When to add Notes?
Sometimes it is useful to add some information in the Notes section, to help students who may not know very well the subject even in their own language, or where it is a good point to make some important grammar point.
Examples of where Notes are used:
The names of towns, cities, countries etc., e.g.:
Other people or places which have a specific story, e.g.:
Unusual fruits, vegetables, foods, e.g.:
Anything else which needs some background information, e.g.:
- kite (male) - note how information is shown from various sources
- Rabbit (Winnie-the-Pooh character) - note how it is important here to explain how we get from Rabbit in English to Coco in French, which the Wikipedia article on its own would not make explicit.
- pennon (type of flag)
For grammar information as far as possible the idea in Lingopolo is that people learn grammar in the same way they do as a young child: indirectly through practice. Nonetheless, occassionally grammar information is useful, e.g.:
Try and avoid grammar notes where possible; for example, if you want to illustrate a particular construction, adding example sentences with that construction is often a better way to do it.
Keep any notes as short and to the point as possible.
Format of Notes
Some guidance on the format of Notes:
- generally write one sentence summarising the word. One sentence is usually enough to avoid the person needing to go and view the external link. The sentence should be kept fairly simple. Usually a simplified version of the first line of the Wikipedia article often works well.
- generally link to the Wikipedia article if you just want a source explaining the word
- link to anything else which is relevant
- make sure you don't copy/paste formatted text from another site directly into the Notes field (as this will add unwanted formatting). Instead, either "Switch to plain text editor" before pasting, or use the "Paste as plain text" button.
- don't have unnecessary extra spaces between lines or at the end of the notes field.
- if you refer to a word or phrase in the foreign language (e.g. in French):
- you should always link to the page that has that word or phrase. If the word or phrase does not yet exist, create it!
- you should include the English in brackets; to avoid that the student needs to follow the link e.g. Marie asks Léa : Comment s’appelle le frère de Sophie ? (What is the name of Sophie’s brother?)
- always try and think how easy a student, not knowing any of the language, will follow the note
URL format
Unless the URL is extremely simple, use a user-friendly form of the link. For example, the following two links go to the same place, but the second version is much more user-friendly.
Headline from http://www.ad.nl/ad/nl/1012/Nederland/article/detail/3476154/2013/07/15/Rechters-laten-wanbetalers-vaker-gijzelen.dhtml
This headline is from Algemeen Dagblad
When linking to a Wikipedia article, you should put the link on the words which describe the link, e.g.:
- Type the plain text, e.g. "Manchester"
- Highlight the words of text you want to link
- Click on the "Link" icon (looks like a world with a chain)
- Add the URL
See this HTML a tag page for guidance on how to build an HTML link.