Help:Your first article
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Creating an article is one of the more difficult tasks on Wikipedia, and you'll have a higher chance of success if you help out with other tasks first to learn more about how Wikipedia works. You can always come back to create an article later; there is no rush!
Welcome to Wikipedia! Creating a new article is one of many ways to contribute to the encyclopedia, but can be difficult for new editors. Please take the time to read through this guide. Also consider looking at our introductory tutorials or contributing to Wikipedia to learn the basics about editing. Working on existing articles is a great way to learn Wikipedia's protocols and style conventions; see the Task Center or your homepage for articles that need your assistance and tasks you can help out with.
Once you are familiar with the basics of Wikipedia editing, this page will guide you through the process of creating your first article! Specifically, you will learn how to:
- Determine whether Wikipedia should have a new article on the given subject
- Identify and use reliable sources to support assertions in the article
- Create a draft of the article
- Submit the draft for publication into the encyclopedia itself
The basics
All new articles start by researching a topic using high-quality, published sources. Even an expert on a topic cannot directly use their knowledge; published sources are needed. High-quality sources include books by reputable publishers, respected newspapers, peer-reviewed scientific and academic journals, and other sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. This may include some high-quality websites, but excludes personal and company websites, blogs, social media, and any site where the public can contribute, like forums and even Wikipedia itself.
We summarize such high-quality, published sources in Wikipedia articles. That is all we do! Please make sure that everything you write on Wikipedia is based on such sources, and be sure to include inline citations along with the content you write. While primary sources can be used, they should be used sparingly and carefully, usually only to support basic facts. Primary sources do not contribute to establishing notability.
Before you start writing
Are you connected to the article topic?
If you have a personal or professional relationship with what you want to write about, it is best if you do not create the new article yourself. Editing with a conflict of interest, regardless of whether you feel you can do so neutrally, gives the appearance of bias and undermines public confidence in Wikipedia. If you create an article despite your conflict of interest, you should disclose your relationship and make sure that it is reviewed by another editor. If you have a financial conflict of interest in the topic (for example if you have been paid to edit it) you must make the required paid-contribution disclosure and abide by the community's restrictions on paid editing.
Search for an existing article
The English Wikipedia already has 6.9 million articles. Before creating a new one, try to make sure there is not already an article (or a Draft in development) on the same topic, perhaps under a different spelling, or even a different name.
If you're sure that there is no article or draft available for your topic, then there is just one big task to do before you start writing your first article: you have to gather sources about the topic in order to establish its notability.
Gather sources
As described above in § The basics, Wikipedia articles are written based on published sources. If you need some help finding sources, see this helpful guide.
For some common sources, you may find these assessments by the Wikipedia community helpful. Please note these assessments certainly do not list all possible sources: if a source is not listed, that only means it has not met the criteria for listing. If a source meets the reliable source criteria, you are welcome to use it. If you have questions, please do ask at the Teahouse.
Notability – should this topic have an article?
Your topic must be notable, as Wikipedia uses the term, in order to warrant an article. Wikipedia has articles on many topics, but not every topic. Notability is tricky to define, but in a nutshell, if there are multiple published reliable sources about a topic, then it may be notable. A topic is not notable if there aren't sufficient reliable sources about it. (Important: unreliable ones like blogs, social media, and websites anyone can edit don't count!). The General notability guideline gives more details on how to tell if a topic is notable or not. If you're not sure if your topic is notable, ask for help at the Teahouse.
A notable topic is one that has reliable sources that each meet all three of the following criteria:
- Secondary. A secondary source provides thought and reflection based on primary sources, generally at least one step removed from a topic. It contains analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources.
- Independent of the subject. This means that nobody involved in writing or publishing the source has a financial or other connection to the subject. A source is not independent of the subject if any of the following are true:
- if the subject paid for it, including all forms of sponsored content,
- if the content within the source originates from the subject, including most interviews and all press releases, even if published by a third-party (sometimes called "churnalism"), or
- it was published by the subject itself, on behalf of the subject, or by someone related to the subject.
- Significant coverage. The sources must discuss your subject in depth, in multiple paragraphs. A mention in one or two sentences or the appearance of your subject in a table or list is not enough to help establish notability. The special notability guideline for businesses has lots of good examples of what is considered significant.
If you discover the topic is not notable, stop here. Non-notable topics do not qualify for a separate article. Consider expanding a relevant existing article related to the topic or select a new topic. If you are stuck, ask for guidance at the Teahouse.
Look at similar articles
It's a good idea to look at several existing Wikipedia articles on subjects similar to yours to see how such articles are formatted. The quality of our existing articles varies and lower quality articles should not be used as a model. The Talk page of the article may have a quality rating in the shaded box at the top. If an article has been assessed as B-class, or as a Good Article or Featured Article, it is safe to use as an organizational template for your article. You can also consult Wikipedia's Manual of Style for guidance on how to structure an article.
