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User:Wronkiew

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My contributions

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Did you know? (7 March 2009) Featured article

243 Ida is a member of the Koronis family of main-belt asteroids. It was discovered on 29 September 1884 by Johann Palisa and named after a nymph from Greek mythology. Telescopic observations categorized Ida as an S-type asteroid, the most populous type in the inner asteroid belt. On 28 August 1993, Ida was visited by the spacecraft Galileo, bound for Jupiter. It was the second asteroid to be visited by a spacecraft, and the first found to possess a satellite. (more...)

Featured picture

Captive test flight of Armadillo Aerospace's Pixel rocket on 8 October 2006, before the 2006 X-Prize Cup.
Credit: Armadillo Aerospace/Matthew C. Ross

Featured article Today's featured article (19 April 2009)

Gerard K. O'Neill (6 February 1927 – 27 April 1992) was an American physicist and space activist. As a faculty member of Princeton University, he invented a device called the particle storage ring for high energy physics experiments. Later he invented a magnetic launcher called the mass driver. In the 1970s he developed a plan to build human settlements in outer space, including a space habitat design known as the O'Neill cylinder. He founded the Space Studies Institute, an organization devoted to funding research into space manufacturing and colonization. (more...)

Thoughts on Language and Presentation

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These tips are aimed at improving the consistency of article text, reducing the number of words used to express an idea, and clarifying the meaning of sentences. One of your goals in writing effective articles should be to make the text readable by as many readers as possible. Unnecessary words should be removed, and complicated words should be replaced by simpler words if doing so does not change the intended meaning.

An easy, though incomplete, way to assess your prose for readability is to send it through a fog index calculator. This one highlights complex words for you, while this one lists the longest sentences. If you are writing about a non-arcane subject and your fog index is over 16, you may be suffering from logorrhea. Test the lead section as well. Article leads should be readable by a very large audience, so shoot for an index under 12.

Readable prose

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  • The word actually in general usage usually means absolutely nothing. In many cases it can be eliminated without changing the meaning of the sentence.
  • Readers find it difficult to read a sentence with more than two or three commas. Sentences with too many commas can generally be split with ease.
  • Subjects of sentences should ideally have been introduced earlier in the article. In many cases an unintroduced subject indicates the need for an additional sentence. For example, this is what not to write:
instead, write something like this:
  • The verbs use, are/is, and have add less to a sentence than more active verbs. Replacing use with utilize does not improve a sentence. This example replaces had and used with more active verbs:
  • Don't start a sentence with "there was" or "there has" or "there is" if "there" doesn't refer to a specific place. Sentences that start like this can be rewritten more simply.

Consistent appearance

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  • In many articles the strings " - " and "--" stand in for the em dash "—", a typographical feature that Wikipedia allows. You can enter it by typing "—". Read more about this at Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Dashes.

Feel free to knock any of these points on my talk page.

Further reading

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My PGP public key ID is 0x68452D6E, expand for key:
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Committed identity: f516ddbacc69486b175a665fb53ff9cc53183275ec3afe5af4f0134631c63f086a75894594ddb5f861c56a5d6d804e09cf4e2340b730560b27643f3c42dee8d3 is a SHA-512 commitment to this user's real-life identity.