Wikinews:Writing a photo essay
Anyone, including you, can write for Wikinews! All you need is an Internet connection, access to a web browser (which we can assume you have if you're reading this), and your time, effort, and willingness to learn a few easy skills. Photo essays are just one type of reporting you can contribute.
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Introduction |
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Policies and guidelines |
Starting out
editIf the photo essay has not been started, you can begin it by entering an appropriate title below and clicking "Create article".
Here are Wikinews article title rules and guidelines.
Do not change the {{date|{{subst:#time:F j, Y}}}} code; when you save it will be completed with a date.
The template for citing sources is explained here.
The {{Developing}} template shows an article is not ready for review. When you are confident it is, remove the {{Developing}} template and put {{Review}} at the top of the article.
Every article must be reviewed by an independent reviewer prior to publication.
Essential steps
editThese are steps an article must go through to be published. However, no one editor needs to do all these steps alone! You can do as little or as much as you want — the wider community of editors may well take up your story where you leave off.
Wikinews articles are written using the "wiki markup" for formatting and presentation. You can see Help:Editing for guidance on using the wiki markup or use the toolbar above the editing box to add formatting. Even if you are not familiar with the markup, you can still write the article in plain text and someone else will do the markup — Collaboration!
Meet content guidelines
editYour story must be fully sourced — every statement in the article must be backed up by a source published elsewhere. The only exceptions are the obvious ("Paris is in France") and Original Reporting (see below).
It must also comply with the neutral point of view — that is, the article must represent all sides of a story fairly and in an unbiased way.
Wikinews articles should not infringe on the copyright of any other work. So copying portions of text from other sources into a Wikinews article is usually not acceptable, and in some cases, even rewriting the content of another source is not sufficient. It is best to gather information from multiple sources and put them all together in your own words in the article you write. See Fair use for more information. Please do not publish an article until it has multiple sources, or there is agreement among reviewers that more sources are not available and the article is not a copyright infringement or that the article includes original reporting.
Write in 'news' style
editNews reports are typically written in a certain way in the majority of the English language news media. These "style" conventions stem from common sense, tradition, evolution and research. Wikinews, too, follows such conventions, which are listed in the Style guide. Try to ensure that an article meets these guidelines.
Some news events are easily comprehensible only to those who are familiar with its background and context. Wikinews has a global audience. To ensure that anyone, anywhere can understand the report, include such background and context as is necessary.
Your sources
editJournalist notes
editPhoto essays should use your own pictures, and your article should be original reporting. Sources for your own reporting are often field notes instead of other published sources. Read Wikinews:Original reporting for guidance. Leave detailed notes about the original reporting on the discussion page.
When you use the form above, the {{original}} template indicating this is original reporting and that reviewers should check the talk page for your notes should be preloaded. If it is not, include it in the sources section.
Other sources
editThe sources you have used other than your own reporting notes must be listed in a separate section at the bottom of the article. (You can create such a section by adding the following line at the bottom of the article:
==Sources==
A cited source will appear like this:
- Ravi Nessman "Barghouti to Run for Palestinian Leader". Guardian, November 13, 2004
To format your source in the above style, use this template:
*{{source
|url = insert_url_here
|title = insert_title_here
|author = insert_author_here
|pub = insert_publisher_here
|date = insert_date_here}}
To be clear, the fields are url, title, author, pub(lisher), and date.
Per the style guide, multiple sources should be listed newest to oldest. If any source is missing one or more of the template's fields, leave a blank space after the "=".
Add categories
editEvery article needs to be listed under one or more categories, for it to be easily found even after it has dropped off the Latest news pages. Categories also enable articles to be listed on appropriate regional and topical "Portals".
Typically, both a "location" category (where did the news event take place?) and a "topic" category (what is the event about?) is required. Available categories are listed in Wikinews:Archives/Topic and Wikinews:Archives/Region.
Add them using this syntax: [[Category:<insert category name>]]. For example, an article about a health conference in the United states might have the categories:
[[category:Health]] [[category:United States]] [[category:North America]]
You can also enable HotCat in your preferences under the "Gadgets" tab. HotCat adds buttons to the categories bar at the bottom of pages to easily add, remove, and modify categories. Information and help about HotCat can be found at commons:Help:Gadget-HotCat.
Request a peer review
editOnce your article meets all the above requirements, replace the {{Develop}} tag with the {{review}} tag to request your article be "reviewed". Hopefully a reviewer will review your article in short order. Once the article is reviewed, the reviewer will either publish the article, or leave a message on the article's talk page (the talk tab on the top of the article) explaining what needs to be done before publishing.