While there are many excellent quality articles in Wikipedia, there are many that are brief, incomplete, or just need a little help!
Expanding Stubs
Short articles in Wikipedia are called “stubs”, and they are often marked that way to help editors find articles to expand in categories they are interested in. For example, all of the articles in this category are considered brief, and could use expansion:
We have also identified some articles needing expansion, along with UK Libraries resources to get you started:
I know something you don’t know…
One of the easiest ways to expand an article is to read a reliable source (a book, journal, news article, etc) about that topic, and look for interesting facts that are not already covered in the Wikipedia article. If you know something about the topic, and can back it up with a citation, it can be part of the article!
When you add your fact, make sure you add a citation to back it up, using the Cite button at the top of the editor! For more information about adding citations, check out our Adding Citations guide.
Copy Editing
Many articles in Wikipedia have plenty of great content, but they need copy editing to correct grammar, spelling, readability, or layout. Wikipedia provides a how-to guide for new copy editors which lays out the guidelines for making articles clear, correct, concise, comprehensible, and consistent! Here are some lists of articles needing copy editing:
