all outlines are components of an integrated network of outlines. That is, when one or more outlines are branches of the same subject, links to them should be included on the outline for that subject.

Subjects in the titles should be plural when it is grammatically correct. For example: Outline of ants, Outline of sharks, etc.

Titles to avoid

A title with "topic outline" is inappropriate because outline pages on Wikipedia can at any time take on aspects that detract from that model and render the title false. That is, a "topic outline" is an outline composed of topics only, so as soon as an editor comes along and adds an annotation or sentence or descriptive lead or section lead, it ceases to be a topic outline and then has an erroneous title.

"Sentence outlines" are outlines composed of sentences (each summarizing a point) - so we don't use this in the title either, because most outlines on Wikipedia include topic entries, or may have them added at any time, which immediately renders that title false. Also, people tend to associate the term "outline" with sentence outlines, which makes "sentence outline" redundant.

Wikipedia outlines tend to include elements found in both of these types of outline and additional wiki-elements as well, such as descriptive lead sections. This mixture of elements, and the potential for them being added at any time by editors, makes the general term "Outline" more appropriate to describe Wikipedia's outlines.

Standardizing outlines to a single name helps to prevent the need to merge redundant outlines with similar titles ("topic outline of x", "subject outline of x", "outline of x topics", "sentence outline of x", etc.) - the simple form "Outline of x" will do.

Embedded lists in outlines

Stand-alone item lists should be named "List of foo". If a stand-alone list of items exists corresponding to an item list within an outline, if it is small enough and its format is compatible, the stand-alone item list should be merged into the outline, otherwise summary style should be applied in that section of the outline.

Splitting outlines

Outlines may grow to be comprehensive. When a branch begins to grow too large, it should be split off. Such a branch that is itself an outline is split off to become a new outline. But if the branch to be split off is an item list, make a new ("List of") item list out of it. For example, List of treaties is much too large to be included in its entirety in the Outline of politics. See Wikipedia:Splitting.

How to create a stand-alone outline

Important: Please don't create outline stubs in article space. Outlines that are bare skeletons and sparsely populated outlines are likely to get AfD'd, even while you are working on them. It's better to create each new outline as a draft in the draft collection of the Outline of knowledge WikiProject, and move the draft to article space after it has plenty of meat on it. Before creating an outline draft, be sure to check that no outline or draft already exists for that subject. Outline drafts are included in the planned and ongoing expansion presented at Wikipedia:WikiProject Outline of knowledge#Projected outline.

General outlines are created using the {{Outline generator}} template, like this:

{{subst:Outline generator|topic uncapitalized|topic capitalized}}

Outlines on countries are created using the {{Outline generator}} template, like this:

{{subst:Template:Outline country|country name}}

If you see a gap in the Outline of knowledge, and the gap is also in the projected future outline of knowledge on the OOK WikiProject page, feel free to create a redlink for the subject in the projected outline or create a request. If the (draft) outline already exists in the projected outline space but is a redlink, one can create it via template and develop, or leave it for others to create (again, please don't create new outlines directly in article space - they need to be developed first as drafts and then moved there).

How to develop a good stand-alone outline

For advice on country outlines, see Country outline development (below)

Outline format

Formatting of Wikipedia's outlines differs somewhat from that employed in conventional alphanumeric outlining, due to the strengths and limitations of the MediaWiki software.

Hierarchical structure

A list without a hierarchical structure isn't an outline, it's just a plain list.

The hierarchy in Wikipedia outlines is represented by headings, and is further extended below those headings by embedded indented lists. The use of headings in this way, where the headings are part of the outline itself, takes advantage of the MediaWiki software's automatic TOC feature and makes long outlines easier to navigate because its headings are displayed in a contents box at the beginning of the article. See WP:TOC.

Embedded lists in outlines are typically bulleted, and indented to show levels, like this:

Cats
- Abyssinian
- Korat
- Siamese
Dogs
- Hounds
  - Bloodhound
  - Irish Wolfhound
- Gun dogs

Vertical space can be conserved through using columns or in blocks to represent items on the same level. See Help:Columns for assistance in creating columns, additionally all available column templates should be listed in Category:Multi-column templates.

