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In order to make Wikipedia maximally useful to a diverse readership some people believe that articles should be written in '''summary style'''. This style of organizing articles is somewhat related to [[wikipedia:news style|news style]] except it focuses on ''topics'' instead of articles. The idea is to distribute information in such a way so that Wikipedia can serve readers who want varying amounts of detail. Thus giving readers the ability to zoom to the level of detail they need. |
In order to make Wikipedia maximally useful to a diverse readership some people believe that articles should be written in '''summary style'''. This style of organizing articles is somewhat related to [[wikipedia:news style|news style]] except it focuses on ''topics'' instead of articles. The idea is to distribute information in such a way so that Wikipedia can serve readers who want varying amounts of detail and to not exhaust readers who need a primer on a whole topic. Thus giving readers the ability to zoom to the level of detail they need. |
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This is more helpful to the reader than a very long article that just keeps growing, eventually reaching book-length. Summary style is accomplished by not overwhelming the reader with too much text up front by summarizing main points and going into more detail on particular points (sub-topics) in separate articles. |
This is more helpful to the reader than a very long article that just keeps growing, eventually reaching book-length. Summary style is accomplished by not overwhelming the reader with too much text up front by summarizing main points and going into more detail on particular points (sub-topics) in separate articles. |
Revision as of 15:48, 28 March 2005
Template:Stylehowto In order to make Wikipedia maximally useful to a diverse readership some people believe that articles should be written in summary style. This style of organizing articles is somewhat related to news style except it focuses on topics instead of articles. The idea is to distribute information in such a way so that Wikipedia can serve readers who want varying amounts of detail and to not exhaust readers who need a primer on a whole topic. Thus giving readers the ability to zoom to the level of detail they need.
This is more helpful to the reader than a very long article that just keeps growing, eventually reaching book-length. Summary style is accomplished by not overwhelming the reader with too much text up front by summarizing main points and going into more detail on particular points (sub-topics) in separate articles.
World War IIWorld War II was the most extensive and costly armed conflict in the history of the world ... 1 CausesMain article: Causes of World War II The war reparations demanded of Germany after World War I ... 2 Prelude to WarMain article: Events preceding World War II in Europe Resentment of the victorious powers' treatment of the Weimar Republic in the aftermath of World War I... 3 European TheatreMain article: European Theatre of World War II The German Wehrmacht invaded Poland on September 1 ... 4 The Pacific WarMain article: Pacific War The Japanese had already invaded China before World War II started in Europe ... |
Some characteristics
- Articles written in summary style have lead sections that are concise encyclopedia articles in their own right.
- Longer articles are split into sections (each about several good-sized paragraphs long; subsectioning can increase this amount)
- Ideally many of those sections will eventually summarize entire separate articles on the sub-topic covered in that section (a Main article or similar link would be below the section title). And so on.
- They generally do not trigger a page size warning or if they do, they are not too much larger for too long (in some cases this rule must be broken since the point is to limit readable text, not markup and sometimes markup may push a page above 30 KB).
NOTE: It is generally considered to be a bad idea to divide an article too hastily once it triggers a 32KB warning. Often the best way to divide an article is to let it grow into the 35 to 45 KB range and then look for sections that could be summarized and spun off so that the article once again falls under or is at least close to 32 KB.
Rationale
Since Wikipedia is not divided into a macropaedia, micropaedia, and concise versions like Encyclopaedia Britannica is, we must serve all three user types in the same encyclopedia. Summary style is based on the premise that information about a topic should not all be contained in a single article since different readers have different needs;
- some readers need just a quick summary (lead section),
- more people need a moderate amount of info (a set of multi-paragraph sections),
- and yet others need a lot of detail (links to full-sized separate articles).
We must serve all groups.
The top or survey article should have general summary information and the more detailed summaries of each subtopic should be in daughter articles and in articles on specific subjects. This can be thought of as layering inverted pyramids where the reader is shown the tip of a pyramid (the lead section) for a topic and within that article any section may have a Main article or More detail link to a full article on the topic summarized in that section (see Yosemite National Park#History and History of the Yosemite area for an example using two featured articles). The summary in a section at the survey article will necessarily be at least (if not more than) twice as long as the lead section in the daughter article. The daughter article in turn can also serve as a survey article for its specific part of the topic. And so on until a topic is very thoroughly covered. Thus by navigational choices several different types of readers get the amount of detail they want.
Size
Articles longer than 12 to 15 printed pages (more than 30 to 35 KB of readable text) take longer to read than the upper limit of the average adult's attention span - 20 minutes. An important consideration is that attention span is lower for children, below average intelligence adults, and all those with attention deficit disorders (groups we would like to serve as well).[1] [2] [3] Once the attention span limit is reached, most readers will start to lose focus and retention of the information begins to become significantly hampered. All but the most determined readers will quit reading once this happens.
When articles grow significantly past this amount of readable text, a plan to break-up the article to improve readability and ease of editing should be explored. See Wikipedia:Page size. Longer sections should be spun off into their own articles and a several paragraph summary should be left in its place. That way our content is useful to those people who just want a quick overview and to those people who want more detail. Both groups win. Also, long articles are less editable and less readable than a more compact treatment.
There are also technical issues with editing articles over 30KB that often lead to duplicated information and poor structure. Few editors will read an entire 50 or 70KB article just to make sure a piece of info they want to put in is not already there. The result is that the information is misplaced, duplicated, or not put in at all.
Lead section
For the planned paper Wikipedia 1.0, one consensus recommendation is that the paper version of articles will be the lead section of the web version. Summary style and news style can help make a concise intro that works stand-alone.