Before Writing Your Own Page

From SPARK

Summary

Following are instructions for writing a SPARK article.

Gathering Information

• Use SPARK's Search Engine to find material related to your article.

• To see other resources for your topic, do a search on wikipedia.orgor check the first few hits from a Googlesearch.

• Read the relevant articles from an encyclopedia, such as:
  • http://www.encyclopedia.com (free)
  • http://www.reference.allrefer.com (free)
  • http://www.eb.com (free in most libraries)

• Use an academic or public library to look for references related to your article. Consult and cite the most reliable references available; these may include books or peer reviews. Citing the best sources in a field lends credibility to your SPARK article.

Editing

• If you are creating a new document, see How to Add and Edit Documents on this Site. This link will show you the format required to produce internal links, emphasize text, make lists and headlines, etc.

Writing and Revising

• Start your article with a concise introduction. Define your topic and mention the most important points. Your first paragraph should give the reader an overview of your article. Use short sentences and simple words to help the average reader.

• You can use a pseudonym instead of the real name for a person, place or thing. Mark each pseudonym with an asterisk and put an asterisk followed by “pseudonym” at the bottom of the page.

• Carefully check your article for grammar and spelling errors. The SPARK website does not have a spell-checker. (See Spell Checking - How to Add.) Rewrite sentences for clarity, and delete all unnecessary or repeated material. Be sure to save your revision.

Writing a Case History

• For help writing a case history, read Story Page Outline, which shows the template used for writing a case history or impact story. You can add headings for sub-topics if desired.

• “Key factors” is a list of cultural issues that give the pros and cons of choosing a particular media type or method.

• Summarize the postive and negative results from using a particular media type or program.

• If there are differing opinions about your topic, take a neutral point of view when describing the debate. Avoid making negative or personal comments.

• Consider linking to other relevant SPARK articles. To avoid copyright issues, do not cut-and-paste material from external resources. Also, some users do not have Internet access, making external links useless.

• After saving your work, you can add a relevant image or graphic at the beginning of an article. Copyright-free images are listed on Google Image Search. Do not link to images on other servers. Instead, download the selected image to your computer and use the “Upload File” link in the toolbox to the right of the screen to upload the file to SPARK. Use the “SB” button to load the sidebar to the top of your file. Then replace the “000.jpg” at the top of the page with the filename of the uploaded image.

Later Editing

On SPARK, an article may become somewhat confusing after it is edited by other contributors. Even if you aren't contributing new content to the article, it is helpful to check it occasionally and revise when necessary.