User:Xmnemonic

Xmnemonic is a student named James Cho, born 1985-06-10, studying Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He previously attended Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. As a youth, he resided in the Charlottesville, Virginia area. He maintains a homepage at http://www.umich.edu/~jamec. For various reasons, he often edits pages without logging in, accessing from an IP starting with 141.211.

Quick Tips

• Write encyclopedia articles. Do not use folksy tones and never use second person voice (as in, "you might like this"). Present the issue, not its sides. We have newspapers for the latter.
• Encyclopedias should not endorse fame or renown, because those are essentially non-factual. They exist wholly as impressions in people's minds. Let them remain there.
• "Aircrafts" is not a word. Use "aircraft" for the plural of itself.
• Use 's to form the possessive of a singular noun ending in s, as in "James's." [1] (http://www.economist.com/research/styleGuide/index.cfm?page=841359)
• Start paragraphs with topic sentences. Don't introduce details immediately.
• Trim liberally, but maintain paragraph flow. If a sentence seems too long, it probably is.

Make Section Headings Count

Don't use "History of the Blah" as a heading if the article's title is already "Blah." What else would a "History" section concern if not the topic of article? Don't be redundant.

Don't Add Opinions

If you start a sentence with "many believe," or "many feel that," you probably are stating an opinion (though it may not be yours). Encyclopedias must only provide veritable facts, not opinions regardless of how many people hold them. Now, one may say that essentially, facts are opinions. But let's be honest; we can in most cases divide the two. If we could not, then we could make no POV/NPOV distinction at all. We must realize though that a widely held opinion does not constitute fact.

Use "And" to Connect Related Ideas

"And" does not connect random halves of a sentence. Use the word when it makes sense. The usage below does not.

During much of its development it was called the "Fireball," and it is the world's largest aircraft.

Really, it's not that hard.

Be Simple and Concise

Sentences are made of subjects and verbs.

— Strunk & White, The Elements of Style

Those two elements make or break a sentence. Adverbs, adjectives, prepositions and the like help. But they're not always necessary and often clutter a sentence. And punctuation can obstruct rather than mend. Instead of revising "the crimes he was accused of" into "the crimes of which he was accused," try eliminating "of": "the accusations." Crime is implied. Rather than separating two independent clauses with a semicolon, combine them: "He was born an orphan; likewise, he became lonely," becomes, "As an orphan he was lonely." Don't flash elaborate (though correct) grammar, or feign style with odd punctuation. Get to the point.

State the Plain Facts

Do not dissect Ali G's humor methods, or theorize on Bush's motives for supporting whatever. Leave that to your blog, your local newspaper or your friendly coffee table conversations. Wikipedia strives to be an encyclopedia of facts, not factual impressions no matter how clear they are to you. Leave the interpretations to the reader; don't shove yours down his throat.

Remove Table Borders

Set all borders to 0 in tables (or if you must, maintain the outer border and the one below the header). It looks infinitely cleaner, and the whitespace separation is always sufficient for dividing rows and columns. Why add dividers to the table if division is already clear?

Integrate Your Writing

If you add a single sentence-fact to a paragraph, don't just drop it there like a hat on a horse. Revise, make the paragraph flow, and create a consistent tone for the article. Quite obviously, choppy writing sounds bad. Please do not create more of it.

Notable Pages

• Original Authorships: X-44 MANTA Boeing X-45 Radar cross section Engineering physics Vortex ring Active Electronically Scanned Array FB-22 The Gadget Maker

(Some of the above pages contain significant additions by other users.)

• Major Contributions: Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University F/A-22 Raptor The Man Who Was Thursday Thrust vectoring Anechoic chamber Frisbee Skunk Works YF-23 List of aerospace engineers Palmdale, California University of Michigan Bathophobia Why Wikipedia is not so great jerkcity toroid Aerodynamics Normal mapping Stealth technology airfoil Scramjet George Cayley Technical communication Airbus A380 French press Theodore Kaczynski AIDS