Lead section

The purpose of the lead section in outlines is to present just enough description to uniquely identify and recognize the subject. A bloated lead detracts from the content of the outline.

The lead should differentiate the subject from similar subjects. For example, "Oklahoma is a state of the United States" doesn't help much, because there are 50 states. To help the reader distinguish it from the others, include a few key elements that define Oklahoma's character, setting it apart from the other states.

Section leads

Rather than a section lead in the form of a descriptive paragraph (prose), a section should be comprised of outline entries. For example, (from Outline of cell biology):

Cell biology can be described as all of the following:

Branch of science – systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge.
- Branch of natural science – the branch of science concerned with the description, prediction, and understanding of natural phenomena.
  - Branch of biology – study of life and living organisms, including their structure and function.

Here is an example (from a section of Outline of forestry) that uses an annotated lead entry:

Forest management – comprises the overall administrative, economic, legal, and social aspects of forest regulation

Analog forestry – a management focus that seeks to establish a tree-dominated ecosystem that is similar in architectural structure and ecological function to the naturally occurring climax and sub-climax vegetation community.
Bamboo cultivation – farming and harvesting bamboo for commercial purposes such as construction.

Do not place links in headings

Outline entries include annotations. But headings can't be annotated. Therefore, place the link in the body of the section, even though it duplicates the heading.

Note that links provided as {{Main}} hatnotes also cannot be annotated, and therefore should not be used as the alternative to linking in outline headings. Instead, provide the link as a list entry, in the body of the section.

No alpha-numeric prefixes in headings

While outlines in general usually have alphanumeric indexing at the beginning of each entry, outlines on Wikipedia do not, because the MediaWiki software does not yet support automatic outline numbering. Manually numbering the items (including headings) in an outline is not practical or advisable, as it wreaks havoc with the article Contents box feature of MediaWiki, is error prone, and makes outline pages exceedingly tedious to revise - every time an item were to be inserted into a branch, that level of that branch would have to be renumbered. Therefore, Wikipedia outlines are plain, without "outline numbering".

Note that "outline numbering" does not refer to numbered bullets. Numbered bullets can be used to number the items within a section. They are useful for when the number of items is identified in the section lead, like the number of counties in a state. The numbers help show that the list is complete.

Section headings in outlines

Shortcut

WP:OLHEADING

The branches of a subject may be prominent in their own right. Because of this, sections in outlines are often the destination for redirects and embedded links. Also, a great many outlines share the same format and therefore look very similar at a glance, especially country outlines (and state outlines too). Therefore, we use complete headings, even if they repeat the main subject in them. (Such as "History of X" instead of just "History"). Therefore, it is an exception to MOS:HEAD...

The Manual of Style, under "Section headings" (MOS:HEAD), states: "Headings should not refer redundantly to the subject of the article, or to higher-level headings, unless doing so is shorter or clearer." Well, for outlines, for the reasons presented above, doing so makes outlines clearer and less likely to trip up section-hopping readers.

Therefore, unlike prose articles, and invoking the "clearer" exception to MOS:HEAD, the common practice for outline headings is to use complete titles for sections, even when that refers redundantly to the subject of the outline. That way, readers know exactly what they are reading about when they arrive at a section of an outline via a link, or when they are jumping back and forth between similar outlines.

Priority of link types

Outlines reflect the structure of their subjects, and so as subjects branch out to subjects, outlines branch out to outlines whenever possible.

Being a part of an overall outline which itself is one huge list, the various pages of this system link together. The Outline of knowledge is first and foremost an outline, secondarily a list, and finally an article.

When an outline of a topic exists, link to that. If there isn't one, and there's a list, link to that. Failing that, link to an article. If none of the types exists, leave it as an article redlink (as those are most likely to turn blue first).

Outline generator templates provide article links, because these are more likely to exist. When outlines or lists become available, these should replace the article links).

To accomplish this in wiki syntax, the topic <code>[[geography]]</code> would link to <code>[[Outline of geography|geography]]</code>, while still being displayed as "geography".

