User:Rodw/Sandbox/How to write about Museums

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is a project guideline for the structure of Wikipedia articles about Museums. It was developed from extensive discussion and consensus at WikiProject Museums.

The order of sections is optional, although it is strongly recommended that articles conform to the basic structure of a lead/infobox followed by history, governance, scope, collections, as those sections contain much of the basic information about any museum. Beyond that, editors are advised to come to a consensus that works best for the museum in question. References are required for every article.

While this is just a guideline, it does provide a basic framework for a museum article, as well as useful tips to help in bringing an article up to good article or featured article status.

Please ensure that all changes to this page are discussed on the talk page and reflect consensus.

There is vast diversity between Museums; the meaning of "museum" itself can be ambiguous. This project page serves as a guideline for writing quality and standardised articles about museums.

A museum is a "permanent institution in the service of society and of its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment, for the purposes of education, study, and enjoyment", as defined by the International Council of Museums.[1] The UK Museums Association definition (adopted 1998) is:

“ Museums enable people to explore collections for inspiration, learning and enjoyment. They are institutions that collect, safeguard and make accessible artifacts and specimens, which they hold in trust for society. ”

Writing about the smallest of museums can be difficult due to the lack of source material, especially when compared with the major and international museums. Different types of museums such as: Art museums, Maritime museums, Natural history museums, Open air museums and various specialist museums may have particular features which should be included in the articles as appropriate.

Please note that this guide is a generally accepted standard that all editors should follow. However, the suggestions on this page are merely guidelines, not rules written in stone. They permit the exercise of common sense, and have occasional exceptions. As stated in the Manual of Style, "consistency promotes professionalism, simplicity and greater cohesion in Wikipedia articles. An overriding principle is that style and formatting should be applied consistently throughout an article, unless there is a good reason to do otherwise".

Contents

[edit] Article structure example Museum articles

NOTE: "Infobox" and "Lead" are not headings in their own right, and should not be included on articles as such. The order of sections is also optional, and sections may be moved around to a different order based on the needs of the particular museum. Editors are strongly encouraged, however, to at least begin with the lead/infobox, followed by history, governance, scope, collections,. References are a requirement of any article however. Further, alternative headings are listed under the "Optional headings" section below. Section titles should generally not start with the word "The" (see WP:HEAD).

[edit] Infobox*

Template:Infobox Museum is recommended for articles about Museums, however other infoboxes may be appropriate eg Template:Infobox Historic building, Template:Infobox Modern building, Template:Infobox Ship, Template:Infobox nrhp etc depending on the type of museum.

[edit] Lead*

Lead (see also WP:LEAD): Include the following

  • Name of museum (in bold), type of museum (eg national, regional, local & the sort of topic it covers), location including country, .
  • Notable unique characteristics and characteristics commonly associated with it.
  • Lead section must not exceed four paragraphs.
  • Avoid images in the lead section. The infoboxes mentioned above have the function to include a static image within them. Suitable images include, the building or a significant artifact from the collection.

[edit] History

History: Include the following

  • A note on the origins of the of the museum.
  • Major changes
  • Major benefactors
  • Depending on the museum, it may include information on the museum's building(s) as they relate to its exhibitions and history.

[edit] Governance

Governance: Include the following

  • A note on committees
  • Ownership/sponsership
  • Museum director/curator
  • Visitor numbers

[edit] Scope

  • A note about the scope of the collection (sometimes called aims in their literature)

[edit] Collection

  • General description of the collection(s)
  • Specific examples or exhibits which illustrate the scope and breadth of the collection

[edit] Notable people

  • All persons under this section must satisfy Wikipedia:Notability (people).
  • A note on people connected to the Museum eg founder, staff
  • Do not use a list format in this section. Please write this as prose, reference each person, and do not use the word "famous".
  • Key curators in the museum's history who enacted change/growth within the museum as many of these may not be independently notable but are notable in the context of the museum's history.

[edit] See also

See also (this heading is not mandatory): Include the following:

  • Only list articles here that are directly related to the Museum.
  • Do not list articles that have already been linked in the article.

[edit] References

NOTE: Reference sections may follow a number of styles, including separate "Footnote" and "Further reading" sections, please refer to WP:REF for more information.

  • Every article of Wikipedia must provide reliable citation, and thus this section is mandatory per policy.
  • Please use {{reflist}} for a standalone "Reference" section.
  • Try to avoid over using citation in lead sections.
  • Consider using an approved citation template to better organise and present references.
  • When providing a reference, please note that the word or punctuation goes before the reference, with no space in between. Full stops should not appear after a reference (i.e. "this is a quote".<ref>Smith J. (1234), Example book</ref>)

[edit] External links

External links should be added only rarely, and in accordance with the guidelines found in WP:EL. Consequently, this section should only rarely be found in most articles. In particular, the use of links as described in WP:SPAM should always be avoided.

If any links are deemed appropriate for this section, they should always be accompanied by an appropriate description of (a) what they are, (b) their justification, and (c) the date on which they were added in the form "Accessed: 07 July, 2007" (WP:EL#External links section gives some more information about this.)

