Circuit Idea/How to Contribute

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How to Contribute to Circuit Idea (Local Manual of Style)

Content

You can help this project by editing and adding new content to the existing materials or by creating completely new pages. If you want to do something more than just "cosmetic" editing, you have to have something new and original to say. Do not repeat and reproduce classic trite circuit explanations that do not explain anything. Just present your viewpoint at the circuit discussed, your own philosophy about circuits and phenomena behind them.

If you are a teacher, student, inventor, designer, etc. who has encountered an interesting circuit solution, write your teacher's, student's, inventor's, designer's, etc. circuit story.

Tools

Do not use complex formulas to explain circuits; they cannot reveal circuit ideas. Mathematical models hide circuit structure and causality in circuit operation that we need to reveal, in order to understand circuits. Use rather qualitative than quantitative analyzing tools; treat readers as human beings, not as computers.

Different view points

Avoid removing a content from the existing pages; instead, add new content to them. Express your different viewpoint at the subject in a parallel section or in a separate page; it is wonderful, if there are a few different viewpoints at the same circuit. Leave the curious reader to choose the favorite viewpoint.

Tone

Remember, this is not a classic electronics book; it relies on human imagination, intuition and emotions of creative thinking readers. So, you have to motivate, inspire and induce creativity in these people. For this purpose, use more informal style of writing than usual for technical books; let it sounds more like the way people really talk. We want the book we write to read like an actual person wrote it. Apply various devices of style to make circuit stories interesting and captivating.

Language

Do not use a formal, stuffy language; instead use a direct, informal language. Still more, use an imaginative, figurative, catchy and colorful language to plot pictures in reader's mind. You may do that by applying various techniques: personification (give human traits to circuits), simile (compare two different things), metaphors (show the resemblance between two things by implied comparison), humor, jokes, etc. Generally speaking, use rather fiction than technical book style. Do not use passive voice; whenever it is possible, use active and the first person voice (feel free to say "we", Wikibooks is not Wikipedia).

Images

Do not forget that "a picture is worth a thousand words"; so, insert as much as possible images into the text.

Op-amp inverting amplifier (a classical circuit diagram)

Do not draw classical black-and-white circuit diagrams. Although they look pretty (thanks to perfect graphic editors), actually they are dull, formal and low informative. In many cases, conventional circuit diagrams do not give something more than a well written imaginary and fanciful text. They look as static photos that do not render circuit operation.

As a rule, classical circuit diagrams do not show input sources, loads and power supplies. As a result, readers do not know where currents flow. Also, they do not show what are the magnitudes and polarities of the voltages in the important circuit points.

Op-amp inverting amplifier (a more informative diagram)

Instead, draw informative, colored circuit diagrams enriched with little men, voltage bars and diagrams, current loops and other means visualizing the invisible electrical attributes. Use different colors to mark the various electrical attributes (voltage - red, current - green, resistance - black, etc.) Circle the circuit components that form well-known simpler circuit building blocks by a different light color (yellow, purple, blue, etc.) Write explanatory texts over the circuit diagrams. Use the same color for the texts and the according enclosing loops to associate them. Feel free to place the text inside explanatory balloons (likewise comics).

Try to express the movement (the change) into the circuit operation (e.g., by superimposing different phases of the operation). If it is possible, your diagrams have to look rather as dynamic movies than as static photos.

Handmade (freehand) circuit diagrams are completely acceptable and even advisable. The only problem is that it is difficult to edit them. If you decide to redraw them by using a vector graphics editor, please do not truncate the images.

Contributor list

Anyone can contribute to this book. Only, we would like that contributors are creative people that have their own philosophy about circuits and phenomena behind them. If you have an interesting story about clever circuit or an idea how to edit the existing stories, enter your user name in the contributor list below and begin writing.

Circuit-fantasist - an originator of the book

Students from Faculty of Computer Systems, Technical University of Sofia:
Vsj 67gr
Jordan Slavov
Lora Kirilova