User:Alex Shih/Essays/Non-native speakers

When you are editing English Wikipedia as a non-native English speaker, there are some challenges that you will eventually face. Here are some steps to resolve common problems with editing.

1. Use the correct article title. When you are doing the translation of an article, make sure to google search (with quotation marks) the title to find out which of them can be considered as commonly recognizable name.
2. Never publish a machine translation. There is no need to use difficult vocabularies also, as they may not be commonly acceptable terms. Try to write the article in your own words, with vocabularies that you know.
3. If you are uncertain about your English skills, submit your article through the Articles for Creation process. To accelerate the process, contact one of the editors at the Teahouse and politely ask for assistance.
4. Visit Adopt-a-user project or WikiProjects related to your language (for instance, WikiProject China if you are a Chinese speaker), and find a editor that is willing to mentor you. There are many non-native English speakers on English Wikipedia that are established editors, and their assistance would probably be even more helpful as they may be able to pinpoint the problems with your editing.
5. Listen actively to the editors that are trying to help you, and be sure to demonstrate your competence by asserting you are here to improve the English Wikipedia, in addition to willing to improve yourself also.
6. Have someone to do a copyedit of your article. This can be done by either tagging your article with {{copy edit}}, or by visiting Guild of Copy Editors and submit a request.
7. Being bold is one of the basic principles of Wikipedia, so as long as you follow the bold, revert, discuss cycle precisely, the article will be improved eventually.
8. Remain calm and continue to discuss in good faith if your edits are being reverted, or your article is being criticized with inflammatory tones on either the talk page or in the edit summary.