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INSTRUCTIONS FOR STUDENTS
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The goal of this assignment is for groups of students to develop a new Misplaced Pages article, or choose an underdeveloped article on Misplaced Pages, and write or improve it to Good Article status.
Introduction for students
Misplaced Pages, The 💕, 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'. :)
Misplaced Pages: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 Misplaced Pages:FAQ/Editing or Help:Contents and if you cannot find what you are looking for, ask the friendly people at Misplaced Pages:Help desk Please make sure you read Misplaced Pages: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, and even (or especially) other Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages and check your messages. Whenever you have a new message and are logged to Misplaced Pages, you will see a large orange message, 'You have new messages', on every Misplaced Pages 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 (you may want to watch this tutorial on using talk pages).
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.
Assignment
Project overview:
Your assignment is to choose an underdeveloped <your course area>-related subject to research and write about on Misplaced Pages. You will perform a literature search on that subjectt, and work with an assigned group to create a new article or expand an existing one, following any and all Misplaced Pages standards first and foremost. During the active project phase, you will monitor and respond to feedback on your article, and assist other groups by reading and commenting on their work.
Project details:
This assignment is worth up to 30 points.
Work together with your group members to create an interesting, in depth article about your very narrow topic. Make sure you familiarize yourself with encyclopedia-type writing before you begin. Writing for Misplaced Pages is very different from writing an essay, although not that far from writing a descriptive scientific paper, and you need to fit in with the proper format. Please read the following guidelines to get a handle on how you should write your article BEFORE you start writing:
- Misplaced Pages:What Misplaced Pages is not, which summarizes what Misplaced Pages is, and what it is not;
- Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view, which describes Misplaced Pages's core approach to neutral, unbiased article-writing;
- Misplaced Pages:No original research, which explains what is, and is not, valid encyclopedic information;
- Misplaced Pages:Verifiability, which explains what counts as a verifiable source and how a source can be verified;
- Misplaced Pages:Citing sources, which describes what kinds of sources should be cited and the manner of doing so; and
- Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style, which offers a style guide.
Misplaced Pages maintains a high standard of writing, and has taken great pains to improve these standards. You need to follow their directions to the letter, since deviating from these standards will invite article deletion.
Feel free to include photos or graphics, but remember that not all pictures on the web are free for the taking. Familiarize yourself with Misplaced Pages's Copyright Policy to ensure you are not doing anything wrong (copyright violation, in the real, world, means what plagiarism in academia).
Your article must include at least several academic book or journal sources. You should also include a list of external links giving the reader more information on your subject, and link to your page from other Misplaced Pages pages, so your page is not an orphan. To answer that question in your head: yes, you can go on someone else's article and link to your own. That's the beauty of Wiki!
You are welcome to use Misplaced Pages:Peer Review and related tools (see tips section below) and seek creative comments on your article. In other words, if you can get other Misplaced Pages editors to help you, I am totally fine with that.
Once you begin writing your article, you are required to respond to any comments on your paper and act accordingly (make proper changes, defend your choices, etc.). These comments will give you substantial feedback on your work, and allow you to make your final product better.
Finally, you will read and evaluate/comment on your classmates' articles. Please make your comments constructive and useful. You will not get credit for such comments as "good article!" or "I liked it!" Suggest something that can be realistically improved, compare their article to yours and see if your group has learned any tricks that can help them. Also refrain from any abusive or inappropriate language.
At the end of the semester, you will turn into me the following items in a print-out version:
- A print out of constructive comments you made when reviewing the work of another group, so I can give you the points for reviewing other articles. Please highlight your user name for clarity. Label that page(s) as: Review of other group work.
- A print out of constructive comments you made on your own group article's talk page, and on the talk pages of other editors (if relevant). Label that page(s) as: Communication during our group work. Note that only on-wiki communication is accepted, off-wiki communication like emails and such will not be graded.
- Each member of the groups should fill out the group percentages form to grade the other members of the group. Fill out the form (anonymously) and either place it in the folder, or hand it to me personally.
Stages and deadlines
Important tips
- Read the fine manual :)
Misplaced Pages:FAQ/Editing will give you all the information you need to edit pages and start your own. Read it! Help:Contents and Misplaced Pages:Tutorial are very useful, too.
- Talk pages
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 may want to watch this tutorial on using talk pages).
- What kind of an article are we writing?
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.
- If you want to learn how to write nicely, check this guide
- How to satisfy Criterion 1a - despite the weird name, it is a very useful set of suggestions
- Getting the article assessed as a Good Article (GA)
At the top of this page you will find a "how to" for nomination. There is also a dedicated guide for nominating good articles. If you can nominate it sooner than the deadline, 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).
Useful links:
- Good article criteria
- Guide for nominating good articles
- Good article review cheatsheet
- Good article nominations
- The differences between good and featured articles
- We don't own the articles
Misplaced Pages 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 - Misplaced Pages has ton of places you can do so.
- Expect to interact (politely) with others
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.
