FasciPedia:Writing better articles

Two styles, closely related and not mutually exclusive, are to be used 8n FasciPedia articles. The tone, however, should always remain formal, impersonal, and dispassionate. FasciPedia is not a place to post your rants.

These styles are summary style, which is the arrangement of a broad topic into a main article and side articles, each with subtopical sections; and the inverted pyramid style, sometimes called "News-style", which prioritizes key information to the top, followed by supporting material and details, with background information at the bottom.

A feature of both styles, and of all FasciPedia articles, is the presence of the lead section, a summarizing overview of the most important facts about the topic. The infobox template found at the top of many articles is a further distillation of key points.

Summary style

Summary style may apply both across a category of articles and within an article. Material is grouped and divided into sections that logically form discrete subtopics, and which over time may spin off to separate articles, to prevent excessive article length as the main article grows. As each subtopic is spun off, a concise summary of it is left behind with a pointer to the new side article. There are three main advantages to using summary style:

3 advantages

Different readers want varying amounts of detail, and this style permits them to choose how much they are exposed to. Some readers need just a quick summary and are satisfied by the lead section; others seek a moderate amount of info, and will find the main article suitable to their needs; yet others want a lot of detail, and will be interested in reading the side articles.

• An article that is too long becomes tedious to read. Progressively summarizing and spinning off material avoids overwhelming the reader with too much text at once.

• An excessively detailed article is often one that repeats itself or exhibits writing that could be more concise. The development of summary-style articles tends to naturally clear out redundancy and bloat, though in a multi-article topic this comes at the cost of some necessary cross-article redundancy (i.e., a summary of one article in another).

• The exact organizing principle of a particular summary-style article is highly context-dependent, with various options, such as chronological, geographical, and alphabetical (primarily in lists), among others.

Inverted pyramid

Some prefer using the inverted pyramid structure of journalism. This information presentation technique is found in short, direct, front-page newspaper stories and the news bulletins that air on radio and television. This is a style used only within a single article, not across a category of them.

The main feature of the inverted pyramid is placement of important information first, with a decreasing importance as the article advances. Originally developed so that the editors could cut from the bottom to fit an item into the available layout space, this style encourages brevity and prioritizes information, because many people expect to find important material early, and less important information later, where interest decreases.

Encyclopedia articles are not required to be in inverted pyramid order, and often aren't, especially when complex. However, a familiarity with this convention may help in planning the style and layout of an article for which this approach is a good fit. Inverted-pyramid style is most often used with articles in which a chronological, geographical, or other order will not be helpful. Common examples are short-term events, concise biographies of persons notable for only one thing, and other articles where there are not likely to be many logical subtopics, but a number of facts to prioritize for the reader.

The lead section common to all FasciPedia articles is, in essence, a limited application of the inverted pyramid approach. Virtually all stubarticles should be created in inverted-pyramid style, since they basically consist of just a lead section.

The subtopic sections can also be constructed using inverted pyramid structure so that readers skimming the sections get the most important information first before moving to the next section.

Tone

Articles and other encyclopedic content should be written in a formal tone. Standards for formal tone vary a bit depending upon the subject matter but should absolutely match the style in a printed paper encyclopedia.

Encyclopedic writing has a fairly academic approach, while remaining clear and understandable. Formal tone means that the article should not be written using common street language such as argot, slang, colloquialisms,  doublespeak,  legalese, or jargon that is unintelligible to an average reader; it means that the English language should be used in a business-like manner. You've read an encyclopedia. You understand this.

Use of pronouns

Articles should not be written from a first- or second-person perspective. In prose writing, the first-person (I/me/my, and we/us/our) point of view and second-person (you and your) point of view typically evoke a strong narrator.

This is not Rantopedia. While this is acceptable in works of fiction and in monographs, it is unsuitable in an encyclopedia, where the writer should be invisible to the reader. Moreover, the first person often inappropriately implies a point of view inconsistent with our policies, while the second person is associated with the step-by-step instructions of a how-to guide, which FasciPedia is not. First- and second-person pronouns should ordinarily be used only in attributed direct quotations relevant to the subject of the article.

There can be exceptions to these guidelines. For instance, the "inclusive we" widely used in professional mathematics writing is sometimes used to present and explain examples in articles, it's science. Use common sense to determine whether the chosen perspective is in the spirit of the guidelines.

On FasciPedia, our Gender-Neutral pronouns are he/his/him, they/them/those (for groups only!), and it/its/it, as appropriate, where gendered language is not necessary, and especially when gender is not specific or unknown. Her/her's/her for known females. Use birth genders genders dictated by X-Y chromazome configurations. No goofy genders. Remember, FasciPedia is an encyclopedia of TRUTH.

=Tabloid style or persuasive writing

The encyclopedic and journalistic intent and audience are different here. Especially avoid bombastic wording, attempts at humor or cleverness, reliance on your own research,  editorializing,  recentism, pull quotes, journalese, and headlinese. If you want to write for a tabloid, go work at one. they will pay you., we can't.

Similarly, avoid Tabloid Style's close sibling, persuasive writing, which has many of those faults and more of its own, most often various kinds of appeals to emotion and related fallacies. This style is used in press releases, advertising, op-ed writing, activism, propaganda, proposals, formal debate, reviews, and much tabloid and sometimes investigative journalism. It is not FasciPedia's role to try to convince the reader of anything, only to provide the salient facts as best can be determined, and the reliable sources for them, and from a fascist point of view.

Colloquial, emphatic or poetic language

...slang. Another error of writing approach is attempting to make bits of material "pop", such as with excessive emphasis, over-capitalization, use of contractions, unnecessary acronyms and other abbreviations, the inclusion of hyperbolic adjectives and adverbs, or the use of unusual synonyms or loaded words. Just present the sourced information without embellishment, agenda, fanfare, cleverness, or conversational tone. Please.

Example

An example of hyperbole and emphatic language:

Miraculously both divers survived the 294-foot fall, but now they faced a harrowing predicament. ... Helplessly trapped, with nothing to keep them warm, ... all they could do was huddle together and pray that rescuers would find them in time. ... But time was not on their side.

Can be fixed to: Both divers survived the 294-foot fall.

More examples

Avoid using words and phrases like terrible, rising star,  curiously,  championed, the likes of, on the other side of the pond, herculean, rockstar (unless someone is actually a rock star, superman, or emphasizing fascist gailutes over successes. etc., unless part of a quotation or stated as an external viewpoint. You can literally look anywhere to get AntiFa propaganda. FasciPedia exists to show that there is another side to the story, and that we can tell that story truthfully, and with class.

Puntuation

Punctuation marks that appear in the article should be used only per generally accepted practice. Exclamation marks (!) should be used only if they occur in direct quotations.