User talk:Cm195011/sandbox

This is great so far. I think, though, that before you move to photos and infoboxes, maybe take another pass through the text to be sure it's encyclopedic rather than narrative. The introductory paragraph should be brief and only include factual information of significant import (so I'd lose the "all American girl" part), with information such as her siblings moving into the longer, more detailed sections. SarahEMC2 (talk) 14:16, 16 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Cm195011. I'd agree with SarahEMC2 here. Writing for wikipedia is tough. I try to remember a few things:

Unlike a blog post or position paper you don't have to "grab" the reader--they came to the page looking for info! Look at an article like Ada Lovelace. The first paragraph contains a bevy of information. In three sentences we learn who she is, when she lived, what she is famous for and why. Not coincidentally, those are really the three basic facts you want to take away from 30 seconds of reading about Lovelace. What are the basic facts you'd want a reader to take away from this article?
Similarly, readers come to wikipedia expecting (or maybe hoping, we're not perfect!) a neutral summary of the topic. We have to resist the urge to "big up" subjects, even when the work they've done is interesting, valuable or undercovered. Go through each sentence and ask "who says this?" when you see a claim like "Theresa is a very popular and highly recognized international speaker..." or "In 2010 she was a major part of the passing of Senate Bill 235 in Ohio..." For the latter, what are we describing? Did she lobby for passage of the bill? Testify before a committee (we know she did that)?

The narrative focus can be hard to escape. When I get stuck writing a narrative rather than an article, I try to cut down the article to the important, verifiable claims about the subject, then build out from there. As SarahEMC2 says, I would focus on that refactoring before picking out an infobox. If you'd like, I can help you add an infobox to the article but (strangely enough) it will be easier to do once the article is re-written a bit so I can see which infobox is appropriate. Adam (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:48, 17 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]