How to Start an Article

AFTER CREATING OR CHOOSING A TARGET ARTICLE FROM THE MAIN CHAPTERS, COPY THIS ARTICLE WITH ITS SYNTAX FROM THE EDITING WINDOW (CLICK ON EDIT ABOVE THE ARTICLE) AND PASTE IT IN THE EDITING WINDOW OF YOUR FUTURE ARTICLE. PLEASE DO YOUR FIRST TRY IN THE SANDBOX

This article is a draft. It was just started and needs further work.

How To .....

Short Description

• Problem:
• Idea:
• Difficulty:
• Price Range:
• Material Needed:
• Geographic Area:
• Competencies:
• How Many people?
• How Long does it take?

Description

Write here the description of the technology and the steps to achieve the goal. It should be recipe like. If there are several possibilities to do the same thing, think about dividing the article: Maybe there are even so many different possibilities that this technology needs a special section. Try to be as clear as possible, use relatively simple terms or give the definition of complicated words: Not everybody who reads (or writes) English is a native speaker!

Difficulties

Don't forget pointing out difficulties, even potential dangers if they exist.

• Are there some parts that can't be replaced? Are there some difficult manoeuvres?
• Some difficulties might appear with the new good or the new common good, try to address such themes as management of the new good, repairs, acceptance and reaction of the community. Does the technology ask for a cultural change?
• If you think an information needs a special attention and should be diffused only under certain circumstances, consider:

1. Not diffusing it at all,
2. Warn us about the potential danger of one article at warn@howtopedia.org,
3. Ask to have an article protected at protect@howtopedia.org.

Success Story

Are important because they illustrate how a technology or a know-how have been adopted by some people and how they changed their lives. The story should be real and also show the difficulties that had to be overwhelmed. You are not selling a product, you are trying to give someone tools so he can decide if a technology is an appropriate solution to his problem or not.

Plans, Illustrations, Posters

Try to have the clearest illustrations possible, imagine them being photocopied 5 times and what's left of them. The best would be black and white line drawings. Have letters on the illustrations to make legends in several languages possible. Try to have precise plans, but keep in mind one should be able to adapt the design to it's possibilities. Ask yourself if a poster that could communicate the know-how would be relevant. Let some space for traductions in local languages, or make two versions of the poster. We will try to raise a community of illustrators to help by the illustrations, but try to make at least a scheme for the start, so that this scheme can be later refined.

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Rainwater harvesting

helptopic on images: [1]

Contacts

They are the real people behind the technologies. That is to say You. It is important not to leave the technologies "alone", BUT don't give the contact information of someone you don't know and who didn't give his or her permission to do so.

Links

Don't give too many links, try to give quality, not quantity. Choose them carefully as being real reference links for the technology you are presenting.

Bibliography

The same as for the links. If you have a very good bibliography, though, don't hesitate to create a separate article, specified as a bibliography, with links and books.

Related articles

Mention here the other howtopedia articles that relate to the subject. Name them exactly the same as the original title so that redirection functions.
And last but not least, link your article to it's translation in another language:

Categories:

Mention the category, that is to say one or more themes for which this article is relevant, so that it can be recognized in these categories, and quickly found by users. Write them this way [[category:Example]]