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Understand the Writer's Guide

The best way to learn about how to write and format articles here is to read the Writer's Guide. It is included here in its entirety.

Full Writer's Guide

Search before you start a new article. Since a wiki works best when there is only one page per topic, duplicate pages will be merged. Before starting a new article first search wikiHow. If your exact topic already exists, please edit the existing article. You should feel free to make dramatic changes to existing articles in the spirit of improvement.

The following is a brief introduction to the standard article format:

Title

Create a brief and accurate title. The title should be the most concise, most commonly searched way to describe the activity. See our guide to titles for more information.

Introduction

Write a brief summary for the topic that invites your reader to continue reading. Ideally this area should consist of about 40 to 70 words, but you can use more or less if necessary.

Ingredients

• An optional list of food ingredients that accompany recipes or similar pages.

Steps

1. Understand that the steps constitute the main body of your instructions. When possible, place the steps in chronological order.
2. Be concise. Readers appreciate clear and concise instructions.
3. Begin each step with an active verb. For example, "Check the gutter for obstructions," not "You need to ensure that the gutter is unclogged."
4. Avoid the use of introductory phrases, such as "In the next step", "The next thing to do is", "Then", "Next," or "Now that you have done Step 1, here is Step 2."
5. Make sure the steps do not raise new questions that the copy does not answer. There may be an occasional step that requires more explanation. If so, give the explanation. Don't oversimplify to the point that the step is difficult to follow.
6. Add a bit of explanation to a step if it helps the user. For example, "Fill the caulking gun with caulk" is not as helpful as "Insert the tube of caulk into the caulking gun with the tube nozzle pointing away from the trigger."
7. Recognize you will be able to give helpful tips and warnings in other fields. "Turn heat down and simmer soup. If heat is too high, soup will boil over, make a mess and may cause burns if children are near" is not a good step. It would be better to say, "Turn heat down and simmer soup" as a step, and insert the remaining information in a tip or warning.
8. Avoid the first person. While writing on wikiHow does not need to be neutral, the best writing should not make any personal references to the authors. "I make this lemonade every summer and my kids love it" would be better phrased as "Kids love this lemonade".

Tips

• The Tips field gives you a little more latitude to explain a step or to give further advice. For example, for a wikiHow about making a pie, you might add a tip that says, "If you are diabetic, you can leave the sugar out of the pie or use 5 tsp. artificial sweetener instead."

• Good writing excludes the use of:
  
  
  • ALL CAPS
  • instant messenger language abbreviations - R U OK?
  • emoticons - :)
  • excessive punctuation - !!!
  • sentences starting with lower case - "pour the milk into the saucepan. heat it."

Warnings

• The "Warnings" field is optional. It is used specifically for warnings of possible dangerous or harmful consequences and risks; or it can be used for explaining any undesirable results that might occur when following the steps of the relevant wikiHow article. These can involve anything from advisories about the storage of dangerous chemicals to warnings that your cake will fall apart if you don't cook it properly.
• If there is possible danger to life or limb, feel free to use the words "never" or "don't," as in "Never mix chlorine bleach with other cleaning fluids. The mixture may cause a toxic gas that could kill you." Do not use ALL CAPS for these terms, however! Just bold them or leave them to speak for themselves.
• As when entering "Tips", the "Warnings" are automatically bulleted when you hit "Enter".

Things You'll Need

• This is an optional bullet pointed list of the non-food physical objects necessary to complete the task.

Related wikiHows

• How to Begin Each wikiHow Step With a Verb
• Use this section to Add Related wikiHows on similar topics. For example, a page on how to buy a car might link to pages on how to select car financing options.
• How to View Your wikiHow Watchlist

Sources and Citations

• This optional section can contain links that provide attribution of where the article came from, or other sources and cites mentioned in the article. If you are providing attribution for the article be sure that you have already received permission to use the content.
• http://www.example.com - Source of information on (insert specifics here).

Edit Summary

• Leave a note here to explain your edit details to other authors what you did and why. For example you might write "spelling", or "added details" or "removed personal references".