CogPsyProf

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Welcome

Hello, CogPsyProf! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. You may benefit from following some of the links below, which will help you get the most out of Wikipedia. If you have any questions you can ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking or by typing four tildes "~~~~"; this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you are already excited about Wikipedia, you might want to consider being "adopted" by a more experienced editor or joining a WikiProject to collaborate with others in creating and improving articles of your interest. Click here for a directory of all the WikiProjects. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field when making edits to pages. Happy editing! Smallman12q (talk) 22:19, 12 January 2013 (UTC) Getting Started The five pillars of Wikipedia • Tutorial • Your first article How to: edit a page • upload an image Getting Help Frequently Asked Questions New contributors' help page Where to: ask questions • make requests Request administrator attention Policies and Guidelines Neutral point of view • Reliable sources Verifiability • Citing sources • No original research What Wikipedia is not • Biographies of living persons Simplified Manual of Style • Three-revert rule Copyrights • Policy for non-free content • Image use policy External links • Spam • Vandalism • Sock puppetry Deletion policy • Conflict of interest • Notability The Community Community Portal • Adopt-a-user program Assume good faith • Civility • Etiquette No personal attacks • Resolving disputes Build consensus • Village pump Signpost • IRC channels • Mailing lists Things to do Be bold in editing • Help develop an article Maintenance • Peer review • Requested articles Join a WikiProject • Translating articles Cleaning up: General • Spam • Vandalism Miscellaneous Categories • Disambiguity • Stubs User pages • Talk pages Useful templates • Tools • User scripts

Talkback

Hello, CogPsyProf. You have new messages at Smallman12q's talk page.
Message added 22:19, 12 January 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Smallman12q (talk) 22:19, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Psychology course

Hi, I have recently stumped on your course since I have been one of the main contributors to the stroop effect article. Regarding your course proposal I believe it is a sensible one in its aims are certanly in line with Wikipedia ways and objectives. I specially appreciate the effort of including secondary sources and improving already developed articles by adding content to specific sections instead of very low importance stubs. I will try to help with the stroo article, and maybe others, although I will not promise anything since I have been disconnected from wikipedia for a year and only recently come back.

Once said that, I have taken a look to your article proposals and I have some issues with (at least) two of them:

• Schema is a disambiguation page: a list page linking to several articles with similar names but different concepts. If you look through it you will find the link to schema (psychology). You might be or might not be interested in developing the latter, but you should certainly do not include psychology content in the disambiguation page.

• Autism: autism is a Wikipedia:featured article: This means that it is considered one of the best wikipedia articles and while not completely finished very mature. Featured articles are not a good assigments for beginners, since consensus and good knowledge of both the content of the article and wikipedia ways are specially required. A possibility would be that you created an specific secondary article (something like recognition of emotions in autism and then added a link to this secondary article in the main page. A probably better alternative is that you improved the autism section in the theory of mind article

Bests.--Garrondo (talk) 08:21, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. As a newbie to Wikipedia, I hope I am responding to you in the correct format, but if not, please help me llearn how to do this properly within Wikipedia culture. In terms of your topic concerns, please do not let the schema topic worry you; none of my students chose this particular option so we will not be addressing this one.

In terms of autism, the students are working on very specific pieces that are not covered in the overview article (e.g., work on face recognition and autism). They will NOT be doing overview pieces; they will be supplementing.

CogPsyProf (talk) 17:54, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Regarding if this is the best way to answer. This is what talk pages are for :-). Moreover I hope that my comments did not sound intimidating or agressive, and the intent is only to make things as easier and benifitial as possible to both students and wikipedia.

Regarding autism: I am not sure if I understant what do you mean with "supplementing": I am sure there are many other data out there not covered in the overview article at this point, but my question is if the idea of your students is to include this new info in the main article of autism or in a secondary article. I would certanly recommend the latter per reasons stated above.

On the other hand, as I told you I was one of the main contributors to the stroop article. At the time of writting I found several interesting scientific reviews on the issue. I integrated some info but there was much more. Do you think that it will be interesting if I pointed out those sources to the students that have taken the stroop article, or do you prefer if they searched for their own sources?

