Wikipedia:WikiProject Sanitation/Style advice

This "Style advice" was set up by members of the WikiProject Sanitation. The aim is to give all sanitation-related articles a similar, consistent structure and style. This should help readers to quickly find what they are looking for. Standard section headings have so far been set up for articles on technologies, articles on concepts, articles on medical topics, e.g. diseases or disorders or syndromes, and articles on individual Sustainable Development Goals.

Purpose

Readers will get used to a certain article structure. If all articles adhere to that structure, it is easier for the readers to find what they are looking for. For example, the Wikipedia articles about diseases all follow the same structure, consisting of symptoms, diagnosis, treatment methods, epidemiology etc. The same could be done for sanitation articles.

The most important aspect of the Manual of Style for Sanitation is the use of "standard headings" and the same style of referencing which is described below.

Recommended section headings

Suggested headings are presented below for three different types of sanitation-related articles: Technologies, Concepts, Medically-related. Please use the lists of suggested headings, in the order given, to help structure a new article or when doing a substantial rewrite. Vary the sequencing if that helps develop concepts progressively and/or helps avoid repetition. Because the types of sanitation-related articles vary greatly, the sub-headings used in the articles may also have to vary.

The section headings should be as brief as possible and as "standard" as possible. This makes it easier for the reader to orientate himself or herself. There is no need to repeat the title of the article in the section heading. That means, just say "Prevalence" but not "Prevalence of open defecation" if the article in on open defecation. EMsmile (talk) 10:01, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Types of sanitation articles

So far, we have categorized the sanitation-related articles on Wikipedia as follows:

• Agriculture (e.g. fertilizer, soil conditioner)
• Behaviour (e.g. anal cleansing, handwashing)
• Concepts (e.g. sustainable sanitation, resource recovery, behaviour change, community-led total sanitation, indicator organism, open defecation, reuse of excreta
• Material to be sanitized (e.g. septage, sewage sludge, human faeces)
• Medical articles (for diseases caused by lack of sanitation e.g. diarrhea)

• Medical articles dealing with helminths and helminth infection (e.g. helminth, Ascariasis)

• Organizations dealing with WASH issues, e.g. Sustainable Sanitation Alliance
• Technologies) (e.g. UDDT, dry toilet, septic tank)
• Others

A full list of articles for each thematic category is available here: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Sanitation#Lists_by_content

Articles on technologies

Proposed section headings for those sanitation-related articles that describe technical components or technologies:

• The WP:LEAD should provide a three to four paragraph summary or overview in basic language. The lead should contain only one image
• Terminology or definitions
• Process description
• Applications or appropriateness (in the case of a particular technology)
• Background (in the case of a concept)
• Design considerations (includes construction and, possibly, appropriateness (or the latter could be a section on its own))
• Types (in the case of design variants)
• Characteristics or properties (in the case of a group of substances)
• Maintenance
• Health aspects
• Environmental aspects (could be combined with "health aspects" above)
• Usage: Includes information on operation and maintenance (in the case of a technology)
• If relevant: Products from this sanitation system and how to deal with them (e.g. dried faeces)
• Comparisons with similar systems, concepts, technologies or materials (note: a list of advantages and disadvantages is not recommended, as Wikipedia does not like to see lists of pros and cons, see avoiding pro and con lists in Wikipedia)
• Costs (if they can be generalised; or alternatively, they could be part of the section on "society and culture")
• History
  • Etymology (if sufficient information exists)
• Society and culture
  • Promotional campaigns
  • Regulations
  • Acceptability
  • Examples
• See also section: should generally be avoided, except possible for stubs (incomplete articles)
• References (preference given to reputable sources, literature reviews; not blogs or discussion forums)
• External links (should only link to very important websites)

Articles on concepts

Proposed section headings for those sanitation-related articles that describe concepts, terms or policies (only use those that are of relevance but stick to the proposed order of section headings if possible to make it easier for the reader to follow the flow of the article):

• The WP:LEAD should provide a three to four paragraph summary or overview in basic language. The lead should contain only one image
• Nomenclature or definitions
• Background
• Overview / explanations / current practice
• Health or environmental aspects
• Reception /controversies (don't name it "criticism", see WP:CRIT for more information)
• History (particularly who first coined the term, how the use has changed in time)
  • Etymology (if sufficient information exists)
• Society and culture (might include regulations if applicable)
• Examples (e.g. of NGOs/governments/academics who use this term and noting any variety in usage)
• See also (only if the terms are not anyway cross-referenced in the article)
• References (preference given to reputable sources, literature reviews; not blogs or discussion forums)
• External links (should only link to very important websites)

Articles on medical topics, e.g. diseases or disorders or syndromes

The following information has been taken from the Manual of style for medicine related articles. When you come across an article on a disease, chance are that the standard section headings are already followed (in that case, do not modify them). Consult the Manual of style for medicine related articles for further details.

