Writing in Wikipedia is not easy and many people even states that Wikipedia is an unreliable source to cite. However, that does not mean that we are completely going to avoid Wikipedia! We can certainly look for general information about a topic in Wikipedia by simply searching it and we will find neatly written Wikipedia article ready for us. Even though the sources given as references might not be fully reliable, we can still count on that.
BEFORE WRITING:
However, before thinking of writing in Wikipedia, you need to gather information on the topic you want to write about, in that case:
a) Try to collect data as much as you can about the topic you wish to write and arrange them in a draft with the sources (web links) for your own convenience.
b) Try to paraphrase the data you have collected beforehand in Word Document (if possible), it might be useful when you will be needing the whole compiled data in case anything goes wrong in Wikipedia.
c) If your Wikipedia article is not cited properly, then there are chances that your article might get deleted by the authority, so in that case, you need to create the citations of your sources in the correct format (For Wikipedia it is either MLA format or Wikipedia's own format) and save them as draft too as you will be needing them later.
d) Now that you are prepared with your information and sources, you can proceed on to your Wikipedia article (finally!)
WHEN WRITING:
Well, for the new people, these are the few simple steps on how you can open an account on Wikipedia and proceed on to writing your own Wikipedia article (These are the steps based on my own writing experiences in Wikipedia, so you can give it a try):
1) At first, you need to open an account on visiting: http://www.wikipedia.org/ and it will take you to the page as follows:
2) Click on English and it will take you to the main page of Wikipedia where you can find the Create Account button at the upper right corner of the page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
3) Fill in all the necessary details and create your account with a Username and Password and once you get a confirmation email, you can log in to your Wikipedia account:
4) Once your account is created, you can click the Log In button at the upper right corner of the page and Log In to the website using your Username and Password:
5) Once, you have logged in to your Wikipedia account, you need to start writing your Wikipedia article now. However, the easiest way to find the Edit Page for writing a new Wikipedia article is by searching by that topic (which does not exist yet) in the Search Box, once you search with the topic name, the Search Results will show as follows:
Now, you will see a dialogue at the end of the Search Results, which says:
"You may create the page "Exams Invigilator", but consider checking the search results below to see whether the topic is already covered."
This means that by clicking on the Topic Name now (beside - you may create the page), you can directly go the Edit Page of your new Wikipedia article and start writing your Wikipedia article straightaway!
6) As you have come straight into the Edit Page of your new Wikipedia article now, just start writing! Use your collected data and information (which you have previously compiled as Word Document) and start writing them here in the Create or Edit Box/Page:
7) You can use different icons (shortcut menus) and options to edit your writing, insert in - text citations, web links, Wiki links, add References and External sources etc. If you carefully notice, you will see that in the Help Bar of the Edit Box there are several Wiki codes manually given, which you can use to create Bold Texts, Italic Texts, Headings, Sub - Headings etc. Since, I personally have not used the BETA version, so I worked with these simple editing tools manually. I think it is better and help you to understand how to add Headings, Links, Lists etc. manually.
8) Similarly, for References, You can follow the same manual options by scrolling down the Help Bar or try using the options from the Cite Bar. Before that, however, you can create your sources, if you want to put them in the MLA format and then add appropriate web links or Wiki Links in addition to them.
One Quick TIP for adding your Reference links i.e. the Web Links/ External Sources automatically can be done simply by pasting this Wiki code at the very end of your writing:
9) Now, once you are done writing the whole Wikipedia article completely with proper Headings, Sub - Heading, In - text citations, web links, Wiki links, References and External sources etc. you can simply click on the Save Page button or even have a look at your article before publishing by clicking on the Preview button. Remember that once you click on the Save Page button, your article will be published in Wikipedia, but you can always go back to the Edit Page to make changes or even add new information.
10) Now, as your article will be published, you can copy the link to your article and share it with everyone else! Mostly, published article web links will be as follows and your published article will look like this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exam_Invigilator
The References:
BEFORE WRITING:
However, before thinking of writing in Wikipedia, you need to gather information on the topic you want to write about, in that case:
a) Try to collect data as much as you can about the topic you wish to write and arrange them in a draft with the sources (web links) for your own convenience.
b) Try to paraphrase the data you have collected beforehand in Word Document (if possible), it might be useful when you will be needing the whole compiled data in case anything goes wrong in Wikipedia.
c) If your Wikipedia article is not cited properly, then there are chances that your article might get deleted by the authority, so in that case, you need to create the citations of your sources in the correct format (For Wikipedia it is either MLA format or Wikipedia's own format) and save them as draft too as you will be needing them later.
d) Now that you are prepared with your information and sources, you can proceed on to your Wikipedia article (finally!)
WHEN WRITING:
Well, for the new people, these are the few simple steps on how you can open an account on Wikipedia and proceed on to writing your own Wikipedia article (These are the steps based on my own writing experiences in Wikipedia, so you can give it a try):
1) At first, you need to open an account on visiting: http://www.wikipedia.org/ and it will take you to the page as follows:
2) Click on English and it will take you to the main page of Wikipedia where you can find the Create Account button at the upper right corner of the page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
3) Fill in all the necessary details and create your account with a Username and Password and once you get a confirmation email, you can log in to your Wikipedia account:
4) Once your account is created, you can click the Log In button at the upper right corner of the page and Log In to the website using your Username and Password:
5) Once, you have logged in to your Wikipedia account, you need to start writing your Wikipedia article now. However, the easiest way to find the Edit Page for writing a new Wikipedia article is by searching by that topic (which does not exist yet) in the Search Box, once you search with the topic name, the Search Results will show as follows:
Now, you will see a dialogue at the end of the Search Results, which says:
"You may create the page "Exams Invigilator", but consider checking the search results below to see whether the topic is already covered."
This means that by clicking on the Topic Name now (beside - you may create the page), you can directly go the Edit Page of your new Wikipedia article and start writing your Wikipedia article straightaway!
6) As you have come straight into the Edit Page of your new Wikipedia article now, just start writing! Use your collected data and information (which you have previously compiled as Word Document) and start writing them here in the Create or Edit Box/Page:
8) Similarly, for References, You can follow the same manual options by scrolling down the Help Bar or try using the options from the Cite Bar. Before that, however, you can create your sources, if you want to put them in the MLA format and then add appropriate web links or Wiki Links in addition to them.
One Quick TIP for adding your Reference links i.e. the Web Links/ External Sources automatically can be done simply by pasting this Wiki code at the very end of your writing:
== External Links ==
{{Reflist}}
9) Now, once you are done writing the whole Wikipedia article completely with proper Headings, Sub - Heading, In - text citations, web links, Wiki links, References and External sources etc. you can simply click on the Save Page button or even have a look at your article before publishing by clicking on the Preview button. Remember that once you click on the Save Page button, your article will be published in Wikipedia, but you can always go back to the Edit Page to make changes or even add new information.
10) Now, as your article will be published, you can copy the link to your article and share it with everyone else! Mostly, published article web links will be as follows and your published article will look like this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exam_Invigilator
The References:
This is how you can Write your own Wikipedia Article!
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