GjiangWiki

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NYU Tandon Senior Studying Civil Engineering

This space will be used for class assignment related to the topic of the professional and economic world of Civil Engineering

Notes related to Wikipedia work and activities (George's Work)

Add to an article (Due: 2018-02-26)

Read the Gerald W. Smith and Milnor Roberts articles.

• Familiarize yourself with editing Wikipedia by adding a citation to either the Smith or Roberts articles. There are two ways the student may choose to do this and the student must choose one method:
  • Choose at least citation relevant to the article you're evaluating and leave your recommended citation and edit material on the article's Talk page. Be sure to sign your feedback with four tildes — ~~~~.  
  • Add 1-2 sentences to the same article, and cite that statement to a reliable source, as you learned in the online training and documented on the talk page. Document the edit with a reference to the talk page.
    • See Milnor Roberts Talk page for this assignment's response.

Engineering Education article and my analysis (Due: 2018-02-26)

The article I select to comment on is the Mexico section of engineering education.

• First, the language need to fix its verb tense issue. The article has summarized some history about Mexican Universities in the 19th century. The verb tense errors are flying everywhere.
• Second, some paragraphs are too short to be on its own. The second paragraph has only one sentence. The author can surely merge this paragraph with others.
• Third, there is lack of transition between paragraph.

Discussion: Thinking about sources and plagiarism (Due: 2018-02-26)

1. Blog posts and press releases are considered poor sources of reliable information. Why?
   1. Blog posts and press releases usually have strong preference from either an individual or business. They are not neutral source.
2. What are some reasons you might not want to use a company's website as the main source of information about that company?
   1. A company website will likely talks only the good part of the company as ways to advertise itself. The writing will not be neutral if the company website is the main source. A third-party source that is not affiliated with the company should be considered as well.
3. What is the difference between a copyright violation and plagiarism?
   1. If the work is protected by copyright, copy/reproduce the work and claims as your own would be considered copyright violation. However, the same action would be considered as plagiarism if the work is not protected by copyright. Copyright violation is a legal construct but plagiarism is an ethical construct.
4. What is public domain mean? ...
   1. It refers to works whose exclusive intellectual property rights have expired, have been forfeited, have been expressly waived, or are inapplicable. Those works are no longer protected by copy right.
5. What does fair use mean?...
   1. Fair use is a doctrine in the law of the United States that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. It allows copyright holder to legally distribute his/her work.
6. What are some good techniques to avoid close paraphrasing and plagiarism?
   1. Remember to properly use citation in paragraph if necessary.
7. Copying text from other sources?
   1. Copying text from other sources can very easily be considered as plagiarism. Overall, every wiki editor should try to digest the information first. Then, rewrite in your own words to avoid plagiarism.

Discussion: What's a content gap? (Due: 2018-02-19)

Now that you're thinking about what makes a "good" Wikipedia civil engineering article, consider some additional questions.

• Wikipedians often talk about "content gaps." What do you think a content gap is, and what are some possible ways to identify them?
  • Look at this link. Look at the entry for The Engineering Economist.  Does this meet the criteria for a "content gap"... is the material relevant?.. how many articles refer to this page?.  
• What are some reasons a content gap might arise? What are some ways to remedy them?
• Does it matter who writes Wikipedia? Should only Civil engineers write Wiki articles?... What does our specialized training offer the reading public that uses Wikipedia?...
• What does it mean to be "unbiased" on Wikipedia? How is that different, or similar, to your own definition of "bias"?
• Assignment: Write a paragraph on your user page, outlining your recommendations for creating an article in Wiki on this journal.   Where is this ? ... Risk Engineer (talk) 00:24, 9 March 2018 (UTC)