JenniferMGA

Introduction for User Talk Page (January 8th, 2020)

Hello Everyone and welcome to my User TALK Page! My name is Jennifer and I am currently enrolled at Middle Georgia State University for the Spring 2020 semester. I'll share a brief bio about myself here: I was born and raised in New York City and grew up with seven other siblings. After graduating with a B.A. in History, I moved to Georgia to be with my boyfriend of seven years. Since moving here I've mainly worked in Accounting Offices for the Butler Automotive Group. I'm not entirely sure how History and Accounting are related but that's just where I ended up working. In my free time (which is rare) I like to read and bake. I've recently started using Audiobooks on my commute to and from work and it has been wonderful. The latest audiobook I completed was Dracula by Bram Stoker. It was lovely and I highly recommend!

Welcome!

Hello, JenniferMGA, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:

• Introduction and Getting started
• Contributing to Wikipedia
• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• How to edit a page and How to develop articles
• How to create your first article
• Simplified Manual of Style

You may also want to complete the Wikipedia Adventure, an interactive tour that will help you learn the basics of editing Wikipedia. You can visit the Teahouse to ask questions or seek help.

Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or , and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! buidhe 06:38, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Week 1: Responses/Replies from Classmates

Hey, you had a red/broken link to your class journal page, think I fixed it. Dcb1986 (talk) 15:21, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you very much David! Appreciate the help and I hope I can be helpful to you too this semester! JenniferMGA (talk) 00:36, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

@JenniferMGA: I like the way you've organized this page into sections. I'm looking forward to working with you in class. OrchardBreeze (talk) 00:11, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

@OrchardBreeze: Thank you very much! It took more work than I anticipated, it has been a while since I've been on Wikipedia! Looking forward to collaborating with you too! JenniferMGA (talk) 00:53, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

@JenniferMGA: Thanks for sharing information. I'm completely new to Wikipedia so I appreciate the ability to review information shared by classmates. I hope to be able to share/help as well! Bamcclure18 (talk) 16:03, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

@Bamcclure18: I completely understand how you feel! I had to stalk our professor's page for organization ideas. I have only been to a couple of our classmate's User Pages so I'm really looking forward to what information/tips they might have for me to learn! Nice meeting you! JenniferMGA (talk) 00:53, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Great Start!

You're off to a great start in NMAC 5108—Welcome! Your user page is shaping up well. If you liked Stoker's novel, have you seen the latest Dracula on Netflix? It's worth your time. —Grlucas (talk) 16:06, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

@Grlucas: Thank you very much! (It helps that this is my second time taking a course with you!) I watched a few episodes of the Dracula on Netflix and I think I actually would've enjoyed it more if I didn't read Stoker's novel first because of how different the show adaptation is. I think it's a wonderful series so far and I do love the twists they added but my mind was still very fresh on the novel and I was hoping to see the characters I grew to love (i.e. Lucy & Mina) on the screen more. Plus, what the show did to poor Johnathan Harker just broke my heart. I'm going to give the book some more time to settle in my head and then hop back into the show. JenniferMGA (talk) 01:06, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

@JenniferMGA: Yes, this is a very different interpretation. Mina is hardly in it at all. And what they did to Lucy! Wow. Perhaps it's a fitting retelling for our time? —Grlucas (talk) 14:30, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Hello Jennifer! I always find it interesting that audiobooks are so popular. I have tried many times to listen to them while driving long distances and I always find myself getting distracted. By the time I realize that I haven't been paying attention I have to go back and relisten to sections. How do you stay focused on them while driving?--LauraT2020 (talk) 14:47, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

@LauraT2020: Hello Laura! There's definitely a happy medium you have to find with audiobooks. One of the reasons why I decided to listen to Dracula was because each of the characters in the book were voiced by different actors/voices. By not listening to the same voice reading to me for 10+ hours, it helped me stay in tune with the story more. It also helps if you listen in shorter sessions. I would rotate between music and audiobooks everyday of my commute, but that may just be a system that works for me. I hope you keep experimenting and trying! Good luck! JenniferMGA (talk) 01:06, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Peer Review