--Garrondo (talk) 20:06, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Great news that I am on the right track for these communications--with so much new I mess up regularly. For topics like those related to autism, I like the idea of a secondary article that links from the main summary article and will talk to the relevant students about that. RE Stroop, you are welcome to share with those students--that seems like a good Wikipedia community learning experience--but if you could hold off until AFTER next Monday (2/18) that would be very helpful. The students DO need to do their own research and after they post their plans (Monday), feedback like yours will be quite useful. Thank you so much for asking! There are lots of things to juggle when meeting course goals as well as Wikipedia goals, and I very much appreciate your sensitivity to that.CogPsyProf (talk) 15:21, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

You certainly are in the good track: most important thing is to ask and hear other editors. As minor commments on wiki-etiquette since you are new (I mainly tell you since your students are prone to make similar mistakes): 1try not to break other comments:-You inserted your comment between my comment and my signature so it was not clear who was "speaking". 2-Always sign your comments (even in your talk page) so it is clear who has said what, third botton on top of editing bar (pen-like) is for signing. 3-Try to indent comments so every time we speak it goes one level to the right to give a sense of "time". To do it so you have to include as many ":" before your paragraph as indents you want to make. Bests. --Garrondo (talk) 20:45, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Many thanks for the help! Habits from email (inserting replies after each issue raised) will be tough to break, but I've tried practicing by editing my prior mistakes. These will be good reminders for my students so again, thanks! CogPsyProf (talk) 15:21, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Importance of secondary sources

Re-reading the educational assigment I have just noticed that students were required to add 10 peer-reviewed sources, but no indication on the kind of sources was included. As you might now use of primary sources (and this includes most peer-reviewed scientific articles) is discouraged in wikipedia. Ideal sources would be secondary sources, mostly peer-reviewd review articles. This is so for all wikipedia, but specially so for "medical" articles (I know that psychology is not medicine but there is a clear overlap in wikipedia articles so take "medical" in a very broad sense). See Identifying_reliable_sources and Identifying reliable sources for medical articles

Your assigment would have a much better impact in wikipedia if students are asked to mainly base their improvements in secondary scientific sources (mainly reviews).

Bests.--Garrondo (talk) 12:06, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

@Garrondo, Most of the courses in Wikipedia:USEP use academic databases such as PsycINFO or Academic Search. Students are encouraged to use peer-reviewed secondary sources from these databases.Smallman12q (talk) 23:24, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Most articles in databases are primary articles so I was only stating the importance on highlighting the importance of using review articles from peer-reviewed journals since it is not really clear in the instruction to students.--Garrondo (talk) 20:37, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Specifically my concerns are with the following sentence for students: Each team will add at least 10 peer-reviewed references (at least 15 for the triplet) to their topic's page and weave their discussion of the material in those journal articles into the entry in a meaningful way (with the relevant citations to back up their text!): There is no indication there on what kind of sources are appropiate, and since primary (even if peer-reviewed) articles are much more common than secondary articles and also shorter and easier to read I fear that students will mostly add these kind of articles. However, in wikipedia to add primary sources is almost as worthless as to add random web pages as references. Rationale is that we as editors should not decide what scientific consensus is on an issue but to summarise already existing consensus as shown in secondary sources. This is specially true for the case of students, who, in general, are not knowleadglbe enough about their chosen themes. Wikipedia would rather benefit of the addition of two or three high quality reviews than 10 primary articles as sources. Moreover, my fear is that addition of primary sources in articles would lead to conflicts over the articles and the final elimination of a big part of the work made by the students. Again: I am saying all this as a way of helping both the students, the teacher and wikipedia as a whole, and with quite some knowledge (I think) of how psychology and medical articles work. --Garrondo (talk) 21:13, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

I have offered any needed help to students in the stroop effect article, but also commented the initial choice of sources they have made to improve the article (See: here). Only 1 (at most, since I could not access it) is a review article, while the other 3 are primary articles and therefore generally inappropiate to be used as references in wikipedia. I am worried that this same thing might occur in all your students projects.--Garrondo (talk) 09:37, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

An anylisis of the sources proposed in the deep dyslexia article yields similar results: an overuse of primary sources over secondary ones. On the other hand I have provided students some help with automatic reference citation. I am going to post it in the talk page of the course since it could be of use to most students. Automatic citations are less error-prone and ease a lot the (tedious) work of creating references in articles. They also ease verification of sources as automatic citations create a link to the article. Bests.--Garrondo (talk) 11:20, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Garrondo. I will be making some changes to the text portion of the Wikipedia assignment once I have put out several "fires" that have arisen in my other courses and responsibilities. Be assured, however, that your concerns were discussed in class (we do a lot of our communication IN class so even if you do not see it on Wikipedia, that does not mean it has not occurred). Our (excellent) on-line ambassador has reminded students about the automatic citations and that is a work in progress. We thank you for your continued patience. CogPsyProf (talk) 15:45, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Great. Knowing that is enough. Lets see if students improve the sources they are going to use in the talk pages of the articles. Nevertheless while I have commented on several of the articles I will mostly watch and comment in the stroop article.--Garrondo (talk) 16:38, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I have seen changes in the course page. Sound great. The course is really going in the right direction. Best regards.--Garrondo (talk) 16:41, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Autism