Clinical articles can achieve a level of consistency by limiting their top-level headers to those specified below. However, the spectrum of medical conditions is huge, including infectious and genetic diseases, chronic and acute illness, the life-threatening and the inconvenient. Some sections will necessarily be absent or may be better merged, especially if the article is not (yet) fully comprehensive.

A disease that is now only of historical significance may benefit from having its History section moved towards the top. Establishing the forms of the disease (Classification) can be an important first section. However, if such classification depends heavily on understanding the etiology, pathogenesis or symptoms, then that section may be better moved to later in the article. If a disease is incurable, then the Prognosis section can be moved up and a section called Management is more appropriate than Treatment.

The following list of suggested headings contains wikilinks; the actual headings should not.

• Classification: If relevant. May also be placed as a subheading of diagnosis
• Signs and symptoms or Characteristics
• Causes: Includes Risk factors, triggers, Genetics or genome, Virology (e.g., structure/morphology and replication).
• Mechanism: For information about pathogenesis and pathophysiology.
• Diagnosis: Includes characteristic biopsy findings and differential diagnosis.
• Prevention or Screening (if the section only discusses secondary prevention it should follow the treatment section)
• Treatment or Management: This might include any type of currently used treatment, such as diet, exercise, medication, palliative care, physical therapy, psychotherapy, self care, surgery, watchful waiting, and many other possibilities. Consider discussing treatments in a plausible order in which they might be tried, or discussing the most common treatments first. Avoid experimental/speculative treatments and preventive measures (e.g., prophylactic vaccines or infection-avoidance techniques). As per the policy of WP:NOTHOW, Wikipedia articles should not be written in a "how-to" style, but this does not prevent adding official guidelines of treatments or managements if these can be presented in an objective manner and with medically reliable sources.
• Outcomes or Prognosis. May also be labeled "Possible outcomes" or "Outlook".
• Epidemiology: factors such as incidence, prevalence, age distribution, and sex ratio.
• History: Early discoveries, historical figures, and outdated treatments (not patient history)
• Society and culture: This might include stigma, economics, religious aspects, awareness, legal issues, notable cases
• Research directions: Include only if addressed by significant sources. See Trivia, and avoid useless statements like "More research is needed". Wikipedia is not a directory of clinical trials or researchers.
• Special populations, such as Geriatrics or Pregnancy or Pediatrics
• Other animals

Articles on individual Sustainable Development Goals

Proposed standard section headings for the 17 SDG articles are shown below:

• The lead
• Background
• Targets, indicators and progress (with some example maps from SDG Tracker website)
• Overall progress and monitoring
• Links with other SDGs and other issues
• Organizations or Activities of organizations
• Reception (or controversies)
• Society and culture
• See also
• References
• External links

For more details see here.

General tips for newcomers

• Write for the general public – short sentences, easy to understand, no jargon.
• Write in a neutral way, no advertising, no promotional stuff! If there are conflicting views we should state them both.
• Use your own words (or paraphrasing), do not copy and paste from elsewhere, as on Wikipedia this can be equated to plagiarism (even if one cites the source).
• Copying one’s own words, e.g. from a forum post that I have written, could be acceptable – although this seems to be a bit of a grey area. Copying whole sections from our own or other people’s documents is not allowed.
• We are meant to provide references for most of our statements (even if for us they are standard knowledge things!).
• The citation goes after the full stop.
• Preferred references are high quality sources; documents with ISBN numbers and review articles in journals (i.e. not primary research articles) .
• Referencing a blog is not ideal but can be done in exceptional cases.
• If you have doubts about something or are planning a larger change, then it is usually better to first discuss it on the “Talk page”: each Wikipedia article has a “talk page” associated with it; it is a tab at the top left called “Talk”.
• You can also see the "View history" page (top right) to see who has changed what in the past and also access the view statistics.
• You can also “watch” a page to be notified of future changes, e.g. it is usually good practice to watch a page after you have worked on it.

