[WikiEN-l] Writing with our readers in mind

Sat Jul 9 18:18:35 UTC 2005

This is quite obvious and most egregious in any topic which can be  
related to as concerning philosophy. We have no decent articles for   
[[truth]] [[knowledge]] or [[reality]] thanks to academic efforts.

Fred

On Jul 9, 2005, at 11:44 AM, Jon wrote:

> Do we have anywhere a statement that editors should think of their  
> readers when writing? For me, that's commonsense: whether at work,  
> speaking or writing to different clients, or chatting with friends,  
> I always bear in mind who I am communicating with and trying to use  
> words, language and style that suits them.
>
> However, increasingly I see other editors deciding they prefer an  
> "academic" style. What this means is that, if you are an academic  
> in the field being discussed, you can understand what they are  
> saying. However, if you are not, the articles remain impenetrable -  
> and attempts to tweak them so they are more intelligible to the  
> vast majority of readers get rebuffed.
>
> It would be useful (if we don't already have it somewhere that I've  
> missed) to have a firm statement that says articles should be  
> written to be as intelligible to as many of our readers as  
> possible, with our readers being anyone potentially searching for  
> English-language information on the internet.
>
> Jon (jguk)
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Yahoo! Messenger NEW - crystal clear PC to PCcalling worldwide with  
> voicemail
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>