Writing your draft
Once you've verified that there § isn't already an article out there about your topic, § gathered your sources, and § established notability, you're ready to start writing!
What editing tool to use
Wikipedia provides various editing tools, and you have a choice of what tool best suits your needs:
- Source editor – edits the wikitext of the article, which uses some special characters, like adding [[brackets]] to create a link to another page, or asterisks to make bullet points.
- Visual Editor – a tool similar to a word processor, for editing articles without the need to understand any special codes or markup.
Visual Editor is the default. To switch your default editing interface, select an option from the "Editing mode" menu in your preferences.
Users of mobile devices are automatically redirected to the official mobile version of Wikipedia at en.m.wikipedia.org. If you don't want to use the mobile version, tap the Desktop link at the bottom of any page to switch to the desktop version at en.wikipedia.org.
Where to start writing
Where will you develop your draft? You have several options:
- in "Draftspace" – this is a special area of Wikipedia dedicated to creating new articles, and is a good choice because other editors can find your draft here and help out.
- in your sandbox – this is a page you can always easily find, by clicking 'Sandbox' at the top of any page at Wikipediaby tapping the user icon in the top right corner to show the menu linking your sandbox. Downside: you can only create one article at a time there, and it's not so easy for other editors to find.
- in a user subpage. You can find more information about subpages here.
The easiest way is with the Article Wizard, which will create your article in Draft space and guide you through the steps of creating a draft.
How to create content
Writing a Wikipedia article:
- Summarize the most important things your sources say.
- Don't copy/paste wording from your sources; instead, summarize the ideas in the source using your own words. Summarization is more than just changing a few words around here and there.
- Only add information supported by your sources. Don't add from your own knowledge or expertise.
- Make sure you show all major viewpoints fairly. Do not cover fringe views or those held only by a tiny minority.
- Don't take sides or use promotional language.
- Write in a professional tone; avoid loaded language.
- Add citations as you go. This is much easier than writing first and trying to remember later where you found each piece of information.
- You don't have to write the article all at once! Save your progress frequently, with an appropriate edit summary. The button saves your progress.
- You can add images, templates like a an infobox at the top, or a stub at the bottom, and categories to your article.
Citing sources
Sources are the published books, academic articles, reputable magazines and newspapers, and other locations where you find the information you will be writing about. You will need to find sources before you start writing, because all content in articles at Wikipedia must be verifiable—that is, backed up by reliable sources.
The best way to demonstrate verifiability, is by creating a citation to a reliable source that you found, and embedding it in-line as you write your article.
The best sources tend to have some form of editorial oversight and a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Some websites are reliable; many are not. If you're not sure about the reliability of a website, you can read what editors think about them. It's okay to use non-English sources, offline sources, and subscription-only or fee-based sources, as long as they are reliable.
Dos and don'ts
Here are some "Do"s and "Don't"s, to highlight some of the most important points about writing your first article:
| Great ways to contribute | Things to avoid |
|---|---|
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Publish your draft
When your draft is ready, you have two options for publishing it: you can do so directly yourself, or ask another editor to review it first. If you don't have an account, if your account is not yet confirmed, or if you have a conflict of interest with the article topic, you will have to ask for a review. Otherwise, the choice is up to you. In either case, you should take some time to double check that the draft is ready first.
Pre-publication checks
Take another look at your draft to see if it meets the criteria required for a Wikipedia article. Make sure that:
- The first sentence defines the article topic, and tells the reader who or what the subject is in plain English.
- There are citations to reliable sources in the article (most reviewers look for at least three sources).
- Some specific types of information require inline citations, namely: direct quotations, and any contentious material about living persons (negative, positive, or neutral).
- The article is written from a neutral point of view.
- Any controversial claims about living people are impeccably sourced.
Publish directly
If you are sure your draft is ready, and you do not have a § conflict of interest with the topic, you can publish it directly by moving the page from the draft namespace to the main article namespace. To do so, follow the instructions in how to move a page.
Ask for a review
Alternatively, ifIf you think your article is ready but would like another editor to check it, you can submit it for review by an experienced editor by clicking the button at the top of your draft. If the button isn't there, you can instead add {{subst:submit}} to the top of the draft. A reviewer will then look at your draft and either publish it or give you feedback on how to improve it. You may continue to edit the page, even while waiting for a review. This may take some time (maybe weeks); please have patience, we are all volunteers.
Congratulations!
Congratulations, you've created your first article! We have some suggested next steps at Help:After your first article, but do pat yourself on the back. Not many people have successfully created an article on Wikipedia!
Help is available!
- The best place to ask for assistance is at the Teahouse, which is dedicated to answering newer editors' questions.
- For a list of informative, instructional and supportive pages, see the Help directory. More can be found at the request directory.
- . A volunteer will visit you there shortly!
- Alternately, you can ask a question via IRC chat at the #wikipedia-en-help connect channel.
- Via the
#helpchannel at Wikipedia:Discord. - Wiki Education offers a library of training modules for new Wikipedia editors and students.