Ten simple rules for editing Wikipedia

These Ten simple Rules for Editing on Wikipedia are worth reading when starting out as an editor on Wikipedia.

Words to avoid

This explanation of words to watch (and to avoid!) is really helpful: Manual of Style/Words to watch. In general, avoid any words that could introduce any sort of bias.

Conventions

The ideal lead section

The lead is the section before the table of contents and the first heading. The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important aspects. The lead should ideally contain no more than four well-composed paragraphs and be carefully sourced as appropriate.

More information about the lead section is available in the Wikipedia MOS here: WP:LEAD.

One image for the lead

Please put only one image (not several) in the lead which should be characteristic of the article. If it is important to have two images, please arrange them in a table like fashion like it was done for toilet, flush toilet or feces.

As with all images, but particularly the lead, the image used should be relevant and technically well-produced. It is also common for the lead image to be representative because it provides a visual association for the topic, and allow readers to quickly assess if they have arrived at the right page.

How many hyperlinks to other Wikipedia pages?

Be careful with over-linking to other Wikipedia pages. It is good to link to other Wikipedia pages but it should only occur in the lead and then once or twice in the article itself. Do not link to another Wikipedia page each time that word occurs. Avoid excessive wikilinking (linking within Wikipedia) as a substitute for parenthetic explanations such as the one in this sentence. Do not introduce new and specialized words simply to teach them to the reader when more common alternatives will do.

More information on this issue, including a discussion on the talk page, is available on this page: Manual of Style/Linking.

Table of content: limit to level 3 header only

To keep the table of content (TOC) clear and concise, we recommend that the TOC is limited to show up to Level 3 headers only. Therefore, please add this HTML text at the end of the lead (using the source editor): {{TOC limit|3}}

The article will still keep all its sub-headers also to 4th and 5th etc. level but they won't appear in the TOC.

What should go into the "See also" section?

Put only few terms in the "See also" section. You can even omit the "See also" altogether. As a general rule, the "See also" section should not repeat links that appear in the article's body or its navigation boxes. The links in the "See also" section might be only indirectly related to the topic of the article because one purpose of "See also" links is to enable readers to explore tangentially related topics.

More information about the "See also" section is available in the Wikipedia MOS here: WP:SEEALSO.

We use American English for this Wiki project

While Wikipedia does not favor any national variety of English, within a given article the conventions of one particular variety should be followed consistently. The exceptions are:

• Quotations, titles of works (books, films, etc.): Quote these as given in the source (but see § Typographic conformity, below);
• Proper names: Use the subject's own spelling e.g. joint project of the United States Department of Defense and the Australian Defence Force;
• Passages explicitly discussing varieties of English

For the Wikiproject Sanitation we recommend that all authors use American English spelling as it is probably easier to keep it all in one consistent type of English.

Importance of secondary references for medical claims

• Strong, reliable references in sanitation may not necessarily be considered strong reliable sources by medical wikipedians who rely mostly on high quality review articles (e.g. Cochrane reviews) and books for medical-style articles
• Have a read of WP:MEDRS to understand the policy for medical claims
• Ensure that any medical claims you add to articles are referenced in high quality secondary sources - this means recent peer-reviewed science articles, preferably review articles and textbooks
• This does not apply to sanitation articles (or sections of articles) which are not discussing medical claims, simply because such high quality sources are rarely available in the sanitation sector

Glossary of terms

We are not planning to develop our own glossary of terms for this WikiProject but we recommend that you use, as much as possible, the terms proposed in the glossary of the Eawag-Sandec "Compendium of sanitation systems and technologies".

Recommended citation method

Generally editors may use any citation method they choose. However they should not attempt to change an article's established citation style merely on the grounds of personal preference, to make it match other articles, or without first seeking consensus for the change. Also see Wikipedia Variation in citation methods. We propose the following citation methods:

Journals

Example: Maurer, M., Schwegler, P., Larsen, T. A. (2003). Nutrients in urine: energetic aspects of removal and recovery. Water Science and Technology, Vol 48, No 1, pp 37–46

See also

• Manual of Style for Medicine-related articles
• Wikipedia Manual of Style
• Wikipedia Manual of Style for spelling issues
• Manual of Style for lists in an article