Wikipedia:Reading flow

This is an essay on style.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article or a Wikipedia policy, as it has not been reviewed by the community.

Flow in a nutshell: Reduce the burden on the reader by writing well. Remember to read and review your own writing.

When writing an article, it is important to remember and respect the reader's ability to read uninterrupted. Interruptions cause cognitive load: when people are distracted by how the text was written, it becomes harder for them to pay attention to the information in the text. Poorly written text will be seen by readers as confusing, unorganized, or choppy.

A good way to check for flow is reading the article out-loud. The best advice for finding flow issues is to sleep on it. However, it is not required to find flow that is worse than it could be in any given mental state.

Causes

Badly written semantics. While the text technically includes all of the information that should be there, it still has ambiguity.
Inconsistent writing style or terminology.
Inappropriate or gratuitous use of jargon.
Having to re-interpret the sentence or skip words due to them being far too close to each other.
Inconsistent text sequencing
Wrong grammar in general is something that detracts from flow.
Repetitive sentence structures.

Examples

Plurality (identity)

This change makes the text less convoluted to read, meaning it is easier for the reader to parse.

Incorrect: "[...] while plural communities and their associated organizations emerged in greater abundance in 1990s online communities."
Correct: "[...] while in the 1990s, online plural communities and their associated organizations emerged in greater abundance"

Alexithymia

The issue with the incorrect version is unidiomatic. The correct version fixes that by replacing some of the words such as "for [...] to be" with "proposed removing [...] from."

Incorrect: "[...]where they proposed for IMP to be removed from the definition. In the same paper, they suggested that alexithymia should compose of DIF, DDF, and EOT, as each of these three are specific"
Correct: "[...] here they proposed removing IMP from the definition. In the same paper, they suggested that alexithymia should consist of DIF, DDF, and EOT, as all three are specific"

Automatically generated list

Extended content

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Unknown parameter "limit" used, ignoring

page_title	comment_text	rev_page	rev_parent_id
Antisemitism in Christianity	improved flow	6728	77248
Logical formatting	debolding, linking, improved flow	55379	88137
Flour	improve flow	56232	91945
Drawing	copyedit, rearrange for flow	8544	90636
History of Palestinian statehood	Reworded to make text flow	48276	133554
USS Liberty incident	cocentrated description of events in one coherent flow	32071	137612
Easton's Bible Dictionary	reoredered paras for flow	68695	144378
Generations of Noah	para reordering for flow	71493	154729
Thermal conduction	link heat flow	72536	158773
Niccolò Paganini	mentioned that he is a violinist (minor oversight) + some minor reorg of sentences to improve flow	21511	41395
Liberal arts college	NPOV and moving LMS mod to restore flow	18612	265179
Wikipedia utilities/Page titles to be deleted	add discounted_cash_flow	33841	331424789
Auseklis Ozols	Edit for flow	102292	349750
Québécois (word)	edit for flow	25346	351330
Society for Creative Anachronism	edit for flow	28981	351449
Manifest destiny	Integrating views on manifest destiny to improve the flow	90664	316978
Christopher Moore (author)	edit for flow	93792	351466
Duct tape	edit for flow	43707	360316
Wagonway	edit for flow	100782	351320
Christian views on homosexuality	changed sentence to improve flow	7272	439470
Jörg Haider	small edits for flow	23772028	448639
Galileo Galilei	improved flow	29688374	450158
Henry I of England	piping link for better flow	14179	544706
Pol Pot	more logical flow	24326	549504
Evolution	some gross reorganization -- no change of content. The discussion of creationist appropriation of microevolution terminology still needs edition for flow	9236	571661
Raëlism	reorganizing for more coherence/flow	25915	580222
Main Page/Temp	better flow	142386	581853
Ligier	more logical flow	164082	596503
Jug band	prolly needs some wikifying and editing for flow	59019	600591
Fortune-telling	edit new material into main article flow	54116	81414
Windows 95	Re-ordered paragraphs for better flow	34064	611149
SQL Slammer	fix link to buffer overrun/overflow	174312	626287
Fatwa	edit for flow	11259	360322
Roger & Me	trying to neutralize wildly POV statements, both pro and con; attributing and/or expanding criticisms I know about, also working on grammar and flow	98164	677676
Telegraph key	Info on glass arm and sideswiper, more detail on bugs and keyers, minor reorg to improve flow	187553	697244
Blood	more about blood composition, blood flow	3997	746573
Exposure (photography)	more logical flow	166868	581982
Espresso	Reformatted for flow	47660	831202
Alternative hip-hop	editing for flow	23712589	844568
Sterling silver	Improved flow	221192	918725
Shadow	Comma stack overflow	217296	928149
Programmable logic controller	subsections and flow	24992	927610
Romance of the Three Kingdoms	rewrite for better flow	157837	1006317
United States federal government continuity of operations	editing paragraphs to improve flow	42366	1026287
Music sequencer	edit for flow	127510	1035805
Chess960	Reorganize, improve flow	68042	1118039
United States dollar	flow	18717338	1151992
Apostolic succession	work on clarification and flow	2257	1153787
Lever	rearranged for more logical flow	38857	1196795
Slug	Added slug as a unit of mass, slug flow	18619339	1189426

∑ 50 items | Query runtime: 3.87 s | Last updated: 12:16, 20 October 2026 (UTC)

End of auto-generated report.

References

↑ "Flow". The Writing Center • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Retrieved 2025-11-17.