So You Want to Write a Wikipedia Page: A Guide to Getting Started

Wikipedia Writer
Wikipedia

So You Want to Write a Wikipedia Page: A Guide to Getting Started

Maybe it’s a page about you. Maybe it’s a page about someone you admire. Maybe it’s a page about a topic for which you have a lot of passion. In any case, you’ve decided you want to contribute to the site and get a page up on Wikipedia. That’s great! But where and how do you get started?

The first step is determining whether or not your topic is notable. For an in-depth discussion on that topic, read Wikipedia’s full Notability Guidelines. But you’re reading this article now, so I’ll summarize it for you. The short version comes straight from Wikipedia and states that a topic is notable if it has “received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.”

Let’s break that down quickly, keeping in mind there is a more in-depth look at notability in another one of our blogs here on the WikiCreators site.

  • Significant coverage means that out there in the Internet, there are several articles or videos or web pages (let’s arbitrarily say more than ten) that discuss and educate readers on the topic in question.
  • Reliable sources is somewhat subjective, but it might be illuminating to use some examples. The New York Times is generally considered to be a reliable source, as is an academic journal or government report. A blog, social media post or tabloid is generally considered unreliable. The best advice I have is to ask yourself, “Would most people trust this source if they were to use it to learn something about this topic?”
  • Independent of the subject is very important. The sources used must not be from the person the page is about. You can’t use material from your own blog to back up claims made on a Wikipedia page about you, for example. If you wanted to write a Wikipedia page about a famous YouTuber, you can’t use information from their YouTube channel as a source. The information has to come from somewhere besides the person in question.

Beyond that, determining notability can be an art form more than a science. Getting a sense of it takes some trial and error. If you’re unsure, contact WikiCreators and one of our experts will make the call confidently and accurately.

You’ve determined your subject is notable. What next?

If you think that your subject is notable and you want to get a page up, first go to Wikipedia and search for a page about your topic to make sure someone hasn’t beat you to it. Then search to see if the page has been previously created, then deleted. In the case of a previous deletion, WikiCreators’ guarantee does not apply as notability might actually be an issue and pages go under extra scrutiny during the approval process.

Formatting

Want to link a word of your text to a different Wikipedia page? Or maybe you want to make a new section or make some text in italics. Maybe a bullet-point list is what you’re looking for. Wikipedia requires some very rudimentary coding to yield that final result. Wikipedia offers you a quick guide for most simple things.

What if you want to do something a bit more complicated, like add an info box or add in a mathematical formula. Here’s a little insider tip. Go to a separate Wikipedia page with similar features, click the “Edit” tab at the top of the page and look for the code. Copy it and paste it into your page and change the relevant details to fit.

But this is a particularly difficult process, one in which WikiCreators experts are well-versed. Contact us for a professional touch, and to save time during the formatting process.

Citations / References

Citations in Wikipedia are supremely important and very specific. No information presented on Wikipedia is accepted without proper citations. The source itself must be reliable, from a third-party and the citation must be properly formatted for the page to be approved.

By the time you’ve formatted your page and included all the necessary citations, your editing window will look like unreadable code. While perfectly normal, it can be difficult to decipher whether or not the end result will be what you want. This is why Wikipedia’s editing page features a “Show Preview” button, which removes formatting and allows you to see the finished product.

Wikipedia writing is a learned skill. Anyone can learn it, but it takes time, trial and error and a lot of patience. If you’re up for it, the end result can be rewarding. But for those looking just for end results, hire the experts at WikiCreators.

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