Wikinews:Newcomers' tour/2

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Quick-start to writing your first article
So, you've decided to jump in and contribute. That's great, but there are a few things you should know first, so you can get your story published without problems.

First you have to find an event to report on that has occurred within the past 2-3 days - if you wanted to report on something that happened before that, you're out of luck. This might seem like a tight deadline at first, remember that most news organisations work this way. An event will only remain news if it's current. Facts don't cease to be facts, but news ceases to be news.

Check the list of published articles on our front page and the newsroom to make sure your story hasn't already been reported on by someone else.

Not sure what you want to write about? Try browsing through a news aggregator's listings for the top headlines and see if something interests you (we recommend Google News).

Once you've found a story, the next step is to create the page. Type in a title into the following box and hit "create page". All words in your headline should be in lower case, except for the first one and any proper nouns. (For instance, instead of "Obama Inaugurated as New US President", write "Obama inaugurated as new US president").

We're writing for an international audience, so make sure your title will make sense to someone not necessarily familiar with the topic being discussed, by including a country or other easily recognisable location/person into the title. Example: instead of "Tsvangirai fires ministers", use "Zimbabwean PM Tsvangirai fires ministers".

So, what do I write in the actual article? >>>

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