User:CookieMonster755/Your first article

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia! I am CookieMonster755, but you can just call me Cookie Monster. This page will be for beginners (or anyone) who want to create their first (or new) article on Wikipedia. Now let's begin, and please: Be bold!

Please, read the introduction before reading on: (Unless you have created an article before, and want to refresh on steps for a good article, skip ahead)

Introduction

Wikipedia guidelines clearly state that you can only create a new article(s) directly once you've registered an account. You need only choose a username and password. I also recommend using an e-mail address as well, so if you forget your password, you can easily reset your account. If you don't want to register for an account, registered and unregistered users (IP addresses) alike may submit their article for review and publishing by others at the Articles for Creation project. If you are an unregistered IP address or a user who does not want to directly submit an article on Wikipedia, please click here.

Creating a new article

Note: Writing articles about you, a family member or friend is not aloud. This is called a conflict of interest. COI editing is promote your own interests, including your business or financial interests, or those of your external relationships, such as with family, friends or employers. COI editing is strongly discouraged. It causes public embarrassment to the individuals and groups being promoted (to see the consensus of how COI editing can affect your real life, see: Wikipedia in the real world), and if it causes disruption to the encyclopedia, your account could be blocked. "Misrepresenting your affiliation with any individual or entity" is a violation of the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use. As much as I tried to explain to you that COI editing is bad, you still may have questions, or not fully understand. There is much more information here: Wikipedia:Conflict of interest.

Title for your new article

In the search box below, type the title of your article, then click Go. If the Search page reports "You may create the page" followed by the article name in red, then you can click the red article name to start editing your article, but please, before writing the article, refer back to this page to resume reading the steps of creating your first article (or a new article).

Is it new?
Type, then click "Go (try title)"

There may or may not be an article with the same title as the one you wish to create. If there is an article with the title you searched, that subject you may be writing about its already on Wikipedia. Please read that article with your title. If that subject was your subject you were going to write about, no need to write another article about the same subject. Instead, please improve the existing article. If your title is already used in another article, but that article is not the same as your subject (meaning they share the same name, which is common with people who have common names), please use a Disambiguation title. For example: If I was writing an article about John Smith, an architect, but the same title "John Smith" was used about John Smith the actor, I would instead use "John Smith (architect)" instead. For more information about disambiguation titles, please refer to WP:NATURAL.

After you have chosen your article name, refer to the next step. If you are still having trouble with coming up with a title for your article, please post me a message on my talk page

Gathering references

The next step to create a good quality article is references, verifiable references. References let people know where Wikipedia got that information from. All Wikipedia content must be verifiable through citations to reliable sources.

As I said, the sources you use in your new article must be reliable; that is, they must be sources that exercise some form of editorial control and have some reputation for fact checking and accuracy. Print sources (and web-based versions of those sources) tend to be the most reliable, though some web-only sources may also be reliable. Examples might include (but are not limited to) books published by major publishing houses, newspapers, magazines, peer-reviewed scholarly journals, websites of any of the above, and other websites that meet the same requirements as a reputable print-based source.

Sources with no editorial control, and I said no editorial control are not reliable. These include (but are not limited to) books published by vanity presses, self-published 'zines', blogs, web forums, usenet discussions, BBSes, fan sites, vanity websites that permit the creation of self-promotional articles (like iReport), and other similar venues. Any of the mentioned above "references" will be deleted from your article, or your article could be deleted all together.

Just a note: If there are reliable sources (such as newspapers, journals, or books) with extensive amounts of information published over an extended period of time, about your subject, then that subject is notable, but you must (and when I say must, I really mean must ) cite such sources as part of the process of creating (or expanding) your Wikipedia article. If you cannot find such reliable sources that provide extensive and comprehensive information about your proposed subject, then the subject is not notable certainly will be deleted as soon as a review sees it. So your first job is to go find references to cite. Like I said, if there is no reliable references, this subject is not notable to be included on Wikipedia.

There are many places to find reliable sources, including your local library, but if internet-based sources are to be used, start with books and news archive searches first.

Once you have references for your article, you can learn to place the references into the article by reading Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners and Wikipedia:Citing sources. Do not worry too much about formatting citations properly. It would be great if you did that, but the main thing is to get references into the article, even if they are not perfectly formatted.

Entering references

The very first thing you should write in your article is a list of the source(s) for your information. For now, just enter them like this (and they will automatically turn into links):

(1) http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/books/12vonnegut.html

(2) http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/space/space_shuttle.html

Later, you'll learn how to format them to appear as footnotes.

If you know that it will take you a few edits to list references properly, put the template {{newpage}} on top of the page to signify to other editors that you are working on it. Even better is to create your article in a subpage of your user page, take as long as you need to make it a good article, then move it to the main article space. You can create your personal sandbox for article development by clicking this link. However, even in user space articles on unacceptable topics are liable to be nominated for deletion.

Categorizing

Every article should be in one or more Wikipedia categories. Often the easiest way to find relevant categories is to think of a similar topic that has an article and visit it to see the categories it is placed in. Otherwise, you may go to Category:Articles and click on any relevant subcategories, then keep following relevant subcategory links as far as you can. Follow all relevant subcategory chains, and add a category declaration, written [[Category:your category]], at the bottom of your article for each relevant category that has no relevant subcategories of its own.

Final step

Now for your very article... Click the "show preview" button. Review your article, and make additional changes if needed. Than... click "Save page"

Congratulations! You have official created an article on English Wikipedia! I am so proud of you to be bold and create work that people will read about! But wait... the work is not done yet ... (continue to next section)

And then what?

← You will receive a notification that an editor has reviewed your page, and has made sure that its suitable for Wikipedia.

Keep making improvements

Wikipedia is not finished. Generally, an article is nowhere near being completed the moment it is created. There is a long way to go. In fact, it may take you several edits just to get it started.

If you have so much interest in the article you just created, you may learn more about it in the future, and accordingly have more to add. This may be later today, tomorrow, or several months from now. Any time – go ahead.

Whip it up!

I am very proud that you got your first article started. As an editor for about 8 1/2 months (updated as of March 2015), I have seen so many good changes, and sadly, bad changes (called vandalism). I am so glad that you can be apart of this big happy family!

If you have any questions, please leave me a message on my talk page: User talk:CookieMonster755. You can ask me to give you feedback on your new article, just say "Hi", ask me how to get started on Wikipedia, or any questions or comments that come your way, feel free to ask me!

For more Information about creating articles, see Wikipedia's guide to your first article: Wikipedia:Your first article

Sincerely Yours, CookieMonster755 (talk) 01:01, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom
— Benjamin Franklin