Help:Your first article
THIS PAGE IS A WORK IN PROGRESS
Developer note: See also the New user landing page which links to the long, tedious version. The pages at Editing Help need to be fully Justapedified. 
Done
Writing an article
Getting started with your first article.
All the blue words are links to other pages that will help you understand more. Click this one to see where it takes you, then come back here.
"Justapedia is the encyclopedia anyone can edit", but the topic must follow our rules. Do not copy content from other websites, books or newspapers. Don't write articles about yourself, your band, people you know personally, or an organisation you work for or represent. The subject of an article must be important enough for Justapedia. The content of articles must be referenced to reliable sources.
Creating an article is one of the more difficult tasks on Justapedia, You'll have a higher chance of success writing articles if you help us out with other tasks first to learn more about how Justapedia works. You can always come back to create an article later - there is no rush and an encyclopedia is not for breaking news! Read the easy tutorial first.
Welcome to Justapedia! and thank you for registering and wanting to create a new article. All articles on missing encyclopedic topics are gratefully accepted - our encyclopedia is written and checked by volunteers like you. Do bear in mind however, that the encyclopedia is not social media, a place to promote a company or product or person, to speak for or against anyone or anything, nor a place to provide the first information on topics that have not already been the subject of a reliable publication.
If you are not sure what this means, before you go any further please read What Justapedia is not and Your first article. Perfect new pages are great, but most do need a bit of help. Inappropriate articles are quickly deleted. At the end of this introduction there are some questions you might wish to ask, then you can go ahead and create the draft of your article! An article wizard will help you decide some key elements. Experienced editors can skip the wizard
If you need help, checkout our main Help page.
If you still have more questions or would like some quick personal help, don't hesitate to ask our friendly expert helpers at the The Lounge.
Important: The topic of an article must have already been the subject of publication in Reliable sources, You must link your article to those sources. There are two kinds of sources:
- Ones that show that the topic is important enough for the encyclopedia. These are called secondary sources, They are Independent sources that treat the topic in detail, such as books, newspapers, magazines, peer-reviewed academic journals, and reliable fact-checked websites. Your article generally needs 'three such sources.
- Ones that prove that what you are writing is true, and they must be verifiable. That also means that their content has been fact-checked. Anything that is not supported by a source and might be disputed can be removed by any editor or reviewer. You might know that what you are writing is true, but if you can't prove it, we can't use it.
Sources must be "high-quality" such as books by reputable publishers, respected newspapers, peer-reviewed scientific and academic journals, literature reviews and other sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Random personal websites, fan sites, blogs, forums, Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter content, self-published sources like open wikis (including other Justapedia articles), etc., are not accepted and links to them will be removed. We summarize such high quality, published sources in Justapedia articles. That is all we do!
Please make sure that anything you write on Justapedia is based on truly reliable sources an not fan sites or simple listings.
- If no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, then it should not have a separate article.
- The onus is on you to write an article that complies with our policies and guidelines. Plenty of help is available but unless it has real potential please don't expect other editors to automatically complete or correct it.
- Even if you are an experienced editor we always recommend creating a draft first until you are very familiar with the roles and guidelines. Don't waste your time and have your article deleted.
Please use the search box below to make sure that an article does not already exist on the subject.
The Article Wizard will help you create your article
If you are comfortable with reading our excellent tutorial at Editing Help first, it would certainly provide a good start, but there is still a lot to learn - we don't pretend that writing for an encyclopedia is easy. The Wizard will link you to those help pages when you need them. Use the step-by-step Article Wizard and its article templates to walk you through creating your article. The wizard is packed with more tips and help as you go and includes a button to click when you are ready to submit your draft. It will then be reviewed by the experienced volunteer editors at the Articles for Creation project, and finally checked by the New Page Reviewers and published. Your article will then be visible in Google and other search engines.
100s of new articles are submitted every day and it might take a few weeks for your article draft to pass through these processes - there is no guarantee that it will be reviewed immediately, but if your draft is not quite suitable for the encyclopedia pages, the reviewers at Articles for Creation will offer tips and some help how to improve it. If your draft is not appropriate for the encyclopedia, they will list it for deletion by an administrator. Up to a third of all new articles are totally inappropriate and are rejected and deleted very quickly. It's essential that you follow the instructions carefully.
Creating an article directly as a new Justapedia draft
If you have already made 500 edits and been registered for more than 30 days (that's not a long time to wait), you can skip the article wizard and create a new draft. Your draft will be moved to the main Justapedia as soon as it it has been checked by the New pages patrol. However, it is not their job to offer help or finish your article for you. If the topic is not appropriate for the encyclopedia or if its content has been copied from somewhere else, it will probably be deleted.
Please consider taking a look at our introductory tutorial or reviewing contributing to Justapedia to learn the basics about editing. Before drafting your article, it's a good idea look at some existing Justapedia articles on subjects similar to yours to see how such articles are formatted. Working on existing articles is a good way to learn the rules and how to edit.
You may have some questions now before you continue
- What can't I write about on Justapedia
- What is an 'Experienced Editor?
- What makes a topic important enough for Justapedia?
- What are sources?
- How do I cite my sources?
- More questions? ask at the The Lounge
Now first check if an article like yours already exists:
| Is it new? Type, then click "Go (try title)" |
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So, off you go! Good luck!