And I think to myself, what a wonderful world!

This week, I thought I'd write about something which I do all the time: writing entries for the Guide. Many people bear the title of 'Researcher' but never write anything for the Guide. They shy away from it because they think it is difficult, but you'll see that there's not that much to it. If you follow the way I write an entry, you'll see that you can do the same.

Just about anything can be the subject of an entry. Although it should not be too much about you and your personal reminiscences, it should be something close to your heart. I look around me for inspiration as I walk home from work. I stare at the sky— clouds, maybe? I don't know anything about them. I could do some research, but I'd prefer not to at the moment. I look at the ground— I could write about interesting patterns of paving slabs, but it is hard to write entries about geometrical patterns without lots of diagrams, and designing diagrams for the Guide is hard work. I almost trip over my neighbour's crazy cat, who thinks he's a dog. 'Hello', I say to the cat. Talking with cats? Now there's a good idea for a Guide Entry!

When choosing a suitable subject, bear in mind the Writing Guidelines. The most important ones are:

• Write about reality. Not fiction, not poetry.

• Write entries of appropriate length. A couple of sentences is not enough, and we don't want a thousand page guide to everything you ever wanted to know about railway signalling, either. It has to be reasonably readable by someone who doesn't know the subject.

• Don't try too hard to be funny, and don't pretend you're Douglas Adams.

Before going further, it's very important to check there isn't already an entry on the topic in the Guide. Putting Cat into the Search h2g2 box at the top right of the screen and clicking on Go, I get a list of lots of entries with cats in them. Only one is Edited. Removing the tick from the box beside Guide Entries, I reduce my search to only Edited and Recommended Entries, and click on Go again. I get a list of many Entries on cats, but none of them seem to be about talking to cats. The nearest to the topic is 'Training Your Pet'— I skim through it quickly, but there's no cat communication there. So I'm clear to proceed.

I now write down stuff I know about cats and communication. I may not be able to use all of this, but I'll do my best.

Do cats understand human speech? Anecdotes about my cat. Sounds cats use in communication. Meow, chirrup, purr, hiss, caterwaul. Facial expressions: position of ears, amount of blink. Eye pupil dilation. Has anybody in the real world written about talking to cats? Yes, TS Eliot wrote 'Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats' and Lloyd-Webber made the musical 'Cats' from it. There's a poem/song called 'The Ad-dressing of Cats'. Still in copyright, but can quote a chunk of it. The psychology of speaking; why we talk, why cats talk.

That looks like a reasonable amount to be going on with.

It's a good idea at this stage to give some thought to the structure of the entry. A good entry has an introduction at the start which says what the entry is going to be about and introduces the concepts. Then it has a number of sections, each clearly labelled as to what it's about. Finally there may be a conclusion which signs off on an upbeat note.

I'll write out the headers for the sections, and then I can decide what goes into them later:

• Introduction
• The Psychology of Cat Communication
• Sounds Cats Make
• Sounds You Should Make
• Conclusion

It won't be a huge entry, but it might be interesting or amusing, and it doesn't have to be long to be good.

Now it's time to start writing. I write directly into h2g2; I don't prepare the page in a text editor first. That way, I can work on it wherever I happen to have access to h2g2. If I did all the preparation off line I'd find that I was somewhere with time to spare and a PC but no copy of my work. So I click on the Write an Entry link on the left hand side of the screen and start typing.

If you're used to GuideML, as I am, you can use it now. Try to keep it simple, using <P> at the start of each paragraph or isolated sentence and </P> at the end. Use <HEADER> and </HEADER> for headers. You shouldn't need to do much else. Don't include pictures, don't change the colour of the text, and don't use <BR/> to move onto a new line - those are the main rules. There are a few exceptions to that last rule, for example if you are quoting a verse of poetry, you need to go on to a new line. But in general you'll get by without <BR/>.

If you have no notion about GuideML, just ignore that last paragraph. Just write the entry, and put headers in by putting the text on an isolated line, with a blank line before and after it. When the entry is picked, the sub-editor can convert it into GuideML with a few minutes' work.

