Before starting to write an article
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WOCATpedia aims to create easy access to knowledge and first-hand experience in Sustainable Land Management (SLM) and water management, in developing countries over the past few decades, and to the latest developments in this field.
Thus, WOCATpedia consists of two main components in its initial phase:
- A collection of short articles: providing an overview on sustainable land and water management in development cooperation, with references to documents for further study and links to WOCATpedia’s own library
- WOCATpedia's library: a collection of documents on sustainable land and water management in development cooperation, with abstracts and keywords
General considerations
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- WOCATpedia is a sort of a specialised encyclopaedia. It is neither an in-depth academic text-book nor a manual for SLM.
- Articles are to create an overview of the different topics of SLM.
- Articles should also provide an easy access to the primary specialist documentation and should list sources where further details, which cannot be presented in the article, can be found. Research what documents and resources are available in the specific area you are overviewing, and propose relevant publications for the library. Please create links in your article to these sources.
- Because of its orientation to development cooperation, an article should, whenever useful and possible, point to context-specific aspects and documents through which users can be informed on good practices and examples of work under specific climatic, socio-cultural or economic conditions.
- The article should give inviting opportunity for others to share their approaches and experiences
- Avoid large amounts of quantitative data. Presenting an overview means giving an idea of magnitude or scale, or a ‘bigger/smaller as’ comparison.
- At the beginning of the article, the relation of the subject to climate change and food security should be highlighted.
- Concrete examples or links to documents with country-specific examples (challenges, attempts, success factors, lessons learned) are useful.
- Use graphics and other illustrations as a means to highlight the complexity of content (which also reduces/eliminates lengthy text passages).
- An objective stile with a simple language should be used.
Priority users and aims of articles
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WOCATpedia focuses on two main types of users: generalists working in development organisations, and practitioners in development programmes. The first, generalists, are not necessarily experts in the field and may be in need of a concise overview on specific aspects of sustainable land and water management. They may be involved in planning or evaluation of development projects, in preparing and /or taking decisions, in understanding policy papers, etc. The second type of users are the practitioners, who have practical competences in specific aspects of water management in agriculture but seek a well-structured overview on ‘what else’ needs to be taken into consideration as they plan and work. From this overview, they can then choose to go into depth in specific areas and would value the practical applications found in studies or project descriptions in WOCATpedia documentation. The site- and context-specific information in sustainable land and water management documents, offered by WOCATpedia is of high value to the practitioner, and is thus an important aim of the platform.
Other likely users are the general public, such as students, journalists, etc.
Writing a good article - general Guidelines
Structure of articles
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All articles longer than one (web screen) page should have a short table of contents with keywords.
The main structure for an WOCATpedia article should be as follows:
1. Short definition of the subject – including a brief indication of the link to AWM. This should be written so that the reader can easily decide if they want to continue or not. The definition should not exceed 10 lines.
2. Table of contents – minimum of four points (including ‘references’ and ‘further reading’)
3. Introduction/background – why and how this subject is relevant to AWM
4. Main section – may be divided into several sub-sections, according to subject matter
5. Illustrations of related examples, if suitable
6. References – systematically integrating links to the primary source documentation of WOCATpedia (see below)
7. Further readings – books, articles, Internet pages, etc. which are not necessarily present in the WOCATpedia library
An example of a typical overview-article structure can be found here
Guidelines for length and format of articles
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- Recommended length of article (if not defined differently, e.g. calls): 1.5 - 3 pages of text or 800 - 2500 words (not counting any graphics)
- Use Arial font, size 11
- Integrate pictures and graphics within the text
Article Title and Headings
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The title of the article should reflect the theme of the article. Kindly capitalise the first letter of all the main words in the article title as well as in the headlines. For example, instead of writing "organic agriculture" as the article title, please write "Organic Agriculture".
Article Structure
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A good article should have the following structure:
- Overview / Introduction
- Main Part
- Further Information
- References (please use appropriate references within your article)
- Categories (categorise your articles according to the theme of the article)
Overview
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The "Overview" section in each article should give a short summary of the article so that other users can get an initial understanding of the article.
Main Part
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The body of the article should be clustered into Add Headings.
Further Information
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This part should include links to other articles or relevant documents for additional information.
Article Categories
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To make your articles easily accessible to other energypedia users, don't forget to categorise them. Categories help to consolidate the articles into relevant themes, making it easier for other users to search and find them.
Article Length
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Long articles are difficult to follow and the reader can easily get lost or confused. Therefore, please create short articles. In the case of a long articles, kindly break them into smaller short articles and Link to an Article.
Add Pictures
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Pictures increase the aesthetics of the article and attracts users. Therefore, whenever possible, please add pictures to your article. Before adding the picture, kindly Upload Pictures and Documents to energypedia and then Insert Pictures or Documents.
Kindly add the appropriate copyrights to the pictures and do not upload pictures where the copyrights are not clear.
References and quotations
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In order to ensure a high quality of articles and avoid plagiarism, we highly encourage all our authors to add relevant references to their articles. Please include the author's name, year of publication, title of publication and link to it, if possible in the reference section.
-> For instructions on how to add references please see the article: "Insert References".
All specific facts, examples and quotations should list the exact reference. Sources are indicated by footnotes. Attention should be paid to using a uniform and consistent format.
Direct quotations should be marked in the following way:
“Effective water use for food security under climate change is essential.”
Example for listing of references:
- GIZ (2011): Land Use Planning. Concept, tools and applications.
- Millner, H. (1992): International theories of cooperation among nations. A review essay. In: World Politics, Edition 44, pp. 4-66.
Author/s of publications provided by institution should be included in the reference, if mentioned.
- GIZ/Petermann, T. (1993): Irrigation and the environment. A review of environment issues. Part I & II.
If a publication is available online, provide the URL and include the date of access:
If a website is used as a reference, provide the source as follows and include the date of access:
- GIZ: Rural development. www.giz.de/en/ourservices/rural_development.html [Access 2012-09-26]
Illustrations: pictures, graphics and tables
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Include all pictures, graphics and tables directly in the text and provide references by footnotes.
You can only insert files that have been uploaded to the WOCATpedia file list earlier (see guidelines for Upload Publications).
Files have to be named in the following way:
Pictures:
- Women weeding grass in Mali, 2007, Guenther, N.
- Women weeding grass in Peru, 1986, FAO
Graphics and tables:
- Dimensions of water use, 1982, FAO
- Dimensions of food security, 1998, Guenther, N. modified after UNICEF
- Dimensions of climate change, 2004, Guenther, N.
Integration Into the Wiki Structure
Links (External/Internal)
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Links are especially useful to other users who may want to get further information on a topic. They help to make an article short and precise by interlinking between articles and not repeating the information available elsewhere.
Links also help to structure a wiki so that the individual articles do not get lost. On energypedia we usually distinguish between two types of links:
- Internal Link: The first option is to Link to an Article or to Link to a Headline in another or the same article, within energypedia. If you want to link to a file it needs to be Upload Pictures and Documents. For instructions on linking to a file, click Insert File as Picture / Link.
- External Link: For instructions on linking to external websites, click link to an external website. In case of external links, there is a small arrow next to the link.
Example
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) as many as 1.6 million people die each year as a result of it. This can be compared with one death every 20 seconds.
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