Wikipedia:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia/Reading guidelines

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Currently, there are no formal guidelines on Wikipedia on how to read an article aloud, and this could lead to a great deal of inconsistency and mistakes. Therefore, some guidelines are being collaborated below.

These rules are a guideline only. If the rules prevent you from improving or producing a recording, ignore them.

Begin your article with a standard header

Begin each article with the following statement before you record the introduction to an article: "Article name, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, at E N dot wikipedia dot org."

Typically the standard header is read first in your article, or second if you wish to give a statement about the opening information. This opening information would comprise details of the sound recording, its date, its author or other notes.

Opening sentences of the written article

Hatnotes, which appear in italics and above the lead of an article, are not to be spoken out. Examples include:

For other uses, see Bird (disambiguation)

"Aves" redirects here. For other uses, see Aves (disambiguation).

Links

Treat links like text when reading. Any vocal indication of every link would disrupt the flow.

Introduction

The opening statement (sound recording, date, etc.) and/or the standard header are followed by the introduction to the article, which is the text at the beginning of an article that usually doesn't have a heading and is used to summarize the subject of the article.

As boring as it may seem, it is good practice to read the table of contents section of most articles. This gives the listener an idea of the structure of the article, and what you will be reading. The contents may be spoken before the introduction, even if it is usually found after the introductory text. You may also be reading, for example, one or more infoboxes (see the following section for more info), but you might be doing this at the end of the article, or sooner. If the contents has many nodes/sections with many subsections/subnodes, you may decide to read out only the major sections. This is acceptable because it still gives the listener an idea of the structure of an article.

Infoboxes

Generally, it's up to you whether or not to read an infobox, and when in the article it should be read. You may decide to read it after the article introduction (usually after reading the table of contents), or in some cases at the end of the article as a summary of the article information. You should assess whether the infobox contains information that the rest of the article doesn't.

If you do decide to read the infobox and you decide to read the table of contents of the article, you should probably read the contents first and also mention the infobox in your contents to give the listener an idea of when they will hear the infobox and how it fits into the structure of the article. A suitable way to introduce the infobox is as follows:

"The following is an infobox which accompanies this article, and gives a summary of the main information about [article name] to supplement the arrangement of information in this article" followed by "[article name] infobox."

Reading out the information contained in an infobox may prove difficult and tedious, and may often sound boring and long-winded, which is why you may choose to only read it at the end of your article. However, if you do decide to read an infobox, do take some time to rehearse and find out what the various terms are referring to. For example, the population section in the infobox of California says "Ranked 1st" — and this is not explained in the article. Reading that in your recording may only confuse your listener, but if you click on the link "Ranked 1st", you will see it is referring to the states and territories of the United States by population. Thus you should be reading: "Population: Ranked 1st in states and territories of the United States". Furthermore, images in infoboxes are less likely to contain captions or descriptions, so you will need to plan what to say about the images in an infobox. However, please note that you should not attempt to describe the images yourself. Instead, say something like, "Further info in the pictures/images section below."

Headings

The listener needs to differentiate between when you are moving on to a new section or subsection of an article.

Numbering sections

When introducing a new section or major heading, begin by saying, "Section 1: [Name of section]", e.g. "Section 1: History". This includes sub-headings, such as "Section 1.3: 21st century".

You can determine the section numbers if there's a table of contents at the beginning of the article. If there isn't one, you may have to calculate these numbers yourself or turn on section numbering in your preferences under Appearance.

Timing

It's optional to make your recording more 'neat' as it may help to leave a 2–3 second pause before reading a new section, and a 1–2 second pause before reading a subsection. As an alternative, slight variations in the stress for the section headings can achieve the same effect without slowing the pace of the reading.

Examples

[...] He is consistently ranked both by scholars and the public as among the greatest U.S. presidents.

[2–3 second break]
Section 1: Family and childhood
[1-2 second break]
Section 1.1: Early life

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, as the second child of Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, in a one-room log cabin on Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville, Kentucky. [...]

[...] He is consistently ranked both by scholars and the public as among the greatest U.S. presidents.

[Using a different reading tone]
Section 1: Family and childhood
[Using a different reading tone]
Section 1.1: Early life

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, as the second child of Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, in a one-room log cabin on Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville, Kentucky. [...]

