This page has information on planning and resources for the "Shaping the Modern World" online writing assignment.
The goal of this assignment is for each group of students to choose an underdeveloped or missing article on Wikipedia related to World History and improve it to Good Article status during the duration of the course.
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, is an encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone. It has many millions (!) of editors ( Wikipedians), many of whom are students like you. The vast majority of them are volunteers who find editing this site to be an enjoyable experience, even a hobby. Therefore I hope you will enjoy this exercise and the course! After all, there are not many exercises that tell you to do something that over a million people think is 'fun'.
Wikipedia:Tutorial is the best place to start your adventure with this wiki. Please familiarize yourself with instructions for students and if you have any questions, check the Help:Contents and if you cannot find what you are looking for, ask the friendly people at Wikipedia:Help desk - or contact me.
Before making any major edits, it is recommended that you create an account. You definitely need to have an account before attempting to do any wiki-related coursework (otherwise we will be unable to confirm if you have completed the exercise). After you create an account, if you know your group already, add your name in the section below.
Remember that Wikipedia is not a project limited only to our university. We are guests here and we should all behave accordingly. Please make sure you read Wikipedia:Wikiquette. Please try to think what impression you want other Wikipedians to have of our university — and of yourselves.
You should expect that the course lecturer, other students, your friends, and even (or especially) other Wikipedia editors (not affiliated with our course) will leave you various messages on your talk pages. When working on the exercises below, you should log in to Wikipedia and check your messages as often as you check your email (I strongly recommend you read 'as often' as 'at least daily'). Whenever you have a new message and are logged to Wikipedia, you will see a large orange message, 'You have new messages', on every Wikipedia page you access. To make this message disappear, you should click on it and read the message. Note that it is customary to leave new messages at the bottom of the talk/discussion pages, and to reply to somebody's messages on their talk pages. If you want to leave somebody a message, make sure you are editing their talk page, not their user page. Remember to sign your talk and discussion messages.
Some other useful tips: whenever you are done with an edit and want to save a page, fill out the edit summary box and view a preview of the page after your edit to make sure it looks as you actually want it to look. Only then click the "Save Page" button. You may find the page history tool and watchlist tools to be very useful when you want to check what changes by other editors have been made to the article(s) you are working on.
Please direct any questions to the project talk page. You are welcome to send emails, or drop by to see me during our office hours, and ask about Wikipedia how-to; but please try to find the answer first on the Help:Contents.
Whenever you edit, make sure that you are signed in (if in the top right corner of the screen you see "log in" button, you are not signed in!). If you are not signed in, course instructor will not be able to verify that you were the person who made the edit and give you points for it.
Whenever editing a talk page, add four tildes ~~~~ to the end of all comments you make on talk pages. This will let people know who is talking. You can also just press the signature button.
You can chose to create an entirely new article related to family, if the topic you'd like to write about is missing. You can also expand an existing Wikipedia article related to family, if there is ample room for expansion (rule of thumb: if the article has only a few sentences, it is a good choice for expansion, if it has a few long sections, probably not). Most articles assessed as a " stub" qualify for this assignment. For example: Bologna sausage
As soon as possible, you or your group should agree on a topic and get in touch (by email) with the course instructor so he can verify it is a good topic. You may want to select one or more subjects and list them in the order of preference, in case your first choice is rejected, to save time.
We are not doing any original research. You will not be collecting data, analyzing it, or writing about your experiences. We will not be witting an essay with personal opinions or judgments. Instead, we will be writing an encyclopedic article, summarizing an existing, verifiable state of knowledge from a field. See Wikipedia in brief for a short list of what an encyclopedic article we will be writing here is.
At the top of this page you will find a "how to" for nomination. There is also a dedicated guide for nominating good articles. You should nominate your article by March 20 at the latest (this means your article should be as ready as it would be if you would be submitting it to your course lecturer for a final grading!). If you can nominate it sooner, the better for you - every day gives you more time to read comments by the reviewers and address them. Remember: you may get max score (25%) even if you don't address all the comments of the reviewer in time (particularly if he posts them very late); but addressing them and passing through the GA process guarantees you the max score (25%) for this assignment. The assignment does not with the nomination, you will likely have to fix various issues pointed out by the reviewer. If the reviewer posts useful comments, you should do your best to address them; of course this mean you may disagree with him if you think you know better (reviewers are not perfect).
Wikipedia is a project with millions of editors, who collaborate on all articles. We don't own the articles we work on. Don't be surprised if you receive comments from editors who are not part of the course, or if they do edit your article. All editors are here to help; don't hesitate to get extra help - Wikipedia has ton of places you can do so.
It is likely that over the course of the project, you will receive messages from editors outside our course, and that they will make edits to your article. Be polite in replying, and don't hesitate to ask them to explain something.
A. Don't work on a draft in Microsoft Word. Work on a draft in the article on Wikipedia. This way your colleagues (and instructor) will be aware of what you are doing the instant you do so, and can comment on it sooner.
B. Don't exchange comments by email. Exchange comments by using article's talk pages, for the same reasons as above (unless you are certain that your discussion have to stay private).
Remember: gaining experience with wiki software may be more important to your future career than detailed knowledge of World history. Three years ago, Technorati's chief technologist states that in five years "knowledge of wikis will be a required job skill". Do the math.
You can always ask the course instructor for help. You should not hesitate to ask your fellow students from other groups for help, for example if you see they have mastered some editing trick you have yet to learn. We are here to collaborate, not compete. If you can lobby and get help/assistance/advice from other editors to improve your work (for example by using Wikipedia:Peer review, Wikipedia:Help desk or Wikipedia:Reference desk), I am perfectly fine with it. Be bold and show initiative, it usually helps.
This is not the first time I am running this assignment for my students. Based on my past experiences, here are common mistakes that tend to lower your grade:
To get past the stumbling blocks of GA, articles will have to conform to the Wikipedia style guides. The three largest barriers are:
Secondary style guide are specific to different projects. Articles must conform to these also. Conflict between any of these is inevitable and troublesome; editors simply have to work out conflicts through consensus.
The simplest way to understand the various style guides is to examine articles that have passed GA or FA. You can see Wikipedia Good Articles from the section here. Good history related ones include 1918 flu pandemic, National Industrial Recovery Act, Battle of the Nile, Werner Mölders, Battle of Biti Paka, Hermann Detzner, Peterloo Massacre, Indigenous people of the Everglades region. Other good examples include Featured articles from the section "Culture and society", for example: Society of the Song Dynasty, Max Weber, Fairy tale, Social class in the United States, On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog, Anti-nuclear movement in Australia, African American culture.
Course instructor:
Auntieruth55
Add your name alphabetically (by user name) to the list, using the number sign and the four tildas, like this: # ~~~~
To add your article to this list, copy the following codes below.
# {{la|ArticleName}} ~~~~
inserting the name of your article for "Article Name"
Adding [[ArticleName]]
, again, replacing "Article Name" with the name of your article. Insert your article at the bottom of the list.
![]() | This article was the subject of an educational assignment that ended on 2010. Further details are available here. |
Protein allergy Clarker1 ( talk) 18:16, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Neuroacanthocytosis Saralo16 ( talk) 19:13, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Pittston Coal strike
Megzie113 (
talk) 19:49, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Tom Welling
Trod17 (
talk) 15:07, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Winchester 1200
Mzwhiz21 (
talk) 00:19, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Mount St. Peter Church
Rudy4rachel (
talk) 21:24, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Winchester Model 1897
Rubyt38 (
talk) 20:28, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Effect of World War I on Children in the United States Santolinek ( talk) 23:18, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
2009–10 Duquesne Dukes men's basketball team Daniel Kemp ( talk) 23:37, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
World War II Radio Heroes: Letters of Compassion Wexlax20 ( talk) 03:16, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
Roberts Syndrome MooreSvn ( talk) 14:48, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Saiga semi-automatic rifle Weepy89 ( talk) 17:26, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
Traditional African Medicine
Mitchel2 (
talk) 18:49, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Shortwave listening Nicocorn20 ( talk) 02:55, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
IUPAC
Salamakajakawaka (
talk) 14:54, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
Post them at the discussion page of this article and/or email your course instructor!
