Wikinews:Writing an article

To write an article, you will first need to learn how to edit pages in a Wiki. Feel free to experiment a little - it's very hard to break a Wiki, and very easy for someone to fix the content if you mess it up. You may find it helpful to keep this page open in a separate browser window or tab for reference while you write your article.

Essential steps

These are steps an article has to go through to be published. However no one editor needs do all these steps themselves! You can do as little or as much as you want - the wider community of editors may well take up your story where you leave off.

Is your story news?

Check the content guide to see what kinds of articles Wikinews runs.

Create a story

First, check the Main Page under both Latest news and Developing stories to see if your story has already been covered. You may also want to check Wikinews:Story preparation to see if anyone has been working on the same story in advance.

If your story has not been covered already, edit the developing stories template. This lets others know an article is being developed around the topic you mention in your proposed headline, and invites others to work on the article (please refer to the Wikinews style guide for current name and headline practices). Add a link to your story in the form of:

*June 24: [[Story title]]

Refresh dates

Then click the Save button below the text area. Next, click on your link to create your article.

See also Reporter's tools, a set of texts that you can copy and paste to ease the process of writing new articles.

Date your story

Be sure to date your article at the very top by adding the following:

or

{{dateline|date=June 24, 2005|location=Insert YOUR location here}} - NB Only use this if you are doing original reporting and were present personally at the news event.

and then start a new line.

This will also automatically attach the category for the date you specify.

Write your story in a 'news' style

Some degree of uniformity in writing style has, through common sense, tradition, evolution and research, developed in the majority of the English speaking news media. For tips on attaining an effective news style, see the Wikinews:Style guide.

Your story must comply with the neutral point of view - that is, represent all sides of a story fairly.

List your sources

When you have finished writing your article, you need to list your sources, so others can check your work and help improve the story.

As all information is required to be referenced, anything you write that is not backed up by your sources may be removed!

The method to use appears below, all under a heading of ==Sources==:

Ravi Nessman "Barghouti to Run for Palestinian Leader". Guardian, 13 November, 2004

To format your text in the style demonstrated above, use this template:

*{{source|url=insert_url_here

|title=insert_title_here

|author=insert_author_here

|pub=insert_publisher_here

|date=June 24, 2024}}

To be clear, the fields are url, title, author, pub(lisher), and date.

It doesn't matter what order your references appear in. If your source is missing one or more of these fields, leave a blank space after the "=".

Add the right categories

Every article needs to be listed under one or more categories, so it can be found once it has dropped off the Latest news pages, and also to be listed on the region and topic subpages. See the SectionMenu to find out which categories are appropriate. Add them using this syntax: [[Category:<insert category name>]]. You can only add one category at a time - use a new [[Category: ... ]] for each category you want to add.

List your article for others to read!

Finally, you need to add a link to your story on the "today's articles" page. If you're happy with your finished article, then follow this link and remove your story from the developing stories template. If you think it needs more work, leave it there.

Optional steps

While you are working on a story

To avoid edit conflicts you might first want to insert the {{editing}} tag and then save your story. Remove the tag when you're finished.

Add images

You may wish to add images to your story. Even if none are available from the actual event, it can be helpful to the reader if you add a graphic of some sort, perhaps a map, or some icon representative of event features.

You may upload public domain images, and locate existing images to link to, at the Wikimedia Commons image, sound and file library. If you can't find an image, you could check these sites.

Also try using Flickr — a reasonable percentage of images posted at this photo-sharing community site are licensed under Creative Commons "Attribution" (cc-by) and "Attribution-ShareAlike" (cc-by-sa) licenses which are compatible with the Wikimedia Commons. You can use the Flickr License Search utility to help you find properly-licensed images, or you can just leave messages on Flickr for people, asking them to relicense one or more photos for use on Wikinews.

You can take your own photos too (see digital camera) and draw your own pictures (i.e. using a free program, like the Gimp).

Is your story about an on-going issue?

If so, you might find a suitable template to add to your story on Template:Issues. These will automatically put appropriate graphics on your story and place it in the right categories.

An example news story

This page represents a well-written Wikinews article with all the important elements required present. View this page to see the Wiki text behind that article.