SourceWatch:Stub

This page is a Sourcewatch guideline. It illustrates standards or conduct that are generally accepted by consensus to apply in many cases. Feel free to update the page as needed, but please use the discussion page to propose major changes.

Stubs are articles which have not yet received substantial attention from Sourcewatch editors. They have been created, but don't yet contain enough information to be truthfully considered articles. The community believes that stubs are far from worthless. They are, rather, the first step articles take on their course to becoming complete. The objective of this article is to provide a general guide for dealing with stubs.

Identifying a stub

A stub is an article that is clearly too short, but not so short as to be useless. In general, it must be long enough to at least define the article's title. This usually means 3 to 10 short sentences. Sizable articles that lack referencing or copy editing are generally not considered stubs, and the normal procedure is for the {{expansion}} tag to be added to them, instead.

Ideal stub article

When you write a stub article, it is important to bear in mind that its main interest is to be expanded, and that thus it ideally contains enough information to give a basis for other editors to expand upon. Your initial research may be done either through books or through a reliable search engine such as Yahoo! or Google. You may also contribute with knowledge you have acquired from other sources, but it is useful to conduct a small amount of research beforehand, in order to make sure that your version of the facts is correct and from a fair and accurate point of view.

Begin by giving a definition or description of the topic in question. You might write a clear and informative description of the subject. State what said person is famous for, where a place is located and what it is known for, the basic details of an event and when it happened; just to give a few examples.

Next, you should try to expand this basic definition. The previously mentioned research methods will often fetch you enough information for you to be able to expose the basic points of the subject. For further research and writing guidance, the following Sourcewatch articles may be helpful:

• Research using the web
• How to research front groups
• Resources for studying propaganda
• Article guidelines

Once you have submitted the article, there are a number of courses it may take. An editor might get interested in it and develop it further, or you could expand it yourself once you have found more information about the subject or once you have more free time on your hands.