Powerbase:How to Structure an Article
Contents
Introduce your subject
When starting a new article, remember to establish context at the start of the page. Each article should begin with a brief (one- or two-sentence) general description of the individual, organization or topic. If possible, tell the reader why this person or group is in SpinProfiles. The reader should be able to tell from your introduction whether this article is relevant to their interests and whether they want to read on.
e.g.
- The Joe Bloggs Institute is a London-based think tank that has come under criticism for its lobbying activities on behalf of polluting industries.
OR
- Jane Smith is a British Member of the European Parliament (MEP) who was at the centre of an expenses scandal in 2002.
The first mention of the person, organization or topic (which should match the article title) uses bold text. Only the first mention should be in bold – for subsequent mentions, use plain text. Make text bold by selecting it with your cursor and clicking on the "B" in the editing menu at the top of the Edit page.
Format lists
Often, sections of your article such as "People", "Funding", "Clients", and "Publications" will consist of lists of people or organizations. Please follow SpinProfiles formatting conventions for [SpinProfiles:How_to_Format_Lists|lists] in order to keep them tidy and readable.
Give the new page a category
Before you save your new page, remember that all new pages/articles on SpinProfiles should be included in a category. This makes using SpinProfiles easier, makes it possible to find all pages on a topic from one place, and helps to avoid problems with duplicate pages being created.
To put your page into a category, add the coding [[Category:name of relevant category]] at the bottom of the page you are creating. For example, [[Category:PR Industry]]. When saved, this will appear as a link at the bottom of the page. Choose from the list of categories [here|Special:Categories] : http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/Special:Categories
Add a summary when saving
When you're ready to save your new page, remember to jot a note in the small "Summary" box below the larger editing box to help other editors keep track of what's happening on SpinProfiles. In this case something like "starting a new page" will suffice.
Stub pages
Stub pages are articles that currently have little content, but that through the ongoing work of their creator and the collaboration process grow over time into longer articles. Stub pages are noticed and picked up by search engines, and thus attract new readers and new contributors. Please show tolerance for stub page creation and feel free to add to, edit and generally enrich the stub page. Today's stub page acorn is tomorrow's big oak.
Remember that all content added to SpinProfiles may be used by others
Bear in mind that SpinProfiles is an open content encyclopedia. You are contributing to a free, publicly-usable database of information. You automatically license everything you contribute under the GNU Free Documentation License; you can only do that if you own the copyright to the material (which you do if you created it), or if the material is in the public domain. See Spinprofiles:Copyrights for details.