Hi CogPsyProf,

I'm a very concerned about the choice of Autism for student homework. This is a featured article and generally considered to be comprehensive. It gets 10,000 page hits a day so is highly visible and read. Therefore it is less likely to benefit (and more likely to be harmed) by newbie student edits. I'm not at all sure that a whole section on "face recognition" is helpful for that article. I see several students have picked this for their homework. The article currently states "Older children and adults with ASD perform worse on tests of face and emotion recognition" but nothing more on the issue. I don't believe face recognition is recognised as a defining characteristic or symptom of autism, and we don't devote whole sections to any of those that are. Possibly a better approach would be to add information about autism (and what this teaches us about brain development and function) to the face perception article. Please avoid feature articles for homework assignments. Regards, Colin°^Talk 16:10, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Colin, thanks for your note. Let me quote from a conversation on my online ambassador's talk page (where we were talking with a different user) as your concern "may raise an issue for the Wikipedia education initiative that could be helpful to raise with its directors. As some background information, when I asked for guidance about picking articles for students to work on, I was told by my area coordinator (distinct from my online ambassador) that I should just read articles and see what needed to be worked on because there are thousands of topics that need work. The vast majority of topics I listed for students had indications that they were pages that needed work (messages across the top of the pages to that effect). In the rare case that I listed a topic about a featured article, it was to add a missing subtopic....All of this is to say that perhaps the Wikipedia education inititive folks could give more guidance to instructors--particularly rookies--and your comments may have a broader impact if you took them up with the education initiative folks as opposed to one professor." My online ambassador is passing this suggestion along.

As for student work, it will be posted on new pages that link from the Autism page, none of them will be posting directly on the Autism page so there will be no "whole section" on the Autism page itself. I'd also like to note that my online ambassador, who is vastly more experienced with Wikipedia than I am, noted that the Autism page earned featured article status in 2007 and much has changed within Wikipedia since then. With knowledge advancing each year, adding links off of a very good Wikipedia page seems to me to be a useful service and I am glad that my students can combine their interest in autism with their skills in resesarch on this Wikepedia education initiative effort. All best wishes, CogPsyProf (talk) 18:13, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

The Advice for choosing articles handout lists Featured Articles in the "Don't" column. Your own education program page advises against picking FA or GA and specifically mentions Autism as one to circle around rather than tackle directly. So this is standard advice. I see now Smallman12q's comments on his talk page re Autism's FAQ. Well the Autism article is largely the work of User:Eubulides who was probably Wikipedia's finest medical editors and although he achieved the FA award in 2007, he continued to work on the article, almost daily, till March 2010. The sourcing is first class and it is fair to say Eubulides work set the standard for medical FAs and not at all fair to say this wouldn't pass today's standards. Sadly Eubulides isn't editing here any more. Since then the article has been well-tended by many editors in the Medicine wikiproject, though it could do with an update here and there. I came here because your program page had, as an assignment, the task of adding a section to the Autism article on face recognition. I'm glad to hear this is no longer the assignment. BTW, see Talk:Autism -- it is ironic that the sources the students have so-far gathered are no newer than 2007 and some considerably older and out-of-date. Colin°^Talk 20:46, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Hello again, Colin. Please note that some of the resources added to the course page were added after the list of articles was posted. Timing is everything! As for your response to Smallman12q's comments, I am newbie enough that I cannot comment. I do hope, however, that we can follow the fourth pillar of Wikipedia to "Act in good faith, and assume good faith on the part of others. Be open and welcoming." Wikipedia:Five_pillars. Both my students and I are new to Wikipedia and we are doing our best to learn the culture as we work on this project. We appreciate constructive comments. All best wishes, CogPsyProf (talk) 21:34, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes I hope you have a great experience on Wikipedia. Part of that involves taking baby steps when new. All I'm trying to do is steer any learner drivers away from the motorway, which would just end in disaster -- a 10,000 hits-a-day disaster. Cheers, Colin°^Talk 21:51, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I'll just reinforce Colin's point that the main reason for urging extra caution on articles such as Autism is that we really want the students to feel welcome and to have a good experience here. Such a prominent (and often controversial) article, which as Colin says was and is kept a close eye on by very experienced and knowledgeable medical editors, may not be the best place to start for the students who are just learning the ropes. Slp1 (talk) 17:20, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Dear Slp1, I am unsure how I can be more clear that I understand the point made by Colin. There is no need to reinforce anything. Please reference my hope above that the fourth pillar will be in place by and toward us. All best wishes, CogPsyProf (talk) 17:37, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Hello. It wasn't my intention to imply that you didn't understand Colin's point. What both of us (I believe) are trying to say is that we do and are assuming good faith on the part of you and your students, and it is precisely for this reason that we are trying to help avoid possible problems for you. Please assume good faith of us too!!! Anyway good luck and have a great course!! Slp1 (talk) 18:16, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi again, Slp1. I am glad that we are all on the same page and many thanks for the good wishes--we appreciate them. All best wishes to you too, CogPsyProf (talk) 18:22, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Some notes

