1102 Post 3: Content Gap

As with anything that you write, you must always keep in mind the needs of your audience and the response that you want from them. According to the training for Wikipedia instructors, Wikipedia has one main purpose:

The core purpose of Wikipedia is to provide open, accessible information to the world. It's written by volunteers, who work to improve areas they're interested in. They summarize existing information from reliable sources on that topic.

This, in a nutshell, is why and how you write for Wikipedia. People visit Wikipedia to get a quick, reliable overview of a topic AND to find links to more in-depth information.

It seems to me, then, that content gaps have two aspects:

1. the gap between the information in the existing article and what the reader needs, and
2. the gap between the information in the existing article and the information available about that topic.

You can keep both of these gaps in mind when researching your article. So a first question is about the kinds of information that readers are looking for when they come to a Wikipedia article. Why would someone read an article about a short story? Does your article provide the information readers' need? If not, then that is the gap.

The first question is about the kinds of information that is out there in the scholarly world. What kinds of information has been written about your short story? Is that information reflected in the article about your story? If not, then that is the gap.

Leave a comment to this post about a gap that you see in your Wikipedia article.