- Work on Misplaced Pages
A. Don't work on a draft in Microsoft Word. Work on a draft in the article on Misplaced Pages. 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). If you like to receive email notifications, you can monitor the article's talk pages (and your own userpage talk page) by subscribing to that page RSS feed (see Misplaced Pages:Syndication).
- Plagiarism and copyvio warning
Plagiarism is not only against university's and course policies, it is also against Misplaced Pages policies (see WP:PLAGIARISM). And attributing somebody doesn't mean cut and paste jobs are allowed (WP:COPYVIO). Violations of plagiarism/copyvio policies will result in lower grade and other sanctions (per university's policy). Please note that the course instructor is not the only person checking constantly for plagiarism and copyright violations; the Good Article reviewer will do so as well, and Misplaced Pages has a specialized group of volunteers specializing in checking new contributions for those very problems (you don't want your work to appear here or here!). In particular, note that extensive quoting is not allowed, and changing just a few words is still a copyvio (it doesn't matter if you attribute the source). Bottom line, you are expected to read, digest information, and summarize it in your own words (but with a source). For more info see: this plagiarism handout, Misplaced Pages:Copy-paste, Misplaced Pages:Quotations, Misplaced Pages:Close paraphrasing, a guide from Purdue University.
- Getting extra 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. Misplaced Pages volunteers are often active in this chat help channel. 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 Misplaced Pages:New contributors' help page, Misplaced Pages:Requests for feedback, Misplaced Pages:Peer review, Misplaced Pages:Help desk or Misplaced Pages:Reference desk), I am perfectly fine with it. Be bold and show initiative, it usually helps. See also "how to get help" handout. <your policies towards getting extra help may differ...>
- Additional advice
- work on a draft on Misplaced Pages, in the article; don't work in Microsoft Word or such
- keep an eye on your userpage discussion page, and on article's discussion page, where other group members and other Misplaced Pages editors - and the instructor - may leave you tips, advice and other comment
- remember its a collaborative assignments. Work with your colleagues from the first day on a single wiki-draft. Groups whose members work alone and try to combine their parts a day or so before the final submission don't do very well.
- don't focus solely on your own sections. Help your teammates by proofreading their section, see if they have trouble with things you've figured out.
- Images. See this image uploading handout, this uploading image video tutorial, Misplaced Pages:Images, and in particular, the Misplaced Pages:Finding images tutorial and the Misplaced Pages:Picture tutorial. Try to avoid looking for images on "the web", focus on the Misplaced Pages's sister project, Wikimedia Commons, which has millions of images that can be used on Misplaced Pages without any restrictions.
- reference questions? Revisit the Misplaced Pages:Tutorial/Citing sources and watch a video tutorial on how to add footnotes and proper references to your article.
Grading
Here is a checklist for article quality.
- Paper includes intro summary (lead in the Misplaced Pages terminology), at least 3 body paragraphs per group member, conclusion, and bibliography
- There are no grammatical/spelling errors throughout the paper.
- Introduction summarizes the subject properly and does not include unique information not present in the main body of the article
- Conclusion sums up the paper without ending abruptly
- Paper is structured logically, and there are no weird gaps (Note: "weird gaps" occur for example when you chose to write about a historical trend, but your group "forgets" to research few centuries in the middle; or when you are presenting an overview by country, but decide that few random countries are enough, because you use an arbitrary "two countries per group" member rule instead of thinking which countries are important to cover for the subject discussed)
- Sources used are reliable
- In-paper citations are present and used correctly according to Misplaced Pages format see Misplaced Pages:Citing sources
- In-paper citations are done in a consistent format, and provide all the necessary information (in brief: author's name, publication title, publisher information, page number if source has pages, URL if source is online, see ASA style for details)
- Body of the paper explores the chosen subject in adequate detail. (Note: “adequate detail” means I shouldn’t be able to do a quick literature search and find information not included in the paper. I want you to search current and past literature, books, newspapers, websites, etc. and summarize all the information you find into an easy-to-read and understand paper. If you are missing major bits of information, or have included incorrect information without citations to back up your findings, you will lose major points here).
- Paper should conform to Misplaced Pages writing standards (Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view, Misplaced Pages:No original research)
With regards to getting the full activity score:
- Your group members will expect you to be easily reachable to discuss the paper, and come to their meetings
- Your group members will expect you to do "your share" of the work
- I will grade your activity based on two primary factors:
- Whether you contributed to your paper on a regular basis (every few days) or not
- Whether you were active on the article's talk page. This means that I see that attempted to address and fix any and all comments/suggestions given by me, your colleagues, the reviewer and the Misplaced Pages community. If the change was not made, adequate explanation was given (which did not include "this is for a research assignment, so leave us alone")
How to fail the assignment:
- plagiarism, or extensive quotations
- letting others do all the work and hoping you can still get some points
- missing deadlines
- logging in an editing only at the very end of the course, where you discover you are not sure how to edit Misplaced Pages, and that your contribution does not really fit the articles your other members were working on
- not participating in the talk page discussions
Copyright notice
Misplaced Pages copyright: by taking this course, you agree that your work on Misplaced Pages will be contributed to under a free and open license used by that project.