Difference between revisions of "Writing Guide"

Revision as of 21:19, 10 June 2007

Focus and Tone

As you are writing or editing articles on the wiki, it is important to remember the intended reader for the article. All articles on MormonWiki should be written for non-members of the Church, probably for people who know very little about the Church. This means that you need to pay particular attention to the way you phrase things. Something that seems very clear or understandable to a Church member may be entirely foreign to a non-member. For instance, speaking about covenants, sacrament, stakes, wards, temples, and a hundred other things is confusing to non-members who don't understand what these terms mean. You can either take the time to define the term within an article, or (better still) you can rephrase your thoughts to use words with which the reader is already familiar.

As for tone, make sure that the articles are friendly, inviting, and interesting. They should not be offensive, defensive, or condescending. Simply state our beliefs in a way that makes sense for the reader (put yourself in the reader's shoes) and your article will be fine.

Other Guidelines

• Personal information should be limited to the Personal Experiences and Testimonies section and should not be incorporated into other articles.
• This website is for explaining the doctrines and practices of the Mormon Church from the perspective of faithful members. Controversial subjects are welcome, but should be treated in light of official Church doctrine.
• Profanity or vulgarity of any sort are prohibited.
• Tense is not all that important at present but should be maintained within each article.
• Third person (he, she, they, it) or first person plural (we, our) are preferable except for personal experiences or testimonies.
• Be prepared to have your work edited.
• Please give the references for all quotes used and cite your sources.
• When referring to the proper title of the Church, please capitalize The in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
• It is standard for this website to use the terms Mormon, Mormon Church, and Mormonism, though we try to emphasize the proper title of the Church. The terms LDS, Latter-day Saints, and Saints are also perfectly acceptable. The reason for using the term Mormon is to make our site easier for search engines to find. Typically, people looking up information about the Church will use the appellation Mormon and we want them to be able to find positive information (See President Hinckley's Talk: Mormon Should Mean "More Good").

For More Information, see:

• MormonWiki Style Guide
• About Mormonwiki.com
• Policies
• Licensing (read this before using content from this site)
• Copyrights (read this before adding content to this site)