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Wikipedia:WikiProject WikiFundi Content/Help:Write a Wikipedia article about a school

< Wikipedia:WikiProject WikiFundi Content

Can we write a Wikipedia article about our school ?

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Wikipedia only accepts articles that follow notability guidelines. For years there have been discussions on how school articles should fit into these guidelines, with many proposals having been made for a specific guideline on school article notability. Due to a lack of general consensus, many standards are now observed by regular editors who clean-up articles or propose them for merging or deletion.
In short, it is recommended that editors only create a school article when its content shows that it passes the notability guideline by displaying significant coverage in reliable sources.
In practice, articles on secondary, senior or high schools and school districts are usually kept, as they are almost always found to be notable, unless their existence cannot be verified in order to stop hoaxes. Articles on elementary, junior or primary schools or middle schools will normally be merged into the locality article (such as a village or town) unless they can clearly demonstrate that they can meet the notability guideline. Articles on elementary, junior or primary and middle schools should normally be merged into the school district article or the appropriate locality article if this is not available.

General tips to write an article about a school

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  1. Style. keep the prose 'tight'. This is an encyclopedia—avoid the use of familiar language, contractions (it's, he's, don't, etc.), and magazine or blog style. Do not use the 1st person plural 'we'.
  2. Avoid advertising. Don't use promotional language about your school or words that boost its image. Remember that this is an encyclopedia - it's not a school brochure, website, or Facebook entry.
  3. Avoid stubs. Only add schools that you are willing to do significant research on, and complete most of the generally required page sections. Don't automatically assume that someone else is interested enough in your school to finish it for you. Under certain conditions, very poorly made articles might simply get deleted and your effort will be lost.
  4. Avoid short sections. Consider combining sentences in to flowing paragraphs of prose. Remember that books don't have one-line chapters. Section headings are large and too many in a small area make the page look ugly. Delete empty sections.
  5. Avoid ambiguity. Include the country of your school in the lead section. Wikipedia is read worldwide, and not everyone speaks the same English as you; some words have very different meanings in different countries. Dates should always be written out in full i.e. 4 July 1984 in the body as well as in inline references. Abbreviations must be written out in full at the first occurrence, and local terminology must be explained or wiki-linked, for example, K–12, Twelfth grade, Reception, sixth form.
  6. Write a strong lead. Be sure to write a lead that concisely summarizes the school into one or two paragraphs which make sense to someone who may know nothing about the school in question, and remember to include the country where the school is located.
  7. Support your contributions. Before you start an article on a school, or make additions, it is strongly suggested you first have an adequate amount of verifiable information about the school readily available, written inreliable published sources, independent of the school. This will make meeting the recommended content requirements far easier than trying to find all the information after you have already started the article (or hoping others will).
  8. Images.: Using images and school crests, emblems, or logos can greatly enhance articles, but only use them when they help illustrate the topic (e.g. are relevant), and ensure that they are freely licensed or in the public domain. In most cases, the only way to accomplish this is for you to take the photo yourself and uploading it following the instructions for licensing. For crests, emblems, or logos, see the special instructions in the infobox section.
  9. Infobox. Wikipedia Infoboxes are an important element of many page types. They provide an overview of essential school information in a format that is common to all school articles.

How to respect a neutral point of view when describing the school

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Take care to maintain a neutral point of view when describing a school. It is especially important to avoid vague praise, and overly descriptive adjectives, even if sourced.
Avoid mission statements and goals. They are generally promotional.
Avoid comparing schools (sports results, exam results) to introduce rivalry or to promote the school. Although written for colleges and universities, the advice in Avoid academic boosterism also applies here. Some examples that have been found in the past:

  • "School X has had a long and glorious tradition."
  • "School X has been consistently been ranked as one of the top public high schools in both the state and country."
  • "School X has one of the lowest admissions rates in the country."
  • "School X has 98% A-level passes, school Y 12 miles away has 75%."

Recommanded structure of a school article

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Follow the Wikipedia Manual of Style and only make links that are relevant to the context. Days, months and years should not be linked in school articles unless the inclusion of such a link is of specific relevance to the article, and if a complete date is required, write the date in full, e.g.: 5 November 1985.
The key to writing a good school article is to explain why the school is unique. What makes it different from every other school? Does it have a special programs? A history of championship sports teams? Famous alumni? Has there been a noteworthy event there?

Sections of the article

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The following section names are for guidance only, and may be adjusted to suit local spelling, custom, and organization. Do not use very short sections; very short articles are best kept to a single section only and avoids unnecessary page clutter.

Infobox

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All school articles should have an inbox. This gives readers quick, concise information about the subject. {{Infobox school}} is a good infobox to start with.