Navboxes

In order to facilitate annotations, navigation templates (navboxes) should not be embedded in the body of an outline in place of actual outline content. Navboxes also do not show up on the mobile site, which is now over two-thirds of English Wikipedia traffic.

External links

Because outlines on Wikipedia serve as tables of contents and site maps of Wikipedia, external links should be presented in an outline page's External links section only.

Standard ordering of topics

[for ease of comparison]

[for ease of navigation]

Country outline development

To create a new country outline, see How to create an outline page (above).

Most countries already have outlines created for them, but they need further development...

Major problems:

bloated lead section
incorrectly named and/or empty Administrative divisions section
incorrect data in Government branches sections

There is some awkward stuff in the incomplete outlines:

redlinks
empty brackets
apparently irrelevant entries (e.g., "fjords" for a landlocked country)
blank entries

When encountered in article space, many editors tend to delete the awkward stuff instead of complete it. You need to be on the look out for this. One way to check for this is to compare the outline against the template:Outline country. Comparing with that will show you what standard items have been removed.

Here's a good basic order by which to complete an outline in:

Lead section

For most country outlines, as a convenient starting point the lead section was copied from the corresponding country article.

These lead sections should be condensed down to a single paragraph including just enough for good solid country identification. Unfortunately, we haven't developed a standard for this yet (perhaps general location, main distinguishing characteristics, and something the country is famous for) - more thought is needed on this. It was never intended to leave the full article leads in these outlines. We simply copied and pasted the leads from the articles to provide an easy starting point for editing. Some of the leads are monstrous - these pages are supposed to be outlines, not articles or article forks. Any topics in the lead that are essential to the country as a subject should be converted to outline entries and included in the body of the outline (if they are not already there).

Administrative divisions

The administrative divisions sections for many countries are incorrect on the drafts, and the sections are empty. These need to be corrected and filled.

If there are way too many divisions to list, provide a link instead.

Provide a map if you can find one (for each admin div section).

Government branches sections

These too start out in error for many countries. They must be corrected before the outline can be moved to article space.

Maps

Each country outline should include:

Location map
General map (with roads, rivers, cities, etc.) - usually placed next to or below the table of contents
Satellite photo or topological map - usually placed in the Geography section
Map(s) showing administrative divisions - one for each administrative division section, if available
Population density map (or some other demographics-related map) - in the demographics section
Etc.

Look for these at Wikimedia Commons. A faster way to get to what you need is to click on the atlas link in the country outline.

Sometimes the selection to choose from is pitiful. Do the best with what you have to work with.

The best examples of map support so far are Outline of the Isle of Man and Outline of Japan.

Fill-ins

All blank entries and empty link brackets need to be filled in.

Bluelink the redlinks

Generally, either move a page to the name of the redlink, or click on the redlink and create a redirect to the article and section where the information is.

Entries in the natural geographic features section that don't seem like they belong, we still keep for comparison purposes. These outlines serve as profiles, and the standard entries and the standard order they are in let you compare country profiles easily. So rather than remove "Glaciers" for countries that have none, instead add a colon and type in "none". This also helps remove ambiguity. If the glacier item is missing, the reader may not know whether it means that there are no glaciers, or if the outline just isn't complete yet. We're trying to make these outlines as unambiguous as possible.

Finish the coverage

These outlines were created using a template that had all the links most likely to be found for most of the countries of the world. But countries are highly individualized, and there are lots of non-standard topics on Wikipedia about them. We need to find them for each country. Here are some searching tips:

When a section grows too large

See also: #Splitting an outline, above

These outlines are not indexes, and they shouldn't include every article related to the country. We have alphabetical indexes and specialized lists for that. For example, in the outline of the United States, don't include the name of every municipality in the country, because there are thousands of them. That's too much data!

But small countries might only have a handful of cities, towns, and villages. Sure, add them in.

If a section grows too large and Wikipedia doesn't yet have a list that includes those items, split the section off. If the section is too large and there is a list with those items, merge the section with the list. In both cases, apply the summary style on the section (using list content instead of paragraphs).

Search techniques

Use the "intitle" parameter of the search box, or use an external search engine to do title searches of Wikipedia.