In response to User:Garrondo comments above, I've left a few notes at the course page.Smallman12q (talk) 15:25, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks to you both for your comments. CogPsyProf (talk) 17:54, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Secondary sources

Almost all articles that the students plan to edit are on my watchlist, and so far I have not yet seen any student using secondary or tertiary sources. I have commented and left messages to at least eight of the students and I am getting a bit tired and desperate. Please help! Lova Falk talk 19:44, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Dear Lova Falk, First, thank you for your helpful comments to my students. We discussed the secondary source issue in class again this morning; I'm not surprised that few changes were made in the past 4 hrs since that conversation. Please know that this issue is on our radar and that we are working on it, but the work we are doing does not show up immediately on Wikipedia. Be assured that we have heard you. You WILL see changes in the next few weeks, but there will be delays given this is only one portion of one of each student's class load. We DO hear you, we are in the processes of responding, and we thank you for your helpful comments. All best wishes, CogPsyProf (talk) 19:54, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, I am SO happy to hear that you have discussed this in class! Lova Falk talk 20:32, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Comment on wikietiquette

Hi prof... First I want to say that I promise not to be so insistent as the course advances, and that I feel that you are showing great interest and effort in this project which is really appreciated, specially in a newcomer.

It is not that important, but it will make things easier if you could strain in class the importance of interaction and wikietiquette. In this sense I feel that the more students ask and write in talk pages the easier and profiting will be their editing. Specially, in those cases when they are direcly addressed it is a good idea that they answer at least to make clear that they have red messages, that they do not understand them or that they do, or whatever.

I am saying this in general because no student has answered to comments from past several days by me or Lova Falk. Most messages were quite general on the quality of sources, but there have been others quite more specific. I do understand that they are all beginning and it is normal that they do not know how to move around but I also feel that the sooner they begin to interact the better.

More specifically, I have written to a student (SteveREBT) directly regarding his formatting of citations but he has he not answered me and he has further edited the article without trying to implement changes proposed. I am in no hurry neither angry, but it would be great if he gave any signs of understanding comments in talk page of the article (The layout of citations he invented is actually veryyyyyy messy :-)

Bests. --Garrondo (talk) 21:43, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Hello Garrondo. Quick clarification is that SteveREBT is not in my class so that portion of your message needs to go to a different prof.

In terms of your larger point about Wikietiquette, we talked about that today. Indeed I applauded wefogg who had a very positive interaction with another user (I thought it was Lova Falk, but could be mistaken). As with all things Wikipedia we will be working on this issue as we go. I hope this reply isn't too terse; I must dash. Thanks for your interest in our course CogPsyProf (talk) 22:16, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Upsssssssssssssssss: My fault: The user started to work in the article at the same time that your students so I thought it was from your project... With your message I just noticed this was not the case. Regarding your answer: no terse at all. I understand that and sometimes I am not sure if it is better to comment on something that is probably being worked out (at the risk of not being the case), or say somethin obvious and have a patronizing tone. Bests.--Garrondo (talk) 22:34, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Re

I have sent several messages to you and students over the past several months...which have been mostly in vain as far as I see them. Students (and maybe also you) seem to feel that use of secondary sources is an option, maybe even an eccentricity of wikipedia and specially me since I have been one of the only editor involved. Problems is that it is not optional: its a requirement precisely to avoid the tone that all your students have given to the sections they have added. They are all of the kind of X said X in this article and Y said Y in this other article. That is writting an essay but not an encyclopedia.

