Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Essays/Featured article advice

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This is an essay which contains the advice or opinions of one or more members of the Military history WikiProject. While it is not a part of the formal military history style guide, it provides some recommendations and ideas for members to consider.

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This essay provides a brief list of major points that should be addressed before an article is listed as a featured article candidate; some of them are general recommendations, while others are related specifically to common objections candidate articles encounter.

Know the criteria 

Perhaps the most basic element of writing an article that meets the featured article criteria is knowing what those criteria are. Becoming familiar with the formal list is vital; beyond that, it's often useful to review current featured articles and ongoing candidacies to get a better grasp of how the criteria are typically applied in practice.

Take advantage of the review process 

Articles nominated for featured status should already be of a superlative quality, as attempts to fix major problems during the featured article nomination itself are usually chaotic and unsuccessful. Thus, the article should be reviewed for potential problems before a nomination is made. A full review process is outlined below; while these steps are not required, they are usually quite helpful:

1. Peer review: the peer review can offer exhaustive suggestions for improvement; it can be undertaken at any point, but is most useful once a majority of the article's content is present. This can run for anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.
2. A-Class review: the review for A-Class status is less flexible, and serves primarily to verify that the major criteria for featured article status are met; it runs for four days.
3. Featured article nomination: the final step is the formal nomination for featured article status; it can run anywhere from a week to a month.

Check your citations 

Perhaps the most critical flaw in an article—and among the few that serve to guarantee a failed featured article candidacy—is a lack of proper citations. An article should have copious inline citations, preferably from high-quality scholarly sources such as published historical works; for more information, see the project's sourcing and citation guidelines.

Ensure the article has been copyedited 

One of the most common objections that articles encounter is that the prose is too dense or poorly written. It is incumbent on editors to ensure that an article has been thoroughly copyedited before being nominated for featured status; while this can be done, to an extent, on one's own articles, asking someone unfamiliar with the text to review it is generally very helpful in catching less obvious stylistic problems.

Find suitable illustrations 

While lavish illustration is not a requirement (but is nevertheless a good thing, where enough images are available), particular attention must be paid to cartography; in articles about battles or wars, the lack of a suitable map can result in numerous objections to a featured article candidacy. Some resources for obtaining suitable maps can be found here.

Watch the length 

While editors are encouraged to expand articles, there comes a time when the overall length of an article becomes a potential problem for readers; if you find that an article is becoming too long, consider splitting it up or moving some of the information to other articles. More advice on recommended bounds for article size can be found here; note, however, that the numbers given are usually applied only to the prose of the article, and do not include additional material (such as footnotes or reference lists).

Be mindful of resolution settings 

Image:Cardiff distort.jpg

Higher monitor resolution settings can have the adverse effect of leaving large spaces between paragraphs if too many images or tables are present in one area or along one margin of an article.

Higher monitor resolution settings can have the adverse effect of leaving large spaces between paragraphs if too many images or tables are present in one area or along one margin of an article. Consider alternating images from left to right to help prevent large spacing between sections, and leaving extra room below tables and images before adding any additional media to that side of the page. Other editors who use higher or lower resolution settings can help you identify any areas of an article that may need reformating to address this.

Be mindful of redlinks 

The number of redlinks in an article should go down as the article's quality goes up. If your article is well-cited but has a large number of redlinks, it may be a good idea to invest some time in creating articles for the missing links or finding existing articles on Wikipedia that can serve as acceptable substitutes for them. Note that an article need not necessarily be completely redlink-free; but, in general, fewer redlinks visible in an article correlate to a higher chance of passing a featured article candidacy successfully.

Stay current 

FA criteria will shift over time, so ensure that your article stays up to date with newer requirements by updating it periodically. If an article has not had an official review for over a year since its last recorded entry in the {{article history}} template it may be a good idea to list the article at a project peer review to invite needed updates and bring the article back into line with current FA standards. If an article is in particularly bad condition it will eventually end up listed at Featured Article Review. If an article is not brought into line with current FA standards by the time an FAR ends the FAR will automatically become a Featured Article Removal request; if an article fails FARC, it will be delisted from Featured status until such a time as it renominated for FA status.