Wikipedia:Wikipedia essays

Brief guide

• Check to see if the topic of the essay has been covered by skimming through
  content-forking
  them.
• Start the essay as a draft in the userspace.
• Be concise and to the point.
• Tag the essay with {{essay}}.
• Use {{nutshell}} to summarize the gist of the essay.
• Create a
  shortcut
  that redirects to the essay.
• Categorize the essay, and use any relevant navigational templates.
• Move the essay to the project space when finished.

Creating the essay page

A Wikipedia essay may be written by anyone. Before creating an essay, it is a good idea to check if similar essays already exist. Check the "see also" section of relevant guidelines and related essays, or perform a search of Help and Project pages.

If you find an essay similar to the one you intend to write, it is recommended you modify the existing one to include your ideas.

Labeling the page as an essay

Most pages in the Wikipedia namespace have a template at the top describing their purpose. (For some pages, however, editors may agree that

The various "essay" templates available are:

• {{essay}} – Essays that don't fit into other categories listed below.
• {{
  civility
  .
• {{essay in development}} - Essay in development
• {{humorous essay}} - contains comments by one or more Wikipedia contributors and may contain advice
• {{
  policies or guidelines
  , without having any status as policy.
  • {{deletion essay}} – Essays pertaining to deletion
  • {{
    policy or guideline
    in the future.
  • {{
    notability
• {{
  notability written by one or more WikiProjects
  .
  • {{wikiProject style advice}} - Essays pertaining to style written by one or more WikiProjects.
  • {{
    content
    written by one or more WikiProjects.

Categories: The above templates should add an essay category to the essay. However, consider adding

Other templates

There are other templates you may wish to include on your essay page:

Shortcuts

You may want to include one or more

Nutshell

You may want to include a brief summary of what the essay is about at the top of the page. To do this, use the template {{nutshell}} below the line with the essay tag: {{nutshell|Your desired text}}.

Navigational templates

It is also possible to add one or more navigational templates to your essay, called

• {{
  Civility
  }} - Civility essay Navbox
• {{
  Essays on building Wikipedia
  }} - Essays on building Wikipedia Navbox
• {{
  Humorous essays
  }} - Humorous essay Navbox
  • {{
    Wikipedia fauna
    }} - Essays characterizing "species" of Wikipedia editors Navbox
• {{
  Notessays
  }} - Notability essay Navbox
• {{College Football Project Essays}} - College Football Project essay Navbox

It is also possible to include links to a handful of closely related pages in a "See also" section. To keep your essay from being an

Recognition templates

• {{orphaned essay}} - Few or no project pages link to this page.

You do not have to be the one who originally created an essay in order to improve it. If an essay already exists, you can add to, remove from, or modify it as you wish, provided that you use good judgment.

It is important to keep in mind that like anything else on Wikipedia, essays are

Essays placed in

The Wikipedia community has historically tolerated a wide range of subjects and viewpoints on essay pages. However, there are a handful of "essay" pages that tend to get

• Writings that have no relationship to Wikipedia whatsoever. The purpose of an essay is to aid the encyclopedia itself (by providing information, instructions, interpretations, or advice) and not any unrelated outside causes.
• Writings that violate one or more Wikipedia policies, such as
  what Wikipedia is not
  .
• Writings that contradict or subvert policy (or other pages with established consensus), especially if they are intended to undermine, not just disagree with, those pages. Such oppositional views are, however, generally tolerated within user essays.

• Wikipedia:Advice pages
• Wikipedia:The value of essays
• Wikipedia:Policy writing is hard
• Wikipedia:How to contribute to Wikipedia guidance