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User:Noamross/Wikipedia Guide for Ecology Graduate Students

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This page was created as a resource specifically for graduate students in ecology who are used to writing research articles and reviews and are translating scholarship into Wikipedia articles. It may be useful for others. Please modify and contribute! (But keep in mind that brevity is a goal of this guide).

Many other resources are available for learning about Wikipedia, such as the Wikipedia Tutorial and "First Article" guide. These have more comprehensive information than this page.

Learn about Wikipedia Articles

Wikipedia articles are NOT thesis-driven — quite the opposite. The goal for a Wikipedia article is to present a neutral, well-sourced review of a topic that is both sophisticated and accessible to readers who may know little if anything about the topic. Wikipedia’s content standards ask that authors adhere to 3 major principles, which are a good summary of the features of “encyclopedic” writing:

  • Neutral Point of View: The author should not be advocating a particular position, but instead should present their article in a neutral editorial voice, offering the reader a guide to any controversies within the topic without taking sides. The author’s role is to inform, not convince.
  • No Original Research: Authors should not include original ideas, new syntheses, speculation, or information that they have collected which has not already been published elsewhere.
  • Verifiability: Every piece of information presented must be verifiable via an already existing source (i.e. include plenty of citations!)

For more on Wikipedia policies, start with the Five Pillars page.

For examples, read some articles previously written by ecology graduate students (examples listed below).

Find a topic

You can help improve Wikipedia by picking a topic that is not adequately covered.

  • Search wikipedia for topics that interest you to ensure they are not already covered, particularly as sub-topics in other articles
    • You may want to conduct a general internet search on your topic, as well, to identify whether there is a gap in popular descriptions of the topic
  • Look for topics that other Wikipedians have identified as needing articles
  • Look for articles that need significant improvement

Get Set Up

  • Create a Wikipedia account here.
  • Click on your user name on the top right to create your user page.
  • Edit your user page and type {{user page}} to show that it's not an encyclopedia article
  • Create a draft workspace for your article by typing [[Draft Article]] (or any other title) in your user page.
  • Save your user page and click on the draft article title to link to your workspace
  • Type {{Userspace draft}} in your new draft article to show that it's a work in progress.

Use Wikimedia Markup

The syntax used to write wikipedia articles is simpler than HTML but has still has a learning curve. There are many other guides available, but this this should get you started with essentials. See also the wikicode cheatsheet and the more comprehensive markup reference. You can also click the "Edit" button on this page and other pages to see how others have used Wikipedia code, and copy-and-paste code as needed.

Divide Your Article Into Sections

Wikipedia articles should be broken up into sections with different headers. Wikipedia will automatically generate a table of contents based on these headers:

Description Wiki Markup How it Looks
Section Headers
(Do not use Level 1)		 == Level 2 ==
=== Level 3 ===
==== Level 4 ====
===== Level 5 =====
====== Level 6 ======

Level 2

Level 3

Level 4

Level 5
Level 6

Use Formatting

You should bold the first use of your main subject term. Use the following syntax for text formatting:

Description Wiki Markup How it Looks
Bold '''bold''' bold
Italic ''italic'' italic
Bold & Italic '''''bold & italic''''' bold & italic

You should link to other topical Wikipedia pages and external sites where appropriate. Use the following syntax for links:

Description Wiki Markup How it Looks
Link to another article [[Ecology]] Ecology
Link to another article with custom text [[Ecology|An Article on Ecology]] An Article on Ecology
Link to another web page [http://www.google.com Google] Google

Cite References

Wikipedia requires that your writing be supported by references, which shouldn't be a problem given our standard academic writing. In general, footnotes are used rather than in-line references. To insert a reference, type the following at the point in your text where you want to enter the footnote.

<ref>This is my footnote</ref>

Typing out references can be a pain. Luckily, Wikipedia has some features that allow you to automatically look up journal article citations . To cite using a DOI, type:

<ref name=Example2006>{{Cite doi|10.1146/annurev.earth.33.092203.122621}}</ref>

To refer to the same reference elsewhere in the same article, use:

<ref name=Example2006/>

You can do the same thing using {{cite pmid}} for PubMed IDs, {{cite jstor}} for JSTOR article identifiers, and others. For citing other types of sources see the citation templates page.

At the end of your article, create a bibliography by typing:

==References==
<references />

Wikipedia will automatically generate a list of references from the footnotes in the body of the text.

Post Your Article

A Wikipedia article is constantly evolving, but once it's at a good state, here's how to post it properly:

  • Remove the {{Userspace draft}} text from your article's code.
  • Save the page
  • Mouse over on the small down arrow on the top right of the page and click "Move"
  • In the "To New Title" box, enter your article's title
  • Enter something in the "Reason" box
  • Click "Move Page*

Hello, world!

Connect Your Article to Other Wikipedia Pages

Your article is up, but it's much more useful when classified and linked to. Do the following to make your article findable:

  • Add [[Category: Ecology]] to the bottom of your article to classify it. (You can do this multiple times to include it in multiple categories.)
  • Add {{Ecology}} to your page's talk page. This alerts the editors of the Wikipedia Ecology Project to your page .
  • Create incoming links to your article by editing other pages to refer to your topic as appropriate.

If you are curious you can watch the traffic to your article here.

Get Feedback

  • Request feedback on your article from Wikipedia editors by posting to the talk page of the Ecology Wikiproject
  • Get feedback from non-academic friends on readability.
  • Once your article is up, let experts in the field (such as the author of a recent review article) know about it so that they can edit/provide feedback if they wish.

Maintain Your Article

Wikipedia articles on changing scientific fields should be maintained over time with up-to-date knowledge. You can help maintain your article.

  • Keep an eye on edits other make on your page. Click on the star on the top-right of your article to add it to your watchlist. Your watchlist page (link at the top of the the page) will keep track of changes others make to your article.
    • Alternatively, you can click on the "View History" link and subscribe to the RSS feed of this page.
  • Keep an eye on your developments in your topic using tools such as Google Alerts or paper alerts at ISI Web of Science, and update your page as appropriate.

Other Resources

Examples

Here are some example articles written by ecology graduate students. Please add your article when you post it!:

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