Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable: Difference between revisions
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→Add a picture: "readers usually" seems a bold claim without evidence. let's go for "readers may". "pay attention to their understandability" seems unhelpfully vague and not really necessary; we can just cut it |
Move 'Write one down' into the audience section, per my suggestion talk |
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Most Wikipedia articles can be written to be fully understandable by the general reader with average reading ability and motivation. Some articles are themselves technical in nature and some articles have technical sections or aspects. Many of these can still be written to be understandable to a wide audience. Some topics are intrinsically complex or require much prior knowledge gained through specialized education or training. It is unreasonable to expect a comprehensive article on such subjects to be understandable to all readers. The effort should still be made to make the article as understandable to as many as possible, with particular emphasis on the lead section.
===Write one level down===▼
{{shortcut|WP:ONEDOWN}}▼
A general technique for increasing understandability is to consider the typical level where the topic is studied (for example, [[secondary education|secondary]], [[undergraduate education|undergraduate]], or [[postgraduate education|postgraduate]]) and write the article for readers who are at the previous level. Thus articles on undergraduate topics can be aimed at a reader with a secondary school background, and articles on postgraduate topics can be aimed at readers with some undergraduate background. The lead section should be particularly understandable, but the advice to write one level down can be applied to the entire article, increasing the overall accessibility. Writing one level down also supports our goal to provide a tertiary source on the topic, which readers can use before they begin to read other sources about it.▼
==Technical content==
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Avoid circular explanations: don't define A in terms of B, and B in terms of A. Check to make sure that technical terms are not used ''before'' they are defined.
▲===Write one level down===
▲{{shortcut|WP:ONEDOWN}}
▲A general technique for increasing understandability is to consider the typical level where the topic is studied (for example, [[secondary education|secondary]], [[undergraduate education|undergraduate]], or [[postgraduate education|postgraduate]]) and write the article for readers who are at the previous level. Thus articles on undergraduate topics can be aimed at a reader with a secondary school background, and articles on postgraduate topics can be aimed at readers with some undergraduate background. The lead section should be particularly understandable, but the advice to write one level down can be applied to the entire article, increasing the overall accessibility. Writing one level down also supports our goal to provide a tertiary source on the topic, which readers can use before they begin to read other sources about it.
=== Add a concrete example===
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