Jump to content

Wikipedia:One hundred words

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
One hundred words of prose could be taken to be a notability indicator.

At the present time, the general notability guideline provides inadequate guidance as to what level of coverage is significant. The example presently offered (a large book) should obviously not be taken as a minimum standard for significant coverage, as most topics that meet this criterion have not had entire books written about them.

It is therefore suggested that one hundred non-repetitious words, written in more or less continuous prose,[1] in one or more sources, is clearly significant coverage in all cases. This figure is, however, only suggested as a maximum. Fifty such words would likely be significant.

[These numbers were inspired by the length of articles in the New Discovery Encyclopedia (Rainbow Books, 1990), though they are not averages or any other kind of statistic. They roughly correspond with the length of a decent sized paragraph. They also happen to be round numbers. This essay is 150 words, footnote excepted.]

See also

[edit]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ Publications such as biographical dictionaries are sometimes written in a highly abbreviated language that conveys more information in fewer words. If a source is written in language that looks more like a set of notes than complete sentences, the figures offered in this essay will be too high.