Basically, in Google you type in "of" "x" (including the quotes!). (Where "x" is a country name). Then click on Advanced search, and configure it to "title only" and add Wikipedia's URL to the domain field. As you get up to speed with this technique, you'll probably start editing the url directly in the url field at the top of your browser, but you could skip to an advanced method and make an url list of google searches on a user page and load them with Linky (this technique speeds up multi-Google searches immensely).

Here are some examples:

(You can use the wikicode for the links above as the basis for new searches - just replace "Austria" with any other country or region name).

In the results, you'll recognize a lot of the article names on there (guess how the standard article names were found for the region outlines in the first place!) Look over the results, keeping an eye out for article names that are not already included in the country outline you are working on.

(Using "-subject", where "subject" is the name of a subject, you can eliminate a lot of the standard subjects already in use, to make it easier to spot new ones in your results).

Then repeat for "in x", and look them over as above.

Other search terms that may be useful include the country's name (without "of" or "in"), the country's adjectival(s) (e.g. "German", "Germanic"), the country's demonym(s), etc.

In the search results, you'll recognize a lot of the article names on there. Search results helped standardize article names in the first place. Look over the results, keeping an eye out for article names that are not already included in the country outline you are working on.

Check the country's categories

You can usually find blatantly missing topics in Wikipedia's category system.

Browse the subject's articles on Wikipedia

By this point the outline itself is already a powerful research tool. Click on its links to find more links for the outline. For example, History of Russia is a great place to look for links for the history section. And don't forget to read the main article on the country!

Images

Images are best saved for last, because once you've added all the links and maps to the outline, then you know how much room you need to fill with images. But it's OK to add them sooner or as you go - pictures are worth a thousand words and they liven up the page. Just keep in mind that as more links are added, so is more space which needs to be filled with images.

For images, the standard size we've been using is 300px. If the image can't be seen at that size, make it bigger. Placement is usually to the right, but large images usually work best centered at the top or bottom of a section. Be creative, but make it look good.

Try to find pictures that are not already in use in the main country-related articles. You can usually find some at Wikimedia Commons, and in more-specific articles (like place articles, or animal type, etc.). Go a few clicks deep to find the best images; Wikimedia Commons has categories, and well-maintained categories should contain the best images available for use on Wikipedia.

The best examples of image placement are Outline of France, Outline of Gibraltar, Outline of Iceland, Outline of Japan, Outline of Taiwan, Outline of Thailand, and Outline of Vatican City.

Follow up stand-alone outline creation with link support

After an outline has been created in article space, or after it has been moved there from draft space, there are a few tasks that need to be done to support it:

Double check the categories at the bottom of the outline (if missing, add them in!)
Add an entry for the outline to Portal:Contents/Outlines
Add a link to Wikipedia:Community bulletin board#Outlines
Create the outline's talk page, with the appropriate WikiProject banners
Add a link to the corresponding root article's See also section
Add a sectional link to the corresponding subtopics' See also sections
1. For example, in History of chess#See also leading to Outline of chess#History of chess
Add a link to the corresponding navigation footers
Add a link to the corresponding sidebar navigation boxes
Remove its draft links from Wikipedia:WikiProject Outlines
Add its new title to Wikipedia:WikiProject Outlines#What's going on with outlines

How to get involved

Just as with any article on Wikipedia, outlines can be created and edited by anyone, so the easiest way to get involved is find an outline, click "edit", and start typing away. Please keep in mind that outlines have standard formats (by type) to make it easy to compare subjects. This is especially so for outlines on countries.

The Outlines WikiProject was founded to coordinate outline activity. Its main objectives are to build the Outline of knowledge by creating new outlines for it, expand existing outlines, develop standards for outlines, and maintain them all.

Because many subjects have similar structures, their outlines have similar formats and share elements. The development and maintenance of these can often be automated. There is a team of editors dedicated to the use of advanced wikitools to improve Wikipedia's outlines. If you are interested, they can be reached via the Outlines WikiProject's talk page.

Important: Outlines of countries need immediate attention to their government branches sections. These need to be corrected and completed as soon as possible.