[WikiEN-l] Writing with our readers in mind

Sat Jul 9 21:48:53 UTC 2005

I like how explanation was done in the Chagas disease article. Use the
academic terms so people learn them for later use, but explain
difficult stuff the first time it's mentioned. You get the best from
both worlds. The scientists have the academic talk and the "normal"
readers still understand it.

--Mgm

On 7/9/05, Dan Grey <dangrey at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 09/07/05, Jon <thagudearbh at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > 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)
> 
> I guess you can't force people to write in a certain style.
> 
> But it's daft to write an encyclopaedia in an academic style. No
> academic in his right mind would refer to Wikipedia - I don't mean any
> offense, but that's just not it's place. They go to journals and
> texts.
> 
> What it is useful - what it should be aiming for - is to make subjects
> understandable to the 99.99% of the world that *isn't* expert in that
> field.
> 
> 
> Dan
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