posted on Jun, 19 2008 @ 12:59 AM
tinWiki users/contributors,
This is a short post to mention one topic that has to do with writing style and what could perhaps be said to be a difference between an encyclopedia
and a dictionary. Specifically this topic has to do with article introductions, or, more specifically, how the very first sentence is written. When
someone creates a page in tinWiki, the page title, or article title, is the name or title of a topic. I guess that's easy follow what I mean by
that.
And what I want to point to, then, is this: articles in tinWiki are about topics -- not about words. What does this mean, or, which consequences does
this have? It affects, at least as I see it, one tiny phrasing issue in the first sentence of the article.
Spot the difference:
Red is a color.
Red refers to a color.
In the first example, the sentence says what red is. In the second example, however, I would say that the sentence does clearly not talk about red,
but instead talks about
red -- the word. Which is, according to my impression, at least, not the perspective that a tinWiki article should
take. Since, like I say, articles here should talk about topics, not about words.
See what I mean? Please let me know how this seems to you.
Optimist