Wikijunior talk:Kings and Queens of England/The Anglo-Saxons

When one writes for children, one should to write simply. I see, from the first few sentences, that editors here have not grasped the idea as fully as they might. It is possible to test some issues by preparing two versions. That supposes one has a classroom or two at hand. I see many issues of communication fail where testing would have shown the problem immediately. As a text to help people become better writers, I suggest:
 * Do not use contractions in prose. What does it cost to write "is not" instead of "isn't" or "it is" instead of "it's"?
 * Do not use circumlocutions (ready-made phrases). For "At this point in time" why not "then" or "now" (as appropriate).
 * Short sentences with verbs in straightforward tenses. Not long sentences with verbs in exotic tenses. I counted one sentence as 49 words. If you think that's OK for young readers, then you are wrong.
 * Vagueness.
 * Detail appropriate to younger ages. It is quite obvious that the level of detail in this article is far greater than needed by any junior. This is important because, for less expert readers, the time needed to process long complex texts goes up exponentially with increased length. I liked the sentence "Defeated, the Vikings retreated"!
 * Personally, I do not like the mixture of historically verified facts with "stories".
 * Nash, Walter 1986. English usage: a guide to first principles. Routledge. ISBN 0-7102-1200-3

Macdonald-ross (discuss • contribs) 10:54, 7 March 2021 (UTC)