Moreover, both you and your students have had several months to ask any doubts you had or ask if work was going in the good direction. You did neither, but suddenly you have added 10.000 k to every article and know you seem angry because I am stressing you or them. I could refrain from commenting, but what do I do in a month? Do I simply revert to what was previously? This month we will have lots of suboptimal content in articles. Thruth is that even this suboptimal content is better to what was previosly in them, so work by your students is a net improvement, but it is a pity that things have not been done correctly from the beginning.

This is not the case of the stroop article, where content added is much worse than what was there. I will refrain from commenting in all your articles, and I will leave all info in them since I do not really care or know much about those articles, and as I have just said they were in such an state that your content has improved them somewhat. However regarding the stroop article however I will not comment, but unless content is veeerrry much improved I will similarly ask you to leave it indefenetely in the talk page.

We could talk when your term ends... if you are planning to do a similar assigment next year you should change many things for a better experience for you, your students and wikipedia editors...

Best regards.--Garrondo (talk) 22:08, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi again. No one is angry (at least at this end). We're just asking for a chance to get through the next week of student peer-reviews without distractions. While we appreciate comments from experienced Wikipedians and are working to assimilate sometimes contradictory feedback across class articles (to the best of our abilities), we cannot do everything at once. As I said on your talk page, "I'm sure you remember how hard it is for many students to enter a conversation when an expert they do not know well is part of the space." Thanks again for your interest in the class's work. All best, CogPsyProf (talk) 02:06, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

As I said I will refrain from further comments unless I am asked directly by students. Now, I am neither angry but to some point I have the feeling that things have not been properly done, and I feel disappointed becuase I have the feeling that the time I have spent with you and your students has been useless .

You say that you cannot do everything at once... but the thing is that you have already done. It is a bit naive to think that you can suddenly add 10000 kb of info to 10 different articles and nobody edits, eliminates, make comments... Wikipedia is live editing... so probably it would have been a much better idea to go little by little. If students had added a few sentences each time it would have been much easier for everybody. If there are not more editions is because subject of most articles is really obscure, and "nobody cares much".

Additionally I have said maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaany times why sources were not adequate to students and you, but they have not been changed. I have only received as answer "we are working on it" but it does not seem to be very true, as each time nothing changes. On the other hand if anybody has told you that use of primary articles was adequate for wikipedia, please point to me where does it say so...

I have several other comments, but as long as I do not see that there is a true interest in making use of them I will center my time in more worthy tasks.

Best regards.--Garrondo (talk) 15:42, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Comments

• I've raised the issue of primary vs secondary sourcing at Wikipedia:Education_noticeboard#Secondary_sourcing_in_psychology_articles. You are welcome to comment.
• In the event that something is reverted/changed, you can always check the Page history by clicking the "history" tab on the article for the previous versions. All edits are always recorded, so nothing should is lost. You can click on the timestamp, such as "02:05, 23 March 2013" to see exactly how the page looked at the time.
• I've nominated Telescoping effect for WP:DYK so it may appear on the page in the "did you know" section. You can follow the nomination at Template:Did you know nominations/Telescoping effect.
• For The Dual-Route Hypothesis to Reading, the topic should be rephrased. See Talk:The_Dual-Route_Hypothesis_to_Reading.
• For Cross-race effect, named references should be used.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Cheers. Smallman12q (talk) 13:26, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for all, Smallman12q. I am knee-deep in peer-reviews and prof-reviews; will be in touch as questions arise. Appreciatively, CogPsyProf (talk) 13:02, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

That's fine. If you have any questions/comments, feel to let me know on wiki or via email. Thanks for the update...hope the you and the students find it worthwhile. Cheers.Smallman12q (talk) 00:13, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Telescoping effect appeared today on the front page in DYK. You can see a screenshot at http://i.imgur.com/AmtcfJA.png . Cheers.Smallman12q (talk) 11:40, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Great news, thanks! I have sent it along to the class. The timing is perfect too. I sent the collated peer reviews and my comments out to students last night (AFTER their latest test). You may be getting some questions; hopefully we'll be seeing improvements over the next couple weeks. Again, thanks for your support of the class and in particular for highlighting the work on the Telescoping article! All best wishes, CogPsyProf (talk) 13:03, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Comment on Framing effect

This has been the most encouraging comment from you, since it clearly demonstrates a lot of receptiveness. I do strongly believe in wikipedia as an educational possibility and it is the reason why I began interactions with your course.