Hi Jennifer, I enjoyed conducting my peer review of your work on The Telegraph (Macon) article. You're off to a great start, and I look forward to seeing how you continue to enhance this article over the next couple weeks. Ereed23 (talk) 00:17, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Jennifer, I also enjoyed completing my peer review of your updates to The Telegraph (Macon). Your inclusion of the name/publisher table will be helpful to readers who prefer visual representations of information. Keep up the great work! Amdoubleu (talk) 19:47, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

NMAC 5108 (Spring 2020) Reflective Essay

Critiquing Articles

During the article evaluation process, I learned that Wikipedia articles follow a set of rules and policies to ensure consistency, quality, and reliability. I was intimidated at first but realized that article evaluations are constantly happening between Wiki users, students, professionals, etc. Wikipedia is an information hub created and maintained by group(s) of people with the same interests. I learned that it’s a good place to get at least a general idea of a topic.

The article I selected for our individual assignment was The Telegraph because I wanted to work on something local to the area and upon seeing the article, I saw a few places I could improve with my contributions. I started critiquing the major parts of the article such as the lead, the sources and references used, and the organization of the information. At a glance, I saw that the article had facts unsupported by sources and that the body of the article had scattered information and no paragraph structure.

Using my Week Two: Evaluate an Article Assignment responses from the Norris Church Mailer Wikipedia article, I delved in further by asking myself questions such as “Is the lead concise and clear? Is the content up-to-date? Is the article neutral? Are all the facts backed up by reliable sources?” Before I started editing The Telegraph, I started looking at the references that were previously used in the article. There were a few questionable sources used, one of which was another encyclopedia. I then decided to research and find sources of my own using the school’s research database and online articles. Doing this allowed me to improve the article’s credibility and use more relevant data.

Summarizing my Contributions

• One of the first things I worked on was ensuring the references all followed the same format so I created the Bibliography and Citation headings. I really wanted to focus on consistency with the references and citations. All the in-text references were changed to sfn. All the references were changed to the same citation format the class used for The Faith of Graffiti. I also removed references to other encyclopedias and did my best to find secondary sources to replace the sources I removed.
• Following Professor Lucas’s advice to (1) remove a little at a time, and (2) add as well as remove, I worked on tweaking the Lead for clarity and the History section for organization. The article lacked structure because dates were scattered throughout and there weren’t any paragraphs grouping facts/content/context together. I ended up sorting the History into sections with a set range of dates and reorganizing the information chronologically in their respective sections. Now, as you read about the history of the Telegraph, it’ll follow a timeline and hopefully be less confusing.
• One of the major challenges with this article were all the name changes that the newspaper had undergone so my biggest project was figuring out how to display the information on the Wiki. I know that the information needed to contain the names, dates, and publishers. I experimented with a list at first in my sandbox but ended up with a table (which was a pain to figure out from scratch). I also debated on the location of the chart on the page and opted for creating its own heading after the Lead per the suggestion from one of my peer review responses.

In comparison to the earlier versions of the article, I believe the current version is an improvement. It is not by any means perfect or complete but I think the revisions have helped bring some order and clarification.

Peer Review

In my peer review to User:Ereed23’s Battle of Ringgold Gap I suggested clarification between the Union and Confederate forces and suggested the addition of an image for the Ringgold Gap on a map. Looking at the page now, I think she did a fantastic job. Her sources were strong and the information she added about the battle was enlightening.

I received two peer reviews from User:Ereed23 and User:Amdoubleu which were both EXTREMELY helpful! In Ereed23’s Peer Review she suggested citing the information that was previously submitted by other users, grouping information into smaller sub-categories, and transform the information on the page into more of a narrative rather than a list of facts and events. She also pointed out potential bias which helped me weed out unnecessary information from the page. Per Amdoubleu’s Peer Review I moved the table of name changes from the Lead into its own sub-heading. I also worked on reorganizing the content and fixing grammatical and spelling errors as I went. Overall, their input is invaluