This is an essay by one or more individuals on using and contributing to Wikinews. It contains their advice or opinions, not necessarily those of the Wikinews community. Community essays can be found here; links to official policies can be found in the Wikinews introduction.

This is an user essay, suggested by its author(s). It's not a community essay, nor a policy or guideline.

This is an experiment initiative run by Gryllida. To join, please follow the steps below.

How to get started?

Writing a full story is too hard so how do you get started? Start simple: write one line and click submit.

They are a personal interpretation of the author, Gryllida, and changes can be discussed at the talk page.

Image by: Asio otus, Chrkl
Licence: GNU GPL v1.2+ & CC-BY-SA-3.0

To add a story please make a selection below.

How far are you ready to challenge yourself?

Level 0: I can write one line about something newsworthy

Type your headline, click 'Create'. On the next page click 'Save changes'. You do not have to edit the article.

Level 1: I can write the headline and include a source URL

You learn to share an URL, identify its title and date and publisher and author. *(Firefox addon [1] made by Gryllida may help...)

Level 2: I have the headline and a couple sources

This time share 2-3 sources not only one.
This takes a couple minutes.
You learn how to identify independent sources (key to verifiability).

Level 3: I have the headline with sources, and also can write a longer description (the first paragraph)

This takes a few minutes.
This time share not only the headline and a couple URLs, but also a paragraph -- a brief description of what happened.
This paragraph answers some of the 5Ws and an H questions:
Who, what, why, where, when, how.
If some of these questions are not answered, spell them out (add 'why the storm occurred - missing').
You begin to learn to answer the 5Ws and an H without bias.

Level 4: I can answer all of the 5Ws and an H in the first paragraph

This takes about 5-10 minutes.
You learn to write all of the 5Ws and an H, this is the first paragraph of a publishable news article
(often one of the Ws or the H is hidden and mainstream media does not say, may need some digging around and attention! :-) ).

Level 5: I can write a longer description, with an extra paragraph or two about more details or background

This takes about 10-15 minutes.
You learn the inverted pyramid layout
(something mainstream media often ignores and does not do - Wikinews specific - please look carefully :-) )
and continue to write without bias (this means with attribution where needed)

Level 6: I can write the full article with images, maps, categories, and infoboxes

This takes about 15-30 minutes.
You learn to write a bit more content, possibly with
- categories (documentation; use HotCat gadget),
- images and
- an infobox.
- Maps can also be added.

Advanced

open the style guide and content guide in a new tab, bookmark
bookmark this page
to start the note-taking log, visit this page and click save
aim to move to the next level each 2 weeks

Current participants:

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