User talk:FrankySM4

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Hello, FrankySM4, and welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Shalor and I work with the Wiki Education Foundation; I help support students who are editing as part of a class assignment.

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If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:49, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

November 2019

Welcome to Wikipedia. We appreciate your contributions, but in one of your recent edits to LGBT adoption in the United States, it appears that you have added original research, which is against Wikipedia's policies. Original research refers to material—such as facts, allegations, ideas, and personal experiences—for which no reliable, published sources exist; it also encompasses combining published sources in a way to imply something that none of them explicitly say. Please be prepared to cite a reliable source for all of your contributions. You can have a look at the tutorial on citing sources. Thank you. Donner60 (talk) 05:33, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

There may be published sources which support your edit but you need to cite them and to rewrite your edit so it conforms to the Manual of Style. Wikipedia is written in the third person (except quotations), in neutral language and without personal opinions or advocacy. It is not a forum, blog, soapbox or message board and is based on reliable, verifiable, third party sources.

As further information, please see especially, in addition to the original research page, Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not and Wikipedia:Verifiability. See also Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons, Wikipedia:Five Pillars, Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources, Wikipedia:Citing sources, Help:Footnotes, Wikipedia:No original research, Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. For further information about contributing to Wikipedia, see: Wikipedia:Referencing for beginners; Getting started; Introduction to Wikipedia; Wikipedia:Simplified ruleset; Wikipedia:Simplified Manual of Style; Help:Introduction to talk pages; Wikipedia:Copyright Problems and Help:Contents. Thank you. Donner60 (talk) 05:38, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Reply

Hi. Shalor (Wiki Ed) is the person assigned to your class, and she may have some helpful feedback here, but here are some initial thoughts.

Wikipedia articles should be written in the style you find in a fairly terse style. Just stick to the facts. For example, you wrote:

As such, adoption serves as a more cost-effective alternative. We have overcome many things in the LGBT Community, but there are still some obstacles that seem a to give many starting a family in the community a battle. When it comes to adoption for Gay/Lesbian couples it can be a challenge to complete the process and become legal parents to their new children, it has not always been the same.

• "As such" is either filler (and should be omitted) or it's at attempt to lead readers to a conclusion (and shouldn't be included)
• "Overcome" and "obstacles" are corporate-speak. They rarely belong in good writing, especially when that writing is aimed at an audience that includes a large proportion of non-native English speakers, or English speakers who aren't familiar with American business English.
• You're talking about what you're going to say ("still some obstacles") instead of saying it. Don't say what you're going to say before you say it - dive straight in.
• Remember that you're writing in Wikipedia's voice, not your own. You can't say "we" because the "we" here is Wikipedia, not the LGBT community. In general, if you're writing in the first or second person in Wikipedia, if you're speaking in your own voice or you're speaking to your reader directly, you aren't getting the tone right.

Sections matter. You are adding a section about history to the "LBGT parenting" section. That doesn't work. Paragraphs matter - yours are too long. Sourcing is key - familyequality.org does not appear to be a scholarly source, or even a well-known news source. The specific post you used is a blog post, which is rarely an acceptable source for a Wikipedia article. It's re-posted from "The Mombian", which appears to be just a personal blog. Wherever possible, you should be relying on peer-reviewed, scholarly sources. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 12:50, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

• Thanks Ian! Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:21, 14 November 2019 (UTC)