This page has information on planning and resources for the "Shaping the Modern World" online writing assignment.
The goal of this assignment is for each group of students to choose an underdeveloped or missing article on Wikipedia related to World History and improve it to Good Article status during the duration of the course.
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, is an encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone. It has many millions (!) of editors ( Wikipedians), many of whom are students like you. The vast majority of them are volunteers who find editing this site to be an enjoyable experience, even a hobby. Therefore I hope you will enjoy this exercise and the course! After all, there are not many exercises that tell you to do something that over a million people think is 'fun'.
Wikipedia:Tutorial is the best place to start your adventure with this wiki. Please familiarize yourself with instructions for students and if you have any questions, check the Help:Contents and if you cannot find what you are looking for, ask the friendly people at Wikipedia:Help desk - or contact me.
Before making any major edits, it is recommended that you create an account. You definitely need to have an account before attempting to do any wiki-related coursework (otherwise we will be unable to confirm if you have completed the exercise). After you create an account, if you know your group already, add your name in the section below.
Remember that Wikipedia is not a project limited only to our university. We are guests here and we should all behave accordingly. Please make sure you read Wikipedia:Wikiquette. Please try to think what impression you want other Wikipedians to have of our university — and of yourselves.
You should expect that the course lecturer, other students, your friends, and even (or especially) other Wikipedia editors (not affiliated with our course) will leave you various messages on your talk pages. When working on the exercises below, you should log in to Wikipedia and check your messages as often as you check your email (I strongly recommend you read 'as often' as 'at least daily'). Whenever you have a new message and are logged to Wikipedia, you will see a large orange message, 'You have new messages', on every Wikipedia page you access. To make this message disappear, you should click on it and read the message. Note that it is customary to leave new messages at the bottom of the talk/discussion pages, and to reply to somebody's messages on their talk pages. If you want to leave somebody a message, make sure you are editing their talk page, not their user page. Remember to sign your talk and discussion messages.
Some other useful tips: whenever you are done with an edit and want to save a page, fill out the edit summary box and view a preview of the page after your edit to make sure it looks as you actually want it to look. Only then click the "Save Page" button. You may find the page history tool and watchlist tools to be very useful when you want to check what changes by other editors have been made to the article(s) you are working on.
Please direct any questions to the project talk page. You are welcome to send emails, or drop by to see me during our office hours, and ask about Wikipedia how-to; but please try to find the answer first on the Help:Contents.
Whenever you edit, make sure that you are signed in (if in the top right corner of the screen you see "log in" button, you are not signed in!). If you are not signed in, course instructor will not be able to verify that you were the person who made the edit and give you points for it.
Whenever editing a talk page, add four tildes ~~~~ to the end of all comments you make on talk pages. This will let people know who is talking. You can also just press the signature button.
You can chose to create an entirely new article related to family, if the topic you'd like to write about is missing. You can also expand an existing Wikipedia article related to family, if there is ample room for expansion (rule of thumb: if the article has only a few sentences, it is a good choice for expansion, if it has a few long sections, probably not). Most articles assessed as a " stub" qualify for this assignment. For example: Bologna sausage
As soon as possible, you or your group should agree on a topic and get in touch (by email) with the course instructor so he can verify it is a good topic. You may want to select one or more subjects and list them in the order of preference, in case your first choice is rejected, to save time.
We are not doing any original research. You will not be collecting data, analyzing it, or writing about your experiences. We will not be witting an essay with personal opinions or judgments. Instead, we will be writing an encyclopedic article, summarizing an existing, verifiable state of knowledge from a field. See Wikipedia in brief for a short list of what an encyclopedic article we will be writing here is.
At the top of this page you will find a "how to" for nomination. There is also a dedicated guide for nominating good articles. You should nominate your article by March 20 at the latest (this means your article should be as ready as it would be if you would be submitting it to your course lecturer for a final grading!). If you can nominate it sooner, the better for you - every day gives you more time to read comments by the reviewers and address them. Remember: you may get max score (25%) even if you don't address all the comments of the reviewer in time (particularly if he posts them very late); but addressing them and passing through the GA process guarantees you the max score (25%) for this assignment. The assignment does not with the nomination, you will likely have to fix various issues pointed out by the reviewer. If the reviewer posts useful comments, you should do your best to address them; of course this mean you may disagree with him if you think you know better (reviewers are not perfect).