Infobox contents

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Provide the basic details about the school, include a street address, and the name of the county (Zimbabwe, South Africa), state/province (Australia, Canada, India, USA, etc.), Landkreis (Germany, Austria), Département (France), canton (Switzerland) etc., Post Code/Zip, and geographical coordinates.
  • Avoid including:
  • Contact details such as phone, fax, email.
  • Deputy heads/principals
  • Deputy chairpersons
  • Temporary positions
  • Pre and post nominals (CEO, Dr, BA, BSc, MA, PhD, etc.)
  • Mr, Mrs, Ms, Miss, unless the gender is not obvious.
  • Flag icons
  • Do include:
  • A referenced source for the number of students, or at least the year in brackets i.e. (2007) including for faculty and other information that is annually (e.g. budget, student to teacher ratio, teaching staff, or graduates). Round up or down to the nearest 10, and use the abbreviation approx if only very appropriate (optional).
  • The school motto. If it is not in English, use the appropriate language template, for example for Latin use {{lang-la|motto goes here}} and then provide a translation.
  • The school's crest, logo, seal, emblem and/or coat of arms (generally not larger than about 150 pixels). You can either copy this from a school's website or scan it from a school document. You must provide a source, and for the licence on the upload form, choose logo in the drop down menu for the copyright licences, and copy and paste this fair use rationale in the fair use/description field:

Other sections

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== History ==

== Campus ==

== Curriculum ==

== Extracurricular activities ==

== Awards and recognition ==

== Notable alumni ==

== Notable staff ==

== Former headteachers ==

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
* {{official|www.example.com}}

  • Introduction/lead – Give the full official name, common names, and former names of the school in bold text, use italic text for names of the school in other languages besides English; and detail about its location (town/municipality, county/state/province, and country). Add a few facts about the school that make it unique. Provide the name of the founder and founding name, and affiliation with any larger school system or education organization, if applicable. Include brief statistics on the number of pupils (always state the date when the information is current and be cautious about having too many statistics that will need to be updated frequently). Summarize the main sections of the article – history, alumni, buildings, etc.
  • History – Describe the history of the school, including noteworthy milestones in its development.
  • Campus/school site – Describe the overall shape and size of the school site/campus. Ideally a picture of the school should be included if a free image is available. Mention any famous buildings or stadia and their architects if interesting or notable, and consider creating a Building(s) section where appropriate. Do not include detail of each building, its classrooms, or equipment.
  • Curriculum – Provide a brief description of the school's curriculum. Does it follow a national or state curriculum or does it set its own subjects? Focus specifically on aspects of the curriculum which are unique to the school. Is it the only school in the locality which teaches Mandarin, Latin or Greek? Does it have a culinary academy? Do not make long lists of every subject taught - people can get that from the school's brochure or web site. Do not include school performance tables - people can get that from the school's brochure or web site.
  • Extracurricular activities – Mention the sports team(s) of the school and what is notable about them. Here is also a good place to mention specific traditions of the school, like students' union/student council activities, a student newspaper, clubs, regular activities, etc. The heading may be changed accordingly in regard to the importance of sports, clubs, traditions, students' unions etc. For example, alternative headings could be Students' Union, Sports and Traditions or Students' Union Activities. Specific students should not be mentioned unless they are notable in their own right. Major extra curricular championships should be appropriately listed in a "Sports", "Athletics", or "Activities" section. Major extra curricular championships are defined as the highest possible championship from that activity's organizing committee. In the United States, this is nominally a "state championship". National championships, when referenced, may also be listed. Accomplishments other than state or national championships (or their equivalents) are typically not notable and should be avoided to avoid giving undue weight to any particular activity. Individual awards should generally not be listed.
  • Awards and recognition – A list of notable awards and recognition received by the school, staff, or students. Such a list should only include awards which are themselves notable, and if the school received the same type of awards in multiple years, they should not be listed separately. If the list becomes too long it should be split into a separate sub-article with a summary left in the main article. Awards and recognition may also be mentioned in other sections of the article at editor's discretion, even if the awards themselves are not notable. For awards/recognition given to school clubs or sport teams, list them in the appropriate section e.g. Sports and traditions. See the guideline under the Extracurricular activities section for details on alternative headings that may be used for information on school clubs and sports. If the school has received only a few academic awards, consider putting them as prose under the Curriculum section.
  • Notable alumni – If possible, provide a list of notable alumni of the school with appropriate and sourced detail on each, moving the list to a separate article if it is too large. The section may also include an overview of the school's alumni, providing appropriate details where available, such as the school's reputation for their alumni, the fields in which the school's alumni have had an impact, and any alumni society.
  • Notable teachers/faculty/staff – The names of current and former teachers should only be included if they are notable in their own right (for example, they are published authors or they have won a teaching award), or they have been the subject of multiple non-trivial press coverage.
  • Former headteachers/principals – A list of former headteachers/principals, with a short description of their achievements, is often useful. Long lists should be split into a separate article.
  • References – Provide verifiable reliable sources of information about the school, that are independent of the school itself. An article should not rely solely on what its subject has to say about itself (as with any article in Wikipedia). A school's own website is not an independent source. References from third-party sources are particularly important for school awards and contentious statements. There is no requirement on Wikipedia for sources used in articles to be online; either online or offline sources can be used as long as they are correctly cited, reliable, and published. If a resource is online, consider the future possibility it will go offline (newspapers often allow free reading only for recent stories), and provide sufficient information so that the story will still be found (author, publication, full article title, date.
  • External links – Give a link to the website of the school, preferably one in the English language. Include other informational links that might interest readers, but whose contents might be beyond the scope of inclusion in the article (for example, links to the school's Parent Teacher Association).

