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Wikipedia:How to write Simple English pages
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This page is a guideline on
the Simple English Wikipedia.
Many editors agree with the ideas on
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this page. It is a good idea to follow it,
WP:HOW
but it is not policy.
WP:COMPLE
You can change the page as needed, but
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please use the talk page to make sure
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This page describes how to write Simple English articles. Simple
English Wikipedia articles are written for everyone. This includes children
and adults who are learning English. Articles should be written
about notable encyclopedic subjects.
Think about your readers
First, think about your readers. Many readers of Simple English are people
whose first language is not English. Other readers may be young (they
may be children who don't have much knowledge of English) or
have learning difficulties. The language is simple, but the ideas don't have
to be. If you find anything wrong, please correct it.
Basic English and VOA Special English
Simple English Wikipedia follows some of the rules of Basic English, but is
not so strict about using only a certain number of words. Every day,
Simple English changes, and does not have only one word list. A good
starting point to writing in Simple English is to learn to write using Basic
English words. This helps you to write with a limited vocabulary.
Start with Basic English (BE) 850. Let us say that your readers know
the BE 850 words. If your writing sounds strange, or is not clear, use a less
common word. The less common word may be in BE 1500 or Voice Of
America (VOA) Special English.
Example
The example below shows why we do not insist on using only Basic
English words. The full English sentence is from Winston Churchill:
Full English: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat."
Basic English [BE 850]: "... blood, hard work, drops from eyes, and body
water."
"Blood" is a BE 850 word.
"Hard work" is good for those who understand English as their mother
language. But a learner could understand the word "hard" as "solid" or "difficult
to understand". Perhaps "much work" is better.
"Drops from eyes" sounds strange to people whose mother language is
English. "Tears" is a BE 1500 word, and you can use it.
"Body water" also sounds strange to a person whose mother language is
English. "Sweat" and "perspiration" both sound better. "Sweat" is a more
common word, and you can use it by linking to the article on sweat. Often, for
difficult words that are from Latin (such as "perspiration") there will also be a
native (Old English or Anglo-Saxon) word such as "sweat" meaning the same
thing that is much more common and basic, but this is not always the case.
Another way is to write the more difficult words, but explain what they
mean in parentheses, "(" and ")", if they cannot be linked. For example,
write "blood, toil (hard work), tears, and sweat".
Method
1. Write your words normally, as you would in speaking to ordinary people.
2. Look for your words in the word lists. Try to use the simplest word list:
1. In Basic English BE 850 (pictures)
2. In Basic English BE 1500.
3. In VOA Special English Word Book.
4. If a word is a name, idiomatic (the meaning of the words is not clear
from the roots), or jargon (special words used by experts), then it should be
described in more detail. Linking to an article about the word can also help.
Stephen Hawking was a cosmologist—someone who studies the structure
of the universe (stars and space).
5. Not all words can have a good encyclopedia article written about
them. To link to the dictionary definition of a word rather than an encyclopedic
article, link to the Simple English Wiktionary using a link like [[wikt:this|]] (put
your word in place of "this"). For a more complex definition, you may also link
to the English Wiktionary like this: [[:en:wikt:this|]].
3. Change to active voice. Example: change from "The bird was eaten by the
cat." (passive voice) to "The cat ate the bird."
4. Look for a Basic English verb in past, present or future only.
5. For writing special to science or trade, do as asked by the process
of AECMA Simplified English (see Other websites below for International
Aerospace Maintenance Language).
6. After finishing the article, check to have at least one link (to another
article in Simple English Wikipedia) and one Interwiki link (to a version of
Wikipedia in another language). The first is so the article is not a dead-end
article, and the second is so that robots can fill in all the missing links to other
language versions.
Simple sentence structure
What not to do
Related pages
References
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Last edited 5 months ago by Djsasso
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