Images

You should always mention (but not describe) an image in an article so that the listener is aware of this and knows to return to the article to look at the picture if they want to. This is usually done by saying "Image: [Caption]" if the image has a caption, or just "Image" if the image has no caption. In certain cases you may wish to say, "An image accompanied this section of the article, with the caption [caption]." Generally you should only describe pictures if:

The image has no caption and
the article does not describe the picture and
the listener would benefit from such a description.

The article on cats for example has several images, but it is not necessary to describe them because they have captions.

Otherwise, do not attempt to describe the images because this can lead to inaccuracy, bias, deviation from a neutral point of view, errors, and irrelevance.

References

References are only useful for people who want to find more information about the article, or to check the sources of the article. As such it is not recommended that you read the references found in the article. You may however inform the listener that references to the information are available in the written form of the article.

An article "closing" is to be formulated that will provide the listener with a standard set of additional information and disclaimers, and one of these lines might include: "There are references available in the written form of this article — please be sure to verify information found on Wikipedia using the references provided or by cross-referencing the information yourself".

External links

External links are read to inform the listener that there are additional links about their article on the internet (should they wish to return to the written article to access them). Therefore, you should not read the actual web addresses of any of the links.

Quotations

The listener should be able to discern a quotation. The best method you use to identify the quote depends on whether there is an introductory phrase in the text, and the length of the quote.

When the quotation is short and has no introductory phrase, you may identify it by voice inflection and by allowing a sub-second pause before and after speaking it. An example would be: "Some people think that 'shut up' is a terribly rude expression."

When a quotation is no more than a single sentence and has an introductory phrase, identify it by speaking the words "quote" and "end quote" preceding and following the quotation.

For a long quotation (multiple sentences), speaking "begin quotation" and "end quotation" provides more distinct offsetting of the passage.

Close with a standard phrase

Wikipedia articles are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Spoken versions are derivative works, so end your recordings with:

"This sound file and all text in the article are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, available at creative commons dot org slash licenses slash by hyphen S A slash four point zero."

Splitting long articles

Long articles may be tedious to listen and navigate in. If it is desired to split an article into parts, appropriate headers and footers may be added in the script of each part. For example, if we consider that Bird is to be split into say, four parts. Suggested headers and footers are given below.

First part of recording

The first part of the recording could begin in this manner:

This sound file contains the spoken version of a Wikipedia article on 'Bird' recorded by User:AshLin. The material recorded is current as on the 14th of March 2009.
The sound recording of this article has been made in four parts. You are listening to the first part which contains the introduction and contents. The second part contains section one — evolution and taxonomy. The third part contains sections 2 to 4 which deal with the topics of distribution, anatomy, physiology and behavior. The fourth part is the last part and contains sections 5 to 8 which deal with ecology, relationship with humans, economic importance and conservation.
The first part begins now. Bird, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, at E N dot wikipedia dot org.
Birds, class Aves, are winged, bipedal, endothermic or warm-blooded, vertebrate animals that lay eggs. [...]

The first part of the recording could end in this manner:

We now come to the end of the spoken article 'Bird' part one. The next part contains section one — evolution and taxonomy. This sound file and all text in the article are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, available at creative commons dot org slash licenses slash by hypen S A slash three point zero.

Middle parts of recording

The parts of the recording which follow the first part and are before the last part could begin in this manner:

This sound file contains the spoken version of a Wikipedia article on 'Bird' recorded by User:AshLin. The material recorded is current as on the 14th of March 2009.
You are listening to the second part of the sound recording which contains section one — evolution and taxonomy.
Bird, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, at E N dot wikipedia dot org.
Section 1 — Evolution and taxonomy.
The first classification of birds was developed by Francis Willughby and John Ray. [...]

The recording could end in this manner:

We now come to the end of the spoken article 'Bird' part two.
The next part of the recording, part three, contains sections 2 to 4 which deal with the topics of distribution, anatomy, physiology and behavior.
This sound file and all text in the article are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, available at creative commons dot org slash licenses slash by hypen S A slash three point zero.

Last part of the recording

The last part of the recording could begin in this manner:

This sound file contains the spoken version of a Wikipedia article on 'Bird' recorded by User:AshLin. The material recorded is current as on 24 March 2009.
You are listening to the fourth and last part of the sound recording which contains sections 5 to 8 which deal with ecology, relationship with humans, economic importance and conservation.
Bird, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, at E N dot wikipedia dot org.
Section 5 — ecology.
Birds occupy a wide range of ecological positions. [...]