Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 20:14, 5 July 2025

Revision as of 07:24, 4 August 2025

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As a free encyclopedia, Wikipedia serves readers with a wide range in backgrounds, interests, and goals. Even for articles about the most technically demanding subjects, these readers include students and curious laypeople in addition to experts. While upholding the goals of accuracy and full coverage of the most important aspects of a topic, every effort should be made to also make articles accessible and pleasant to read for less-prepared readers. It is especially important to make the [[WP:LEAD|lead section]] understandable using plain language, and it is often helpful to begin with more common and accessible subtopics, then proceed to those requiring advanced knowledge or addressing niche specialties.

Articles should be written in encyclopedic style, but thiswhich differs from the technically dense style found in scholarly writing aimed at specialists. Articles should address the topic without twisting the truth or telling "[[Lie-to-children|lies-to-children]]", but should also minimise (unexplained) [[jargon]] and not take prior knowledge for granted. Articles should be self-contained as much as possible, rather than relying on excessive links to explain unfamiliar concepts.

== Audience ==