Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section
The lead section is the section before the first headline. It is shown above the table of contents (if one is displayed). The position of the table of contents is determined by the position of the first section on the page.
The lead should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such as way that it could stand on its own as a concise version of the article. It is even more important here than for the rest of the article that the text is accessible, and some consideration should be given to creating interest in reading the whole article (see Wikipedia:Summary style and Wikipedia:News style). The first sentence in the lead section should be a concise definition of the topic.
To get a better understanding of what a great lead section should do, the perfect article: "Begins with a definition or clear description of the subject at hand. This is made as absolutely clear to the nonspecialist as the subject matter itself will allow. The purpose of an encyclopedia is to codify human knowledge in a way that is most accessible to the most people, and this demands clear descriptions of what the subject matter is about. So we aren't just dropped into the middle of the subject from the first word—we are eased into it."
The appropriate length of the lead section depends on the total length of the article. As a general guideline, the lead should be no longer than two or three paragraphs. The following specific rules have been proposed:
| < 15,000 characters | 15,000 characters - 30,000 characters | > 30,000 characters |
|---|---|---|
| one or two paragraphs | two or three paragraphs | three paragraphs (consider splitting up the article) |
The length of the individual paragraphs again depends on the article length.
For the planned paper Wikipedia 1.0, one consensus recommendation is that the paper version of articles will be the lead section of the web version. Summary style and news style can help make a concise intro that works stand-alone.
History of ... pages
In pages with the title "History of ...", some of the above may not apply. In particular, it is often not necessary to define the topic of the article. (Example: It is hard to imagine that a reader of History of the United States needs a definition for what is meant by this title.) Some articles even contain no lead section at all.
The following table contains some examples for different lead sections of such articles. Empty cells mean "No". Cells with entries other than “No” mean “Yes” – sometimes different entries are used as a reminder of a special feature of that article.
| History of ... | Featured | Contains Lead | Main term defined | article title defined | References | Abstracts | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Buddhism | Yes | Yes | Yes | abstract focusses on essentials, rather than timeline | |||
| Greenland | Yes | Yes | implicit | intent | Yes | elegant implicit definition | |
| post-Soviet Russia | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||
| Russia | Yes | Yes | implicit | Yes | |||
| Netherlands | Yes | Yes | implicit | Yes | |||
| Scotland | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||
| Germany | Yes | Yes | at end | Yes | focusses on specific, complicated conditions | ||
| Yosemite area | Yes | Yes | implicit | Yes | |||
| American Civil War | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||
| computing hardware | Yes | Yes | at end | related | |||
| Peerage | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||
| United States | No | No | |||||
| Hungary | No | Yes | This is | See also | |||
| Military | No | Yes | Includes | first sent. | Differs from | ||
| Ireland | No | Yes | brief | Yes | |||
| Japan | No | No | |||||
| Austria | No | Yes | This is | See also |