Editing Incubator escapee wiki:Writing better articles (section)

==== News style or persuasive writing<span id="WPNEWSSTYLE"></span><span id="WPPERSUASIVE"></span><span id="WP:NOPERSUASIVE"></span> ====
{{shortcut|WP:NEWSSTYLE|WP:PERSUASIVE}}

A Wikipedia article should not [[news style|sound like a news article]]. Especially avoid [[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view|bombastic wording]], attempts at humor or cleverness, over-reliance on [[WP:Identifying reliable sources|primary sources]], [[Wikipedia:No original research|editorializing]], [[WP:Recentism|recentism]], [[pull quotes]], [[journalese]], and [[headlinese]].

Similarly, avoid [[persuasive writing]], which has many of those faults and more of its own, most often various kinds of [[appeals to emotion]] and related [[List of fallacies|fallacies]]. This style is used in press releases, advertising, [[editorial writing]], activism, propaganda, proposals, formal debate, reviews, and much tabloid and sometimes investigative journalism. It is not Wikipedia's role to try to convince the reader of anything, only to provide the salient facts as best they can be determined, and the reliable sources for them.
{| class="wikitable"
|+Comparison of styles
!{{No|}} News style
!{{No|}} Persuasive style
!{{Yes|}} Encyclopedic style
|-
|At a press conference on Monday evening, Sue Speaker, the spokesperson for the agency, announced that the investigation would officially be closed the next day.
|The recently closed investigation demonstrates again why everyone should support restrictions on social media use by children and teenagers, since it harms their privacy, safety, finances, and mental health.
|The investigation was closed.
|}