GOALS
- To learn how to contribute knowledge to Wikipedia
- To deepen your understanding of a communication technology issue
You have probably consulted Wikipedia at some point for academic or personal research. You probably know that Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone. Millions of people have edited Wikipedia, many of them students like you. Most editors are volunteers who edit the site to contribute to knowledge as a hobby, but some are also professionals or academics with a deep knowledge of their field. Like all sources, Wikipedia is imperfect. Information and points of view may be missing and its pages are occasionally vandalized. However, it can be one source for your research, as long as it is not the only source, just as you should always draw on multiple sources for research. Wikipedia’s promise as a source of free, high-quality information that draws on “the wisdom of the crowd” means that the best response is not to avoid Wikipedia but to improve it by contributing to it yourself. That’s what this project is about.
TO DO
- Read the Contributing to Wikipedia page
- Create an account — be sure NOT to use your real name or give out your email address publicly on Wikipedia
- Go on to do the Tutorial on Editing and try out your skills in the Sandbox
- Read the Your First Article page<
- The Cheatsheet and Annotated Article are also helpful
- Search the existing Wikipedia page(s) on topics related to your in-class presentation on a current controversy over a communication technology. Identify a substantive contribution your group can make to Wikipedia on your topic. This may include:
- Making a significant addition to an existing article on your topic (not just copy editing)
- Or expanding a stub related to your topic into an article
- Or, in rare cases, it may mean creating a new article related to your topic (try using the drawing board first)
- Making a significant addition to an existing article on your topic (not just copy editing)
DUE
- By the due date listed on the course Calendar page, your group should send me an email describing your plans to contribute to Wikipedia
- Are you significantly improving an existing article, expanding a stub, or creating a new article?
- Give direct URLs to any existing article or stub you’ll work on, or to evidence that there is a need for your work (such as a Wikipedia post seeking an article on a subject, or a Talk page that includes a call to improve an article in specific ways)
- Outline the topics and the information about them that you plan to cover in your contribution — the more specific you are, the more helpful feedback I can give you
- By the due date listed on the Calendar page, post your work to Wikipedia and send me an email with a direct URL where I can find your work
- Be sure to tell me what screen name you used to post the work and the date and time you posted it
GRADING CRITERIA
- Ability to post your work successfully to Wikipedia
- Significance of your contribution to Wikipedia (substantively improving an existing article, elaborating on a stub, or creating a new brief article)
- Accuracy and depth of your understanding of the technical controversy
- Ability to followWikipedia’s style guidelines,including writing in a neutral tone, linking to other relevant Wikipedia pages or external sources on the web when appropriate, and citing sources properly (your contribution should cite at least three different sources)
ACADEMIC HONESTY
Follow Wikipedia’s style guidelines:
- Respect copyright by not posting copyrighted materials
- Use a neutral, objective tone appropriate to an encyclopedia entry, rather than expressing your opinion or promoting yourself or your views
- Cite the sources of any factual claims (especially statistics) you make and any points of view on the controversy that you are summarizing
- The work your group posts to Wikipedia must be your own. Don’t cut and paste text from another source into your entry. Clearly distinguish your words from the words of other people by quoting your sources or paraphrasing. Paraphrasing means expressing other people’s thoughts in your words and attributing them to the original source (e.g., “Marshall McLuhan argued that the impacts of the unchanging features of the media we use are more important than any ephemeral messages conveyed by these media.”)