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How to Develop a Stub into a Better Article

A stub is an article which is not yet complete. While all GolfBizWiki articles can be considered "works in progress," stubs need more extensive work in order to be truly useful. You can help GolfBizWiki by developing stubs into top-quality articles.

Steps

1. Find a stub to work on by looking through the Stub Topics.
2. Search. Do a full and thorough search first. We very often have stubs languishing while another similar article has been improved. If you do some hard work on a stub, you may find all your work merged away if there was a superior article which you just did not know about. If you find that an article already exists on GolfBizWiki that covers the topic of the stub, use the merge tag and write the title of the article it should be merged with.
3. Know the rules. Before you develop a stub, be sure that you understand the guidelines outlined in the Writers and Editors Guide.
4. Research. If you know a lot about the topic, you may be able to improve it based only on what you know. Even if you don't have a deep familiarity with a topic, however, you may be able to find some good articles on the internet which will give you all the information you need to bring the stub up to a higher standard. Ideas cannot be copyrighted, and you can write about methods you learn elsewhere. Just remember to use your own words instead of copying other sources word-for-word.
5. Delete. When necessary, feel free to delete or edit portions of another author's work. If you see something that is simply incorrect, you should feel free to edit it out. In addition, editing is often necessary to create clear, concise writing, so don't feel bad about deleting unnecessary or unclear material.
6. Identify vague or incomplete information. A stub may contain information that is accurate, but not as useful as it could be. For example, you may come across a task performance step or a term, especially job jargon or acronyms (for example, IPM for Integrated Pest Management), that is not clearly described or linked to a good description. While the step or term may be technically sound, it is not very informative as is, especially to non-experts. Your job: make it clear.
7. Add Tips and Warnings. If there are tips or warnings you could add, feel free to do so. GolfBizWiki's goal is to present the acquired wisdom of the golf business community, so add your hard-won wisdom.
8. Copyedit. Articles must be readable in order to be useful. When you fix a stub, you should also edit for spelling, punctuation, and grammar. If you are not good at mechanics, insert the copyedit tag on the article so one of our crackerjack copyeditors can check your copy for copy errors. (In the editor, use the form tab to add a tag.)
9. Remove the stub tag. Once you're sure that an article is well-developed, remove the stub tag. (In the editor, click on the "Form" tab and delete "stub" from the listed tags.)

Tips

• If you want to find stubs to work on, you can look in the Stub Topics.
• Don't worry if you can't do everything needed to make a stub blossom. You might not feel comfortable copyediting or researching, for example, or you just might not have enough time. Remember that GolfBizWiki is a collaborative effort, so contribute what you want, and other contributors will do their parts.
• You can sometimes make long, confusing steps more concise by making some of the information into tips or warnings that can be placed in separate paragraphs or even key points. Sometimes entire steps would be better placed in one of these other sections.
• Remember that GolfBizWiki articles can be edited by any registered user. Keep in mind that even if you've made some great improvements to develop a stub, others may add to or delete some of your edits later. Chances are, however, that if your edits are well-written and accurate, they'll remain largely intact.

Related Golfbizwikis

• Stub Topics
• How to Search GolfBizWiki
• How To Change The Title Of An Article
• Writers and Editors Guide

-- MichaelBrezin - 11 Mar 2008

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Credits

Originally posted by MichaelBrezin on 11 Mar 2008.
All contributors: LynnwoodBrown, MichaelBrezin,

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