Be sure to save your work regularly. If you're in a word processor, click on the save button. If you're in the h2g2 editor, click Update Entry. That way you won't lose any of your work if you're interrupted or the computer fails.

The introduction is the very first section of the entry, and the part that the reader will use to decide whether to go further or not. If it is confused and full of irrelevant facts, then the reader will say to himself, 'I couldn't be bothered wading through that' and won't go any further. A good introduction needs to define what the entry is about, and explain a few of the issues.

In this case, the entry is about Talking with your Cat. That's fairly explanatory, but someone might ask 'why?' So let's start by just saying that you might like to talk with your cat and have some idea about what he's saying back.

Here's a good introductory paragraph. It's short and to the point:

You may want to talk to your cat; if you do, you'd certainly like him to listen to you, and you'd like to get some sort of a response in return. So how do you address a cat, and how do you interpret his response? This Entry attempts to explain all.

You'll note that I used the phrase 'how do you address a cat'. This is a quotation from TS Eliot, so it would be a good idea to put the quote at the top:

You've seen them both at work and games

And learnt about their proper names,

Their habits and their habitat:

But

    How would you ad-dress a Cat?

– TS Eliot, The Ad-dressing of Cats

We'll call the first part 'Sounds Cats Make'. This isn't the order I had originally decided on for the sections, but I think it's easiest to discuss the sounds before going into how we talk to the cat, and the cat's psychology. Here's a good first part, based on my own knowledge of cats. Notice that I'm describing something I know, but I use the term 'we', as the Guide is supposed to be written as if by a team of experts, and in fact this entry after it has gone through Peer Review will have been looked at by a team of experts.

First we'll explore the range of sounds a cat makes, and his body language as well, because there's as much to be learned from this as there is from the sounds.

• The Meow— everybody knows that cats meow, but they only do it to humans. Cats don't talk to each other using meows at all, and we'll explain why later in the section on cat psychology. The meow generally means that the cat wants something from the human, perhaps to go out, or in, or out again, or some food. Food is always welcome.

• The Chirrup— this sound is like a high-pitched trill and usually goes up in pitch. Imagine a Spaniard or Italian rolling their r's and saying a long 'rrrr?' The chirrup is a cat's way of saying 'hello, I'm pleased to meet you'.

You can see how it's progressing, but rather than quoting the entire entry I'm writing here in this Post article, I've written the entry and you can find it here: A583814. Just go over there and read it if you want to, but don't forget to come back here to read the rest of this article!

When you've got the entry written, read through it a few times and correct any spelling mistakes. If you think it doesn't quite hang together, move things around and rewrite parts of it. But don't spend too much time on it. If you think the entry is good and ready for inclusion in the Guide, put it into Peer Review. Other researchers will look at it and tell you what they think of it. For many this is the worst part of writing an entry. Don't worry; if your entry has merits, then the reviewers will tell you so. There may be one reviewer who doesn't like it and says so. If this happens, see what the rest say: if it is a general view that the entry is not suitable for the Guide, then they may be right. But if it is just one person who doesn't like it, then hang in there and explore ways of improving it.

If people suggest changes to your entry in Peer Review, think about each change they've suggested. If it's a good idea, then make the change and drop a line at the Peer Review conversation saying you've done it. If you don't agree with the suggested change, then post a message to say you're not going to do it and why. But do try and go along with most of the suggestions, as peer reviewers normally know what they're talking about.

I put my entry into Peer Review just before sending this article off to the Post Editors, so you can see the response it received there at F48874?thread=6330122. If you liked the entry you might comment there. And if you have suggestions for improving it, post them there too.

If you've done a good job, your entry will be picked. This won't happen for at least a week after you put it in, but it might take a few weeks. If weeks have gone by and nothing seems to be happening, by all means ask in Peer Review is there anything else you can do to improve the entry and make it more 'pickable'. With luck, your entry will be picked for inclusion in the Guide and you'll get your day on the Front Page.

Gnomon

19.02.09 Front Page

Back Issue Page