Editing Incubator escapee wiki:Writing better articles (section)

=== Use of "refers to" ===
{{see also|Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary#Fixing the introductory sentence: removing "refers to"|Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section#First sentence}}
{{shortcut|WP:REFERS|WP:UMD}}

Phrases such as '''''refers to''''', ''is the name of'', ''describes'', or ''is a term for'' are sometimes used inappropriately in the first sentence of Wikipedia articles. 
For the vast majority of articles, the introduction is ''using'' a term, rather than ''mentioning'' it. This is known as the ''[[use–mention distinction]]''.

For example, the article [[Computer architecture]] once began with the sentence, "{{!xt|'''Computer architecture''' refers to the theory behind the design of a computer.}}"
That is not true: Computer architecture {{em|is}} the theory. The {{em|words}} "computer architecture" refer to the theory, but the article is not about the words; it is about the theory.
Thus it is better to say, "{{xt|'''Computer architecture''' is the theory behind the design of a computer.}}"

To speak easily of the scope of a [[hyponymy and hypernymy|hyponym]] without confusing the term for the thing, one can simply say that "[hyponym] is any of various [hypernym]" or "any of a class of [hypernym] with trait X", such as "A pine is any conifer in the genus ''Pinus'' of the family Pinaceae" (not "Pine refers to any tree in the genus ''Pinus'' of the family Pinaceae").

[[WP:Disambiguation|Disambiguation pages]] ''mention'' the term, so in such cases it is correct to write "{{xt|'''Great Schism''' may refer to either of two schisms in the history of Christianity: ...}}". However, a [[WP:What is an article?|content article]] should read "{{xt|There have been two '''Great Schisms''' in the history of Christianity}}".