Tips On Writing Good Tips

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See also: Tips On Updating An Existing Tip Article,Tips On Writing Good Tips

Growing

Note: When you add a new tip, please make sure that they go to correct section by looking at existing sections.

1 Know what You are writing about
2 Ask questions
3 Do not Assume
4 Follow the guidelines
5 General Guidelines
6 Sources/Reference
7 Authors

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Know what You are writing about

It is very important to be well informed about the topic you are writing tips from.
The internet is a Mecca for information--do your research on the topics and be well prepared. It takes an expert to write really good tips.

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Ask questions

If you are confused about something, do not hesitate to contact the administrators and inform them about your queries.
This helps to build confidence and avoid any unpleasant surprises.

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Do not Assume

If at any point you feel that you have not really grasped the essence of the topic, do not assume what might be, as what you think might be the case really might not be the case.

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Follow the guidelines

It is very important to read up on the general guidelines and policies.

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General Guidelines

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Tip Article Titles

Spaces are allowed.
Start each word with capitol letter.
No other characters are allowed for example no numbers or symbols.
Please chose a title that is descriptive for example "Car buying Tips" it clearly means that article is about Tips used during car buying. "Or Saving in energy Bills Tips"
Try to have word "Tips" added in the title at the beginning or at the end. But add it wherever it makes more sense.

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Tip Article Contents

There are hundreds of blogs and WikiPedia articles and commercial web sites already available on various subjects, we don't have to duplicate the same information at Tip Sense. If you are taking information from a public domain please try to process the information in such a way that make most sense.
For example create a tip or two from one big paragraph from original source. This way next time you or someone else need the same information they don't have to digg through detailed pile of pages and paragraphs, but the useful information will be quickly available in forms of Tips at Tip Sense.
If you want to simply copy paste the knowledge from somewhere then probably it is not a good idea and better to leave it at it's source. For any knowledge/information to happily live here it must be processed in the form of tips and check lists.
You are highly encouraged to attribute the credit to original source if you are referring it's information to create Tips at Tip Sense. Feel free to link them and mention them at "Sources/Reference" section.
You should try to provide some description and different sections of your Tip Article should feel linked. For example if you are writing about Camping Tips and providing a list of cooking materials. It is a good idea to message the reader of your article by using few words "Here is a handy list of material you need for cooking", and then start the actual list. Instead of right away providing list of cooking material. Please try all possible ways to make the Tip Article interesting and with different sections linked with one another.

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Categorizing

As a rule of thumb if you are not sure which category your Tip Article belongs to, then it should be left alone.
If you know that your article can live in one of the existing categories then you can add [[Category:Name of My Category]] anywhere in the article (preferably at the very bottom).
By doing so your Tip Article can be part of "Name of My Category" if that category didn't exist already, then it will be created for you automatically.
If you left your article without category, an administrator from current list of administrators will notice this soon and categorize the article for you.

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Check Lists

No Tip Article is complete without a good Check List to depend on. Most people read through Tips only once or twice but what brings them back to Tip Sense is check list. Next time whenever they plan to do for example Camping they are going to check Tip Article for camping but this time unless new Tips are added they may want to only print Check Lists that are part of Camping Tips Tip Article.

You can have more than one check lists on different areas.
They must all be separate sections so they are not hidden and their links are available at Table of Content. So create a new section all you have to do is add "==" at beginning and end of the section name. If it is under a section that already has two "==" then to create a subsection beneath it you have to add another "=" and it will then be "===". To know more about working with sections please refer quick 5 minute guide.

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Can my Tip Article live here?

Ask yourself following questions and quickly decide if your Tip Article can happily dwell here with the family :)

Questions? answer to which must all be YES

Your Tip Article is precise and most important essence is quickly available to print or email or to read within 1-2 pages?
Your Tip Article is something that you would like to make publicly available and handy online. So you can access it anywhere and others can do the same?
Your Tip Article should not seem like an encyclopedia or detailed exhaustive knowledge. But it is precise always useful set of handy Tips?
At least there should be a reasonable number of audience for a added Tip Article to benefit.

Questions? answer to which must all be NO

Your Tip Article deem like a common sense act, for example don't take off your hands while driving?
Your Tip Article is an intellectual property of an individual or organization, and you don't have their permissions?
Your Tip Article is an hate agenda against people or place?
Your Tip Article is an exhaustive encyclopedia and it is almost impossible to get essential information out from the Tip Article?

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Keywords Description

Optionally it is a good idea to provide keywords and page description to the Tip Article. This way in future these Tip Article will easily be indexed by search engine and will show up when you search them outside of Tip Sense at for example live or google.

This is how you provide Keywords and Description to a Tip Article.

<keywords content="List of Keywords comma separated"/>
<metadesc content="Short description"/>

Generally its a good idea to use keywords which are also mentioned in content of your Tip Article, and which will help search engine find this article. For example when I was writing Camping Tips article below are keywords and description I used.

<keywords content="Camping list, Camping Tips, Outdoor Tips, Useful things to carry"/>
<metadesc content="Very Short and precise Tips and check lists for camping enthusiastic. Hope you find it useful, also please don't hesitate to add and expand the Tips and check lists"/>

And description should be one line that describe the Tip Article this description will show up with search result. Please be careful to put short precise description and keywords with no spelling mistakes.

Keywords and Description is only meta tags and not visible inside the article but they are available to search engine. As long as you have done by following above approach and as long as it is not visible in the page it is safe to assume that you done it right.

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