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Wikipedia:Writing better articles

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Structure of the article

Introductory material












Standard appendices





Excessively long articles should usually be avoided. Articles should ideally contain less than 50,000 characters of text.[1] When articles grow past this amount of readable text, they can be split into smaller articles to improve readability and ease of editing, or may require trimming to remain concise. The headed sub-section should be retained, with a concise version of what has been removed under an italicized header, such as Main article: History of Ruritania (a list of templates used to create these headers is available at Category:Wikipedia page-section templates). Otherwise, context is lost and the general treatment suffers. Each article on a subtopic should be written as a stand-alone article—that is, it should have a lead section, headings, et cetera.


Articles covering subtopics


Information style and tone

Two styles, closely related and not mutually exclusive, tend to be used for Wikipedia articles. The tone, however, should always remain formal, impersonal, and dispassionate.

These styles are summary style, which is the arrangement of a broad topic into a main article and side articles, each with subtopical sections; and the inverted pyramid style (or news style, though this term is ambiguous), which prioritizes key information to the top, followed by supporting material and details, with background information at the bottom.

A feature of both styles, and of all Wikipedia articles, is the presence of the lead section, a summarizing overview of the most important facts about the topic. The infobox template found at the top of many articles is a further distillation of key points.

Summary style

Summary style may apply both across a category of articles and within an article. Material is grouped and divided into sections that logically form discrete subtopics, and which over time may spin off to separate articles, to prevent excessive article length as the main article grows. As each subtopic is spun off, a concise summary of it is left behind with a pointer (usually using the {{Main}} template) to the new side article.

There are three main advantages to using summary style:

  • Different readers want varying amounts of detail, and this style permits them to choose how much they are exposed to. Some readers need just a quick summary and are satisfied by the lead section; others seek a moderate amount of info, and will find the main article suitable to their needs; yet others want a lot of detail, and will be interested in reading the side articles.
  • An article that is too long becomes tedious to read. Progressively summarizing and spinning off material avoids overwhelming the reader with too much text at once.
  • An excessively detailed article is often one that repeats itself or exhibits writing that could be more concise. The development of summary-style articles tends to naturally clear out redundancy and bloat, though in a multi-article topic this comes at the cost of some necessary cross-article redundancy (i.e., a summary of one article in another).

The exact organizing principle of a particular summary-style article is highly context-dependent, with various options, such as chronological, geographical, and alphabetical (primarily in lists), among others.

Some examples of summary style are the featured articles Association football and Music of the Lesser Antilles.

Inverted pyramid

Some Wikipedians prefer using the inverted pyramid structure of journalism. This information presentation technique is found in short, direct, front-page newspaper stories and the news bulletins that air on radio and television. This is a style used only within a single article, not across a category of them.

The main feature of the inverted pyramid is placement of important information first, with a decreasing importance as the article advances. Originally developed so that the editors could cut from the bottom to fit an item into the available layout space, this style encourages brevity and prioritizes information, because many people expect to find important material early, and less important information later, where interest decreases.

Encyclopedia articles are not required to be in inverted pyramid order, and often aren't, especially when complex. However, a familiarity with this convention may help in planning the style and layout of an article for which this approach is a good fit. Inverted-pyramid style is most often used with articles in which a chronological, geographical, or other order will not be helpful. Common examples are short-term events, concise biographies of persons notable for only one thing, and other articles where there are not likely to be many logical subtopics, but a number of facts to prioritize for the reader.

The lead section common to all Wikipedia articles is, in essence, a limited application of the inverted pyramid approach. Virtually all stub articles should be created in inverted-pyramid style, since they basically consist of just a lead section. Consequently, many articles begin as inverted-pyramid pieces and change to summary style later as the topic develops, often combining the approaches by retaining a general inverted pyramid structure, but dividing the background material subtopically, with summary pointers to other articles.


Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, textbook, or scientific journal. Articles, and other encyclopedic content, should be written in a formal tone. Standards for formal tone vary a bit depending upon the subject matter, but should usually match the style used in Featured- and Good-class articles in the same category. Encyclopedic writing has a fairly academic approach, while remaining clear and understandable. Formal tone means that the article should not be written using argot, slang, colloquialisms, doublespeak, legalese, or jargon that is unintelligible to an average reader; it means that the English language should be used in a businesslike manner.

