WGST 1100: Gender, Race, & Sexuality in Wikipedia

Wikipedia articles can take many forms with differing content displays. The basic types include:

• Biographical article: overview of single individuals or individuals noting birth/death, age, education, notability and status, and chronology. May link to various pages based on prestige, awards, titles, affilitations, etc. Example: Priyanka Chopra
• Overview: summarizes broad topics, events, or organizations with links to sub-topics. Example: FeminismOutline pages

• Outline pages: article links in an outline format. They show how important subtopics relate to each other, and can be useful as a more condensed, non-prose alternative to overview articles. Example: Human Sexuality

• Timelines: list events chronologically, sometimes including links to articles with more detail. Example: Timeline of Counter-culture

• Lists: mention items of a particular type one by one, including basic information and links to external articles. Example: History of LGBTQ in policing

Also inlcuded in Wikipedia are glossaries, books, spoken articles, third party classifications, and much more!

Every article generally includes:

• introductory material or lead: brief phrase or paragraph introducing topic, sometimes called scope or overview. important info first.
  • state obvious facts about the subject/person/etc.
  • answer: why is this subject notable?
  • describe and expand first introductory sentence
  • summarize body (follow these guidelines for length of lead)
• table of contents: displays what is included in article by section heading
• hierarchical headings with content paragraphs
  • first paragraph defines identifies topic
  • content grouped logically by sections
  • clear, consistent langauge and vocabulary
  • use redirects and handnotes to explain terms, translations, etc.
• appendices and footnotes: links to other articles, relevant publications, notes about article
• references/Cited Sources

For more help, see Wikipedia:

• Writing Better Articles
• Writing a Lead Section

Look out for these messages that explain what is needed to improve the page:

Needs Context and Linkages

Needs Verified Sources

Expand and Add with Multiple Issues

Missing Biographical Information