Wikipedia is a project with millions of editors, who collaborate on all articles. We don't own the articles we work on. Don't be surprised if you receive comments from editors who are not part of the course, or if they do edit your article. All editors are here to help; don't hesitate to get extra help - Wikipedia has ton of places you can do so.
It is likely that over the course of the project, you will receive messages from editors outside our course, and that they will make edits to your article. Be polite in replying, and don't hesitate to ask them to explain something.
A. Don't work on a draft in Microsoft Word. Work on a draft in the article on Wikipedia. This way your colleagues (and instructor) will be aware of what you are doing the instant you do so, and can comment on it sooner.
B. Don't exchange comments by email. Exchange comments by using article's talk pages, for the same reasons as above (unless you are certain that your discussion have to stay private).
Remember: gaining experience with wiki software may be more important to your future career than detailed knowledge of World history. Three years ago, Technorati's chief technologist states that in five years "knowledge of wikis will be a required job skill". Do the math.
You can always ask the course instructor for help. You should not hesitate to ask your fellow students from other groups for help, for example if you see they have mastered some editing trick you have yet to learn. We are here to collaborate, not compete. If you can lobby and get help/assistance/advice from other editors to improve your work (for example by using Wikipedia:Peer review, Wikipedia:Help desk or Wikipedia:Reference desk), I am perfectly fine with it. Be bold and show initiative, it usually helps.
This is not the first time I am running this assignment for my students. Based on my past experiences, here are common mistakes that tend to lower your grade:
To get past the stumbling blocks of GA, articles will have to conform to the Wikipedia style guides. The three largest barriers are:
Secondary style guide are specific to different projects. Articles must conform to these also. Conflict between any of these is inevitable and troublesome; editors simply have to work out conflicts through consensus.
The simplest way to understand the various style guides is to examine articles that have passed GA or FA. You can see Wikipedia Good Articles from the section here. Good history related ones include 1918 flu pandemic, National Industrial Recovery Act, Battle of the Nile, Werner Mölders, Battle of Biti Paka, Hermann Detzner, Peterloo Massacre, Indigenous people of the Everglades region. Other good examples include Featured articles from the section "Culture and society", for example: Society of the Song Dynasty, Max Weber, Fairy tale, Social class in the United States, On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog, Anti-nuclear movement in Australia, African American culture.
Course instructor:
Auntieruth55
Add your name alphabetically (by user name) to the list, using the number sign and the four tildas, like this: # ~~~~
To add your article to this list, copy the following codes below.
# {{la|ArticleName}} ~~~~
inserting the name of your article for "Article Name"
Adding [[ArticleName]]
, again, replacing "Article Name" with the name of your article. Insert your article at the bottom of the list.
![]() | This article was the subject of an educational assignment that ended on 2010. Further details are available here. |
Protein allergy Clarker1 ( talk) 18:16, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Neuroacanthocytosis Saralo16 ( talk) 19:13, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Pittston Coal strike
Megzie113 (
talk) 19:49, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Tom Welling
Trod17 (
talk) 15:07, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Winchester 1200
Mzwhiz21 (
talk) 00:19, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Mount St. Peter Church
Rudy4rachel (
talk) 21:24, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Winchester Model 1897
Rubyt38 (
talk) 20:28, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Effect of World War I on Children in the United States Santolinek ( talk) 23:18, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
2009–10 Duquesne Dukes men's basketball team Daniel Kemp ( talk) 23:37, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
World War II Radio Heroes: Letters of Compassion Wexlax20 ( talk) 03:16, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
Roberts Syndrome MooreSvn ( talk) 14:48, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Saiga semi-automatic rifle Weepy89 ( talk) 17:26, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
Traditional African Medicine
Mitchel2 (
talk) 18:49, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Shortwave listening Nicocorn20 ( talk) 02:55, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
IUPAC
Salamakajakawaka (
talk) 14:54, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
Post them at the discussion page of this article and/or email your course instructor!