Wikipedia Guide: Creating and Editing Pages
This tutorial was written by Timothy Dewysockie, Library Application Support Specialist.
This tutorial is a step by step guide in Creating and Editing Wikipedia Pages
1) Create an account
Click ‘Create account’ in the top-right corner of Wikipedia’s Main Page.
Fill out all fields and click ‘Create your account’.
2) Sandbox
The Sandbox is a personal space to experiment with the process of editing Wikipedia. For example, if you want to create your own article you can create it in the Sandbox, then publish it when you’re ready. The Sandbox can be accessed—after logging in—in the top-right corner of the page. Edit it as you would any other article (see #3).
Pro Tip: If you want to test editing a specific article, you could copy the source code of an article (when logged in, go to an article and click “Edit Source,” and make sure you’re in source mode, not visual mode) and paste it into the source code of your Sandbox page. This effectively makes a copy of the page you want to edit for experimentation. However, don’t just paste the source code back to the actual page’s source once you’re done, because that could overwrite the edits of other users. See more about visual/source modes in #3.
Best practices for using the sandbox for editing articles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Training/For_students/Sandbox_edits_for_existing_articles
3. Editing an article
While logged in and on the page you want to edit, select ‘Edit’ in the top-right corner of the page.
There are two editing modes:
Visual Mode: Which is more user-friendly – it’s like editing the actual page
Source Mode: More like coding.
Most users will likely want to start with the Visual Mode.
Tip: If you’re uncertain of how to do something in visual mode, copy the source code from another page and paste it into the source of the page you’re editing (and then edit it). Templates are also a good place to look.
4. Add an in-text citation
Click where on the page you would like the citation to go, then click the ‘Cite’ button.
Choose the type of resource you are citing:
Fill in the fields you can:
The reference should automatically populate in the reference list in the order cited on the page.
Note: This is for in-line citations. See #6 for non-in-line citations.
5. Creating section headings
Section headings separate different parts of Wikipedia pages.
To make one click where on the page you would like the external links section to go. Then click the Paragraph button and select ‘Heading’.
Type whatever you want to call it, such as ‘External Links’.
6. External link/further reading section
After following the instructions in #5, create a bulleted list in the External link/further reading section that you created.
External links are generally for websites, further reading for books.
External links should consist of a short, hyperlinked description and the source. Examples:
To link to an external page (hyperlink), highlight what you want to link (the description) and use the link function in the toolbar and select ‘External Link’, then copy in the URL. Do the same for the source.
For further reading entries you should use a full citation. Use the ‘Cite book’ template to do this; do not follow the instructions for #4, as that’s only for in-line citations.
Tip: To add the references you’ve already cited to a new References section, insert a ‘References list’ by clicking Insert > References list.
7. Add links to other Wikipedia articles
To ease the navigation of Wikipedia, it can be helpful to hyperlink key words in your article to other Wikipedia articles. First, highlight what you would like to link.
Click the ‘Link’ button in the page’s menu.
Search for the page, select it, then click ‘Done’.
8. Create Infobox
Infoboxes can be used to organize standard information, such as basic biographical information if your page is about a person. Here’s an example:
To do this, first put your mouse’s focus at the beginning of the article:
Then click Insert > Template.
Search for and select ‘infobox person’. Click ‘Add template’.
Add as much information as you can (click Add more information to see other fields), then click ‘Insert’.
The infobox should appear where you initially selected.
9. Add categories to pages
Click ‘Page options’ at the top right of the page.
Select ‘Categories’.
Add categories using the ‘Add a category’ field (which will search Wikipedia’s categories) and click ‘Apply changes’ when finished.
The categories you added will appear at the bottom of the page.
Tip: To get ideas for categories, look for similar pages.
10. Using talk pages
Every page has a talk page which can be accessed on the top-left of every page.
To add to a talk page, click ‘New section’ on the top-right. This will create a new section with a heading.
Note: There is no visual view for talk pages, only source view.
If you would like to, for example, link an article to the WikiProject Women’s History, copy in the following source code (which I just copied from another page). Two parameters you need to fill out are class and importance, based on that WikiProject’s guidelines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Women%27s_History/Assessment
{{WPBS |1=
{{WikiProject Women's History |class=Insert here | importance=Insert here}}
}}
This will make it so the article appears in the WikiProject Women’s History page as an article that needs work. Other WikiProjects may be relevant. Look at similar articles for other ideas.
You can also use the ‘New Section’ option to make comments, pose questions, suggest future work, etc. on talk pages.
11. Create a redirect
Go to Wikipedia’s page about how to make a redirect:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_make_a_redirect
Type in the title of the page you want users to be redirected from. For example, if users search Agnes Turnbull, they will be redirected from that page to the article Agnes Sligh Turnbull.
Follow the instructions on the page
Note: This gets more complicated when someone has a common name (which multiple articles may share). In that case you would add the individual to a disambiguation page. For example, search Elizabeth Allen and you’ll see the disambiguation page.