External links used as a form of verification for facts found in the text of the article should be treated as normal references, e.g., cited by enclosing them in <ref>...</ref> tags and conforming to the style of web-based references, which also includes a "Retrieval date" component. They should not be added to this section (see WP:EL#References and citation.) Wikipedia:Citation templates gives useful information about what should be entered and the order in which the separate components of a web-citation should appear.

[edit] Optional headings

Some museum's entries may be dominated so much by a specific landmark, person or movement that it may require its own section (rather than just a sub-section). Where this applicable, try to insert it beneath the heading to which it is most related.

[edit] Dos and Don'ts

  • Per National_varieties_of_English use the version of English most appropriate for the country in which the Museum is located.
  • Per WP:NC-SHIP all names of ships should be italicized whenever possible.
  • Per WP:TRIVIA, do not use a "trivia", "miscellaneous" or "other facts" section.
  • Per WP:LIST, avoid using lists wherever possible (particularly for "notable people" or "subdivisions"), consider using tables, diagrams or prose.
  • Per WP:DATE and WP:CONTEXT, do not link standalone years. Only link full dates or dates with a day and a month. The same applies to dates in the footnotes.
  • Per WP:EL and WP:SPAM, be reluctant to add external links unless they are essential, and always restrict them to the External Links section, or to within an appropriately tagged reference.
  • Avoid one-sentence paragraphs wherever possible.
  • Don't include prices and opening times as these are likely to change and the article may not be updated.
  • If wishing to promote an article to Good article status, it is recommended that it first goes through the Wikipedia peer review process first.

[edit] Grammar and layout checklist

  • The lead needs to adequately summarize the content of the article.
  • There should not be anything in the lead not mentioned in the rest of the article.
  • Only make wikilinks that are relevant to the context. Common words do not need wikilinking.
  • A word only needs to be wikilinked once within each section.
  • It is not recommended to specify the size of images. The sizes should be what readers have specified in their user preferences.
  • Text should not be sandwiched between two adjacent images.
  • All fair-use images need a fair use rationale.
  • Image captions should not end with a full-stop if the caption does not form a complete sentence.
  • Book references need the author, publisher, publishing date and page number.
  • Web references need the author, publisher, publishing date, access date, language (if not English) and format (if a PDF file).
  • Blogs and personal websites are not reliable sources.
  • Inline citations belong immediately after punctuation marks.
  • Each "notable person" needs a reference.
  • Portal links belong in the "see also" section.
  • "Further info" links belong at the top of sections.
  • Include lists only if they cannot be made into prose or their own article.
  • Lists within prose should be avoided.
  • Unspaced en dashes are used for ranges. Unspaced em dashes or spaced en dashes are used for punctuation. The same applies to dashes in the footnotes. See WP:MOS#Dashes.
  • "&nbsp;" (non-breaking space) should be typed between numbers and units.
  • Imperial measurements should be accompanied by the metric equivalent in brackets, and vice versa. If possible, use a conversion template, eg. {{convert|5|mi|km|0}}.
  • Whole numbers under ten should be spelled out as words, except when in lists, tables or infoboxes.
  • Sentences should not start with a numeral. Either recast the sentence or spell the number out.
  • Usually, only the first word in a section heading needs a capital letter.
  • Short sections and paragraphs are discouraged.
  • The words "current", "recent" and "to date" should be avoided as they become outdated.
  • Ampersands should not be used, except when in a name, eg., Marks & Spencer.
  • Southeast is one word (and may or may not be hyphenated). This does not apply when it is the name of an area, eg. South East England.
  • In longer sentences, a comma may be needed before "and", "due to", "such as", "including", "as", "because" or "but".
  • "Past few years" has a different meaning to "last few years".
  • "Within" has a different meaning to "in".
  • Full-stops are needed after each initial in someone's name.
  • Hyphens should not be placed after words ending in ly, eg. widely-used phrase (except if the ly word could also describe the noun, eg. friendly-looking man)
  • Do not use contractions, such as "can't" and "they're".
  • "While" should only be used when emphasising that two events occur at the same time, or when emphasising contrast. It should not be used as an additive link.
  • Using "with" as an additive link can lead to wordy and awkward prose, eg. the town has ten councillors, with one being the district mayor → the town has ten councillors; one is the district mayor
  • Beginning a sentence with "there", when it does not stand for anything, leads to wordy prose, eg. There are ten houses in the village → The village has ten houses. The same applies to "it".
  • Avoid weasel words, such as "it is believed that", "is widely regarded as", "some have claimed".
  • Avoid peacock terms, such as "beautiful", "famous", "popular", "well-known", "significant", "important" and "obvious".
  • Avoid informal words, such as "carry out" and "pub".
  • Avoid overly-formal or archaic words, such as "circa", "utilise", "whilst", "upon", "commence" and "prior".
  • Avoid wordy terms, such as "the majority of" and "a number of".
  • Avoid vague words, such as "various", "many", "several", "long" and "almost"
  • Avoid phrases with redundant words, such as "is located in", "the two are both", "they brought along", "they have plans to", "they were all part of", "the last ones to form", "both the towns", "outside of the town", "all of the towns", "received some donations", "still exists today", "it also includes others", "many different towns", "available records show" and "in the year 2008".
  • Avoid saying that objects etc "reside in", are "housed" by, or, normally, are "currently in" a museum. Objects are "in" a museum, or "in" its collection.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://icom.museum/statutes.html#2