User:Nichalp/FA

Writing a Featured article

Step 1: Gather references

1. Gather all references from reliable sources
2. Do a google domain search filtering by .gov and .in (for India-related articles). Throws up a lot of good sources
3. Do a google news search and a google book search
4. Read similar articles that have made the featured status to figure out what needs to be added

Step 2: Outline

1. Based on the information from the sources, create a skeletal outline See this
2. Avoid lower level headings, especially level 3 headings. (==== ====)
3. Avoid a single subsection in a section, bad formatting
4. Ensure the headings are terse, not more than five words
5. If the article is maintained by a wikiproject, check and see if your heading match the recommended wikiproject headings for articles of a similar nature.
6. Add the wikiproject banners to the talk page

Step 3: Writing

1. Do not write the lead, and do not cite sources as yet. You can add the sources in raw form at the end of the section so that you know approximately where the text is sourced from. See this
2. Write as much as possible from your sources. Do not pay close attention to grammar at this stage.
3. Wikify all proper nouns that meet wikipedia's notability criteria.
4. Each section should have more than one paragraph
5. Add external links, see also, and categories

Step 4: Editing

1. Once you have finished with the first draft, you need to edit it for grammar etc.
2. Copy the text to a word processor to check for spelling grammar etc.
3. Check for passive voice (You can set Microsoft Word to check for grammar and style)
4. Check the page size. If the page exceeds 40 kb, you may need to go in for a précis. Consider moving sectional content to daughter articles, and summarizing that here.
5. Ensure that the sections are approximately the same length. If there is an exceedingly long paragraph, try and split it into two or more.
6. Consult User:Tony1#Featured article candidates and good prose to remove redundant phrases.
7. Consult the MOS to check on usage of units (use {{convert}}), dashes and so on
8. At this stage add infoboxes and tables. Make sure that tables use class="wikitable" or class="wikitable sortable" where appropriate
9. Try and source good quality free images images. You may need to mail several people if free images are hard to find to request them put it up on wikipedia under a free licence.
10. Maps and charts are good alternatives to photographs
11. Avoid adding a fixed pixel value to images. Avoid starting a section with a left-aligned image
12. Avoid left-aligned images that push the following section heading to the right
13. Avoid excess images
14. Read the article.
15. Figure out if you have covered all points of the topic and none are missing.
16. Now write the lead, summarising key points of the article
17. As far as possible make sure that all diagrams and maps are SVG format
18. Avoid wikifying common nouns and also avoid excess blue (linked) text

Step 5: Professional Copyediting

1. Take a break of a week or more so that you lose all familiarity with the topic
2. Now see if you can improve the prose in any way
3. Next, request the league of copyeditors to copyedit the article to FA standards
4. Format the references as per WP:CITE and add inline references

Step 6: Polishing it up

1. Fill in all red links
2. See that the Toc is not too wide or too long
3. Prose is not mixed with bullets
4. Images are appropriate for the corresponding section
5. Now list on FAC

See also

• Nichalp's Guide to getting an article Featured!