Help:Writing a technical article

Starting point

See Help:Contents To start with, you can experiment with wikicode in the Wikiversity:Sandbox

See Help:Wikitext quick reference

When you are ready to start writing a new article, you might want to start in your userspace:

 [[User:Your Username/Article Name]]  or  [[User:Your Username/Sandbox]] 
 

and move it later.

See Also

• Wikipedia Help Contents

Research Process

See also

Bibliography and Research Methods

Sources

Sources can be books, magazine articles, notable websites. (See below for instructions on citing sources used.) See below for resources on wikiversity.

Learning Resources

You can find some resources on Wikiversity itself; you should try to avoid replicating information already written about.

Finding Wikiversity Learning resources

Portals. Every Wikiversity learning resource should be linked to by at least one portal page. You can browse the Wikiversity portals:

Humanities · Physical Sciences · Life Sciences · Practical Arts and Sciences · Mathematics · Computer Science · Engineering and Technology · Interdisciplinary Studies · Social Sciences · Education · Media · Professions · Learning Projects · Learning Materials · Research · Informatics · Other portals

Categories. Every Wikiversity learning resource should be in at least one Category. You can browse Wikiversity by category. See: Category:Categories.

Search. Try using the search feature to find learning resources. See: Wikiversity:Searching.

See also

• Learning resources (education)
• Learning resources

English language resources

• The English Language Reference Desk is an excellent place to go to get specific help with any aspect of English (modern or ancient).
• Writing Center Portal

General Writing tips

Common Grammar Mistakes

• It's vs. "Its "It's" is always a contraction of "it is"; "its" is possessive and means "belonging to it". Since the word it is a pronoun, it's not surprising that you might have assumed it's implied ownership. It's, however, is a contraction that means it is or it has. Its is a possessive pronoun. So, you might lament the fact that it's been forever since your last vacation but celebrate your company changing its stringent vacation policy.
• Anyway or anyways Only the first is correct
• Me or I When you're not sure whether you should use I or me in a sentence, try using both in a sentence "The dog followed Benjamin and me home from the store." (The dog followed Benjamin; The dog followed me)
• Inside or outside the quotation marks periods and commas always belong inside quotation marks.
• Loose vs Lose Don't lose your loose change
• There, Their and They're There was a time when the lowly rat was envious of their shimmering coats of fur but, now, they're all greasy and bald too.
• Literally Literally should only be used to refer to things that actually happened, not to add emphasis to a statement.
• Who and Whom
• Which and That
• Lay and Lie
• May and Might
• Fewer and Less Less refers to hypothetical quantities, Few and Fewer refer to quantifiable numbers
• Since and Because "Since" refers to time. "Because" refers to causation.
• Affect and Effect "Affect" means to influence or produce an impression. "Effect" is the thing produced by the affecting agent; it describes the result or outcome. Effect and affect also have other uses, for example "effect" may be used as a transitive verb and mean "to bring about or make happen", such as in "My new computer effected a transition from newspaper to online articles." "Affect" can also be used as a noun to mean a display of mood or emotion, such as in "His lack of affect made him seem like a shallow person." Find more information at wikt:affect and wikt:effect.
• Irony and Coincidence Irony is the significant difference between an expected result and an actual result. Coincidence is a series of events seem to have a meaningful connection even though they are unrelated. More information can be found at wikt:irony and wikt:coincidence.

Punctuation

• Semicolons (;)

Citing Sources

See also: w:citation templates

Usage

Page text.<ref name="test">
[http://www.example.org Link text], 
additional text.</ref>

Example

<ref name="litreactor">[http://litreactor.com/columns/20-common-grammar-mistakes-that-almost-everyone-gets-wrong], Litreactor</ref>

Cite Web

See also: Template:Cite web

Usage

Delete unused paramaters to help prevent clutter

All parameters, horizontal format

{{cite web |url= |title= |accessdate= |accessmonthday= |accessdaymonth = |accessyear= |author= |last= |first= |authorlink= |coauthors= |date= |date= |format= |work= |publisher= |pages= |language= |archiveurl= |archivedate= |quote= }}

All parameters, vertical format

{{cite web
| url = 
| title = 
| accessdate = 
| accessdaymonth = 
| accessmonthday = 
| accessyear = 
| author = 
| last = 
| first = 
| authorlink = 
| coauthors = 
| date = 
|date= 
| format = 
| work = 
| publisher = 
| pages = 
| language = 
| archiveurl = 
| archivedate = 
| quote = 
}}

Required parameters

• url: URL of online item.
• title: Title of online item.

Optional parameters

• author: Author
  • last works with first to produce last, first
  • authorlink works either with author or with last & first to link to the appropriate wikipedia article. Does not work with URLs.
  • coauthors: allows additional authors
• date: Full date of publication, preferably in ISO 8601 YYYY-MM-DD format, e.g. 2006-02-17.
  • OR: year: Year of publication, and month: Name of the month of publication. If you also have the day, use date instead.
• format: Format, e.g. PDF. HTML implied if not specified.
• work: If this item is part of a larger work, name of that work.
• publisher: Publisher, if any.
• pages: pp. 5–7: first page and optional last page. This is for listing the pages relevant to the citation, not the total number of pages in the book. This is especially useful for PDF format, where the page can be linked to with the #page=number anchor tagged on the end of the URL:

  pages = [http://www.example.org/file.pdf#page=123 p. 123]

• language: language of publication (don't specify "English" as this is the default).
• archiveurl: URL of the archive location of the item (requires archivedate)
• archivedate: Date when the item was archived (requires archiveurl), in YYYY-MM-DD format, e.g. 2006-02-17. Must not be wikilinked; it will be linked automatically.
• quote: Relevant quote from online item.

Example

<ref name="litreactor">
{{cite web
| author = GINGERICH, JON
| authorlink = http://litreactor.com/team/jon-gingerich
| title = 20 Common Grammar Mistakes That (Almost) Everyone Makes
| date = 2012-01-31
| work = Lit Reactor
| url = http://litreactor.com/columns/20-common-grammar-mistakes-that-almost-everyone-gets-wrong/
| accessdate = 28 March 2014
}}
</ref>

Cite Template

See Template:Cite journal

See also

• Cite web template on wikipedia
• Cite journal template on wikipedia

• w:Cite sources: Style guide
• w:Cite sources/example style: Style guide examples
• w:Citation templates: Related templates

See Also

• Wikiversity:Research_process
• short page about general writing

• Help:Creating_educational_content_at_Wikiversity
• Citing Sources
• Topic:English_Language
• APA style
• MLA format - learning project

• m:WikiTextrose

• Wikipedia:Citing sources
• Wikipedia:Research resources
• Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced GA
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check
• m:Wikicite

External Links

• Perdue MLA Formatting and Style Guide
• Gramma Quiz on Staples

• Quiz: 9 embarrassing grammar mistakes you didn’t know you were making

• Duke University Thompson Writing Program grammar guides

• The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr

• Duke University Thompson Writing Program