Judgepedia:General writing guidelines
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This article includes suggested guidelines for writing any article on Judgepedia.
Relevance
When you're deciding whether or not to include some information in an article, questions to ask yourself are:
- Is it current? If the story is about an attack ad on a judge from two election cycles ago, the answer is probably not. If the story is about how a judge ruled in a case from five years ago in a way that will help readers understand how the judge thinks, it is probably an important addition to the article.
- What does this tell the reader? Suppose you have a story about a special interest group attacking a judge. If this story doesn't tell you anything about the judge other than they were targeted by a special interest group, it probably doesn't merit inclusion in the article. Writers (and editors) have to exercise editorial discretion when determining just how relevant a story is (or isn't).
References
Providing references to reliable external resources is an important way for you to let your readers know that what you have written in the article is trustworthy and credible. At the same time, you don't want to copy what your source says, word for word--although you may occasionally quote a few sentences, attributing the quotation you choose to the source where you found it. When you write on Judgepedia about a judge or a court, it should be summarized or written about in your own words, with a footnote to any outside reliable sources.
Dates
Generally, it is wise to avoid dates in Judgepedia articles. The articles on Judgepedia are about the courts, cases and people involved in them. Judgepedia articles about judges or courts should not come across like a souped-up RSS feed. If the date is important to the story, it can be worked into the article. If a judge got a DWI, for example, it might be pertinent to note if it was in college in 1978 or six weeks before an upcoming election. Further to the point of relevance above, if the event happened in college in 1978, it's probably not relevant.
Living people
Writers and editors must take great care writing about anyone, but especially about living people. Whether you agree or disagree with, like or dislike, a particular judge or other person you're writing about on Judgepedia, they deserve to be written about with sensitivity, care and respect. Anything you write must adhere to all applicable laws in the United States and to Judgepedia policies, especially:
Our job is to write articles that are informative, compelling, accurate, fair and balanced. Writers and editors must be firm about using high quality references. Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material about living persons — whether the material is negative, positive, or just questionable — should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion, from Judgepedia articles, talk pages, user pages, and project space.
Biographies of living persons (BLPs) must be written conservatively, with regard for the subject's privacy. Judgepedia is an encyclopedia; this is not the place to be sensationalist, or to spread rumors or claims about people's lives. The possibility of harm to living subjects is one of the important factors to be considered when exercising editorial judgment.
This policy applies equally to biographies of living persons and to biographical material about living persons on other pages. The burden of proof for any edit on Judgepedia, but especially for edits about living persons, rests firmly on the shoulders of the person who adds or restores the material.
Basis
Material we publish about living people can affect their lives and the lives of their families, colleagues, and friends. Biographical material must therefore be written with strict adherence to our content policies.
Questions?
Contact editor Michael Tams with any questions on what belongs in an article.