Articles should not be written from a first- or second-person perspective. In prose writing, the first-person (I/me/my and we/us/our) point of view and second-person (you and your) point of view typically evoke a strong narrator. While this is acceptable in works of fiction and in monographs, it is unsuitable in an encyclopedia, where the writer should be invisible to the reader. Moreover, pertaining specifically to Wikipedia's policies, the first person often inappropriately implies a point of view inconsistent with the neutrality policy, while second person is associated with the step-by-step instructions of a how-to guide, which Wikipedia is not. First- and second-person pronouns should ordinarily be used only in attributed direct quotations relevant to the subject of the article. As with many such guidelines, however, there can be occasional exceptions. For instance, the "inclusive we" is widely used in professional mathematics writing, and though discouraged on Wikipedia even for that subject, it has sometimes been used when presenting and explaining examples. Use common sense to determine whether the chosen perspective is in the spirit of the guidelines.

Gender-neutral pronouns should be used (or pronouns avoided) where the gender is not specific. (See WP:Gender-neutral language, and WP:Manual of Style § Identity, for further information.)

Punctuation marks that appear in the article should be used only per generally accepted practice. Exclamation marks (!) should be used only if they occur in direct quotations. This is generally true of question marks (?) as well; do not pose rhetorical questions for the reader.[2]

As a matter of policy, Wikipedia is not written in news style (in any sense other than some use of the inverted pyramid, above), including tone. The encyclopedic and journalistic intent and audience are different. Especially avoid bombastic wording, attempts at humor or cleverness, reliance on primary sources, editorializing, recentism, pull quotes, journalese, and headlinese.

Similarly, avoid news style's close sibling, persuasive style, which has many of those faults and more of its own, most often various kinds of appeals to emotion and related fallacies. This style is used in press releases, advertising, op-ed writing, activism, propaganda, proposals, formal debate, reviews, and much tabloid and sometimes investigative journalism. It is not Wikipedia's role to try to convince the reader of anything, only to provide the salient facts as best they can be determined, and the reliable sources for them.

Not all tone flaws are immediately obvious as bias, original research, or other policy problems, but may be relevance, register, or other content-presentation issues. A common one is the idea, often taught to debate students, that each section or even paragraph should introduce a key statement (a thesis) followed by supporting evidence in additional sentences, and finish with a recapitulation of the original thesis in different wording. This style is redundant and brow-beating, and should not be used in encyclopedic writing.[3]

Another error of writing approach is attempting to make bits of material "pop" (an undue weight problem), such as with excessive emphasis, over-capitalization, use of contractions, unnecessary acronyms and other abbreviations, the inclusion of hyperbolic adjectives and adverbs, or the use of unusual synonyms or loaded words. Just present the sourced information without embellishment, agenda, fanfare, cleverness, or conversational tone.

A related presentation problem is "info-dumping" by presenting information in the form of a long, bulleted list when it would be better as normal prose paragraphs. This is especially true when the items in the list are not of equal importance or are not really comparable in some other way, and need context. Using explanatory prose also helps identify and remove trivia; if we cannot explain to readers why something is important, then it is not important.

Provide context for the reader

Wikipedia is an international encyclopedia. People who read Wikipedia have different backgrounds, education and opinions. Make your article accessible and understandable for as many readers as possible. Assume readers are reading the article to learn. It is possible that the reader knows nothing about the subject, so the article needs to explain the subject fully.


Evaluating context


  • Would a reader want to follow some of the links? Do sentences still make sense if they can't?

Build the web



State the obvious




The Ford Thunderbird was a car manufactured in the United States by the Ford Motor Company.


Shoichi Yokoi was conscripted into the Imperial Japanese Army in 1941.



Lead section


Opening paragraph


First sentence content


  • If possible, the page title should be the subject of the first sentence:[5] However, if the article title is merely descriptive—such as Electrical characteristics of dynamic loudspeakers—the title does not need to appear verbatim in the main text. Similarly, where an article title is of the type "List of ...", a clearer and more informative introduction to the list is better than verbatim repetition of the title.
  • When the page title is used as the subject of the first sentence, it may appear in a slightly different form, and it may include variations.[6] Similarly, if the title has a parenthetical disambiguator, the disambiguator should be omitted in the text.[7]
  • If the article is about a fictional character or place, make sure to say so.[9]

First sentence format











The rest of the opening paragraph



The rest of the lead section



Article Length Lead Length
Fewer than 15,000 characters One or two paragraphs
15,000–30,000 characters Two or three paragraphs
More than 30,000 characters Three or four paragraphs

"Lead follows body"





Use other languages sparingly




Use color sparingly




Use clear, precise and accurate terms

Be concise



— William Strunk, Jr. from the 1918 work, The Elements of Style

Reduce sentences to the essentials. Wordiness does not add credibility to Wikipedia articles. Avoid temporary expressions like "due to the fact that" in place of "because", or "at the present time" for "currently". The ideal method of specifying on-going events is "as of 2019". Wikipedia "grammar bots" will replace these types of expressions with correct wording.


Principle of least astonishment

When the principle of least astonishment is successfully employed, information is understood by the reader without struggle. The average reader should not be shocked, surprised, or confused by what they read. Do not use provocative language. Instead, offer information gently. Use consistent vocabulary in parts that are technical and difficult. To work out which parts of the sentence are going to be difficult for the reader, try to put yourself in the position of a reader hitherto uninformed on the subject.

You should plan your page structure and links so that everything appears reasonable and makes sense. Try to avoid Easter egg links. A link should not take readers to somewhere other than where they thought it would go.



Use of "refers to"

Phrases such as refers to, is the name of, describes the, or is a term for are sometimes used inappropriately in the first sentence of Wikipedia articles. For example, the article Computer architecture once began with the sentence, "Computer architecture refers to the theory behind the design of a computer."

That is not true: Computer architecture is the theory. The words "computer architecture" refer to the theory, but the article is not about the words; it is about the theory.



Disambiguation pages mention the term, so in such cases it is correct to write "Great Schism may refer to either of two schisms in the history of Christianity: ...". However, a content article should read "There have been two Great Schisms in the history of Christianity".


Check your facts





Check your fiction






Use of fictional tenses

Works of fiction are generally considered to "come alive" for their audience. They therefore exist in a kind of perpetual present, regardless of when the fictional action is supposed to take place relative to the reader's "now". Thus, generally you should write about fiction using the historical present tense, not the past tense. (See WP:Manual of Style § Verb tense and WP:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction § Contextual presentation.) Examples:

Homer presents, Achilles rages, Andromache laments, Priam pleads.






Stay on topic

The most readable articles contain no irrelevant (nor only loosely relevant) information. While writing an article, you might find yourself digressing into a side subject. If you are wandering off-topic, consider placing the additional information into a different article, where it will fit more closely with that topic. If you provide a link to the other article, readers who are interested in the side topic have the option of digging into it, but readers who are not interested will not be distracted by it. Due to the way in which Wikipedia has grown, many articles contain redundant passages of this kind. Please be bold in merging these passages.

Pay attention to spelling


  • Browsers have the native ability to highlight misspelled words in text boxes.
  • Use free online dictionaries like Ask Oxford,,, Google Define and a spell checker such as, GingerSoftware, or your browser's built-in spell checker. See Wikipedia:Typo Team for tips on how to use these resources.
  • A "draft" message on certain free email websites, such as Gmail, can also provide spell-check. This might be convenient, especially regarding email websites with which you are already familiar and use often.

Avoid peacock and weasel terms


Examples of peacock terms
Examples of weasel words















Make omissions explicit for other editors



Other issues

Do not use honorifics or titles, such as Mr, Ms, Rev, Doctor, etc. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility) and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biography
Inappropriate subjects 
Integrate changes
Avoiding common mistakes 
Make a personal copy 
So, make a temporary personal copy as a subpage of your user page. Just start a new page at Special:MyPage/Article name (it can be renamed in the URL address to start a page with a different article name), and copy and paste the wiki-source in there. Then you can carry on improving the article at your own pace! If you like, drop a note on the appropriate talk page to let people know what you are doing.

See also

  • Wikipedia:Article development
  • Wikipedia:Basic copyediting
  • Wikipedia:How to streamline a plot summary
  • Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable
  • Wikipedia:Principle of some astonishment
  • Wikipedia:Peer review, where experienced editors carefully go through an article, significantly helping it toward Good or Featured article status
  • "Common issues seen in Peer review" from The Signpost, the online newspaper covering the English Wikipedia and the Wikimedia movement
  • Amy Schade (February 11, 2018). "Inverted Pyramid: Writing for Comprehension". Topic: Writing for the Web. Nielsen Norman Group.


  1. ^ Number of characters may be checked by selecting the View History tab for the page, then Page Statistics from the line near the top headed External Tools. Number of characters is listed on the right under the Prose column.
  2. ^ Rhetorical questions can occasionally be used, when appropriate, in the presentation of material, but only when the question is asked by the material under consideration, not being asked in Wikipedia's own voice. Example here.
  3. ^ For an example found in, and removed from, a high-profile article, see here.
  4. ^ For example:



  5. ^ For example:

    This Manual of Style is a style guide containing ...



  6. ^ For example, in the article "United Kingdom":


  7. ^ Thus, the article Egg (food) should start like this:

    An egg is an ovum produced by ...

    Not like this:


  8. ^ For example, instead of:




  9. ^ For example:

    Homer Simpson is a fictional character in The Simpsons.