What not to include

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School articles should only contain material of encyclopaedic interest; lists should be kept to a minimum; prose with context to the individual school is preferred. Remember that Wikipedia is not a directory, a host of primary source material, or a place for advertising.

Any mention of living people must conform with the biography of living persons policy, including the presumption in favour of privacy. While naming the head teacher or principal is permitted, lists or detailed information about current or former pupils, parents of current or former pupils, administrative staff, school secretaries, teachers etc. is usually inappropriate. Special care should be taken in regards to the mention of individual pupils or providing information that would allow individual pupils to be identified (particularly where they are underage); such disclosures should only occur in exceptional circumstances.

School articles should also specifically not include:

  • Excessive amounts of detail about the school uniform or dress code, unless it has seen significant coverage in multiple third-party sources. However, the uniform may still be mentioned briefly without this level of coverage, particularly if it is unusual;
  • Trivia which is only of interest to pupils in the school (such as school timetables, bell schedules, class-by-class rules, daily lunch menus, location of the toilets, or a room-by-room description of the school facilities);
  • Current school events which are only of short-term interest;
  • Telephone numbers, fax numbers, and e-mail addresses (postal addresses are acceptable in infoboxes);
  • Country or regional flags;
  • Lists of colleges and universities that have accepted students from the school;
  • Copies of the school's mission statement, aims, or goals – these are generally considered promotional;
  • Comparisons of sports results, exam results, etc. between schools which introduces rivalry, unless third-party reliable sources themselves make such comparisons; otherwise this is a form of original research. Such content can also be considered promotional, and although written for colleges and universities, the advice in Avoid academic boosterism also applies here;
  • The lyrics of the school song.

Applicable categories for a school article

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Try to avoid overcategorization.

Sources for a school article

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History

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Some schools have published histories. Some schools have buildings which are of architectural importance.

Awards

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(Note: These are examples only and the list is not intended to be exhaustive. Contributors are welcome to add other notable international or national awards here so that they can be researched and used by other school article editors.)
Awards should only be mentioned if they themselves are notable. Not all awards are genuine awards. Local awards for Beautiful Gardens around the schoolyard, or Good Food for the school canteen do not really count.

How to mention alumni

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All alumni information must be referenced. Individual alumni need a citation to a) verify that they did indeed attend the school, and b) verify the statement of their notability in their short one or two line description. When alumni have their own articles in mainspace, it is not necessary for their notability to be referenced, as long as it is done in the biographical articles. Be sure to check the existing biography article to ensure that it demonstrates alumni status with a cited reference.
Who should be included?
Alumni to be included must meet Wikipedia notability criteria. All alumni meeting these criteria are to be included on an alumni list, regardless of how much time they have spent on a school roll, from one day to several years, and whether or not they graduated.
Style of entries
The guideline invites consideration of whether information might be more appropriately presented in list or prose form. As the notable alumni of a school typically form an assorted group with little in common, describing all of them in prose would be clumsy. Unless there are very few notable alumni, lists are recommended as the most accessible way of presenting all of them. Adding a prose summary is encouraged, particularly if the list is split off as a separate article.
Entries should be bulleted and have a very brief description of their notability. Links to articles related to an entry are encouraged, but beware of overlinking, for example if many alumni have entered parliament, there is no need to link to the parliament of a certain country more than once. After a description, state when they graduated or what years they attended.
Alumni may be categorized alphabetically, or according to the field that made them famous: e.g. politics, medicine, academia. It is acceptable to list someone in more than one field, provided that this is mentioned in a side note. Add something like: "(Also listed in sport)".
As all alumni who attended a school for any amount of time must be included across all alumni articles, some attendees will have attended more than one school. Place in brackets the name of any other schools that they attended.
Separate alumni pages;
If a list of alumni in a school article becomes quite large, consider moving it to another page entitled "List of...".

Some examples of articles about schools

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See more

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