Help:How to write a readable article

This help page is a how-to guide.

It explains concepts or processes used by the Wikipedia community. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels of consensus.

Readability is extremely important for Wikipedia. As a free encyclopedia with the goal of democratizing knowledge, Wikipedia serves an extremely diverse audience with a wide range of backgrounds, preparation, interests, and goals. Even in the most technically demanding subjects, these readers include not only subject experts but also students and curious laypeople. While upholding the goals of accuracy and neutrality, every effort should be made to also render articles accessible and pleasant to read for the broadest audience.

Some editors conflate the encyclopedic style with the spare and technically precise style found in scholarly monographs and peer-reviewed papers aimed at a specialist audience. Encyclopedic style means the text is straight to the point, without needing to twist the truth or tell "lies for the children". However, encyclopedia articles should also be easily understood by as general an audience as practical, avoiding the assumption of prerequisite knowledge and gratuitous use of specialized jargon and advanced technical notation: these shortcuts which save time and effort for experts can easily become barriers for the uninitiated.

Why readability is important

It is unreasonable to expect a comprehensive article on a technically demanding subject to be entirely understandable to all readers. Some subjects naturally attract a more limited audience. Nevertheless, many subjects studied at an academically advanced level remain of interest to a wider audience, such as the Sun and Alzheimer's disease.

Making articles readable helps beginners understand the content, while saving the mental load for professionals skimming for key facts and references. Trying to understand string theory is hard enough; why should we throw ourselves more roadblocks with unnecessary jargon?

Making technical content understandable should be considered an improvement to the article, not as dumbing down for the benefit of the less knowledgeable readers. A long-winded proof of Fermat's last theorem is unlikely to be read by either a general reader or an expert. However, a short summary of the proof may give some clarity to a general reader without reducing the article's usefulness to an expert reader.

Lead section

A lead should not serve to be a perfect definition of the subject of the article; a lead should be an introduction to that subject. A great lead would ignite a reader's curiosity and tempt them to read the body of paragraphs below. Therefore, it is not useful to be pedantic and add minor or overly technical aspects of a definition to the lead. The lead should instead give a good enough definition in the first sentence to be readable by everyone and then try to elaborate on it in the rest of the lead.

It is best to explain the importance of a good lead section with an example. On 5 April 2021, the "Logic" article first two paragraphs looked like this:

Logic (from Greek: λογική, logikḗ, 'possessed of reason, intellectual, dialectical, argumentative') is the systematic study of valid rules of inference, i.e. the relations that lead to the acceptance of one proposition (the conclusion) on the basis of a set of other propositions (premises). More broadly, logic is the analysis and appraisal of arguments. There is no universal agreement as to the exact definition and boundaries of logic (see § Rival conceptions). However, it has traditionally included the classification of arguments; the systematic exposition of the logical forms; the validity and soundness of deductive reasoning; the strength of inductive reasoning; the study of formal proofs and inference (including paradoxes and fallacies); and the study of syntax and semantics.

Feeling confused? You should be. Here's why the old lead sucks:

It does not get to the point. Only after skimming through the big first sentence can you find a comprehensible definition of the topic: Logic is the analysis and appraisal of arguments.
It only uses very long sentences. The whole lead only has 4 sentences.
It uses too many 'big' words. Readers not very proficient in English would need to flip the dictionary many, many times.
It tries to make a syntactically complete definition of the concept by trying to cover all the exceptions (There is no universal agreement as to the exact definition and boundaries of logic...).
It uses "and" not as a way to add concepts but as a way to add synonyms (analysis and appraisal, definition and boundaries, validity and soundness).

On 18 October 2023, thankfully, the lead reads:

Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It studies how conclusions follow from premises due to the structure of arguments alone, independent of their topic and content. Informal logic is associated with informal fallacies, critical thinking, and argumentation theory. It examines arguments expressed in natural language while formal logic uses formal language. When used as a countable noun, the term "a logic" refers to a logical formal system that articulates a proof system. Logic plays a central role in many fields, such as philosophy, mathematics, computer science, and linguistics.

Let's see how the new lead tackles these problems:

It has a very easy to understand definition right at the first sentence: Logic is the study of correct reasoning. Also, the new lead got rid of the long etymology.
It uses a mix of short and long sentences. The short sentences serve as "breathing grounds" for readers to digest information and the long sentences serve as an elaboration of two concepts: informal and formal logic.
It uses simple words whenever possible.
It focuses on describing the two concepts of logic and really digs down on it. (Formal logic is..., Informal logic is...) Focus on defining the topic, not on the possible exceptions of the definition.
It uses ‘and’ to connect distinct concepts (formal and informal logic, informal fallacies, critical thinking, and argumentation theory). Bonus points for listing concrete examples.

Brainstorming tips

At the very least, the lead should provide an understandable overview of the article. It should not assume that the reader is well acquainted with the subject of the article. The lead of an article titled "Derivative" should tell a general reader:

the field of study of the topic – calculus
the place the topic holds in its field of study – an important tool for mathematical analysis and other fields of study
what are the general (and hopefully interesting) facts about the topic – how to find a derivative of a function, etc.
what needs to be learned first in order to understand the article – limits and functions

While the lead is intended to mention all key aspects of the topic in some way, accessibility can be improved by only summarizing the topic in the lead and placing the technical details in the body of the article. Linking should not be a substitute for an explanation of the main topic. However, for highly specialized topics such as string theory, it may be reasonable to cut some slack and link to the prerequisites required to understand it.

When writing the lead, keep asking yourself: "So what? Why should the reader care about this?". When you get to the point where you feel you cannot answer any further, it is likely that you have reached a better way of describing what are you trying to write.

Rules of thumb

Reduce redundancy

Words should be used frugally.