I also have to say that I believe some requirements are needed for educational assigments to work, most importantly a good knowledge from teacher on how wikipedia works... I am sorry you probably had to learn this knowledge the hard way (and I am probably part in that). Nevertheless if you remain in wikipedia next year I am sure everything will be easier for everybody, so I hope the rough initial experience this year is not a reason for you (and your students) living.

I would nevertheless recommend that if you stay and plan to carry out a second edition of your course took some time in talking with some editors of the medicine and psychology projects before beginning it on how could be the best way to get the better for wikipeida and the students. Similarly the offer I posted above to discuss (constructively) your assigment once it is finished still stands.

If you think that any of the articles and or students will benefit from some comments you can post me a message, since I will not interact with students otherwise.

Bests.--Garrondo (talk) 20:03, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Re

Thanks for your message. First of all I want to say that I feel now that I was mistaken when I thought you were not really hearing our advise. I know see that you were actually taking it quite seriously, but that you probably were a bit overwhelmed.

I will try to find some time to take a look at some of the articles and give some comments, although I cannot promise much (really messed up out-wiki these days).

Regarding your message a few points:

• I have never asked for all sources to be secondary. Primary sources are occassionally interesting in wikipedia. On the other hand in many other cases even if a secondary source would be more preferable, a primary source is better than nothing. Most of your students use of primary sources fall in this second group: they are better than nothing, specially in the less developed articles.
• To your comment that "primary sources abound on many of the Wikipedia pages": There are 4 million articles in wikipedia, and most of them are badly or completely unsourced. That does not mean that that is what most articles should look like ideally, but it is reality. Regarding primary versus secondary is a similar thing. It is true that many articles have primary sources, but as a collective wikipedians have decided that this is not our ideal. More generally: never compare any article or extract conclusions by judging it against the average article, but compared to the best wikipedia articles (See WP:FA).

Bests. --Garrondo (talk) 20:50, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind note. Please know that your points are well taken. Good luck with the out-wiki stuff! All best wishes, CogPsyProf (talk) 20:56, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Copyright problems at cross-race effect

I have just discovered that almost all content added by the students was in violation of copyright of the used source. Full sentences were simply copied verbatim, and most others only slightly changed. I had to eliminate all content as a precaution. I am simply without comments, since at this point your class is being quite a burden.--Garrondo (talk) 21:27, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up, Garrondo. I've already emailed both students on the team to come meet with me ASAP. As I said the other day, we will understand if you cannot comment on the course pages, particularly while you have off-Wiki issues to face. We very much appreciate the help you have given. Thanks for your time, KM

While yesterday I found copyright in relation to one single source, it was late and I went to sleep after posting you the message above. Today I have checked the full addition of students in this article, and there were copyright problems in relation to many sources. I am going to eliminate all content added by the students as a precaution, unless they can demonstrate that there were not copyright problems in specific paragraphs added.--Garrondo (talk) 10:44, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

That is how I understood your original message and informed the students that would be the case. We have scheduled a meeting today so I can understand what they think they did and discuss again what should be done when citing others' work. Thanks for your time, CogPsyProf (talk) 11:53, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

My initial deletion was drastic but not total. It included all content based on a single source (Young), which amounted more or less half of the work of the students. Since today I found similar problems with other sources I finally deleted all content added by them. It would be interesting that they read (If they have not done so yet)Wikipedia:Plagiarism, where it is explained why even with proper citations you can be infringing copyright and committing plagiarism.--Garrondo (talk) 13:31, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but this issue often takes multiple passes even with motivated students, in part because they rely on what other students tell them at least as much as assigned readings, what is covered in their writing and methods classes, etc. My hope is that your note (I pasted a portion of it in my email to them) and today's conversation will bring the point home "to their bones." Thanks for your time, CogPsyProf (talk) 13:57, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Stroop effect and others

I have commented on the proposed text by students in the stroop effect article. I feel my comment was probably discouraging, but I do not feel that the content they proposed was up to the level of the article, with many problems in content and understanding of the field, to the point that I did not know on how they could improve it before the end of their course or any way to parly integrate it into the existing text. I wanted you to know it from me since I am really sorry that their effort may be somehow lost and finally not improve the article directly. I do hope however that my comments to other students from your class were useful, and that overall led to an improvement in the final articles.--Garrondo (talk) 13:30, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, Garrondo. I have not yet had a chance to read the students' latest articles or your comments, but your heads up is appreciated. Thanks for the time you invested in the students' articles. All best wishes, CogPsyProf (talk) 17:42, 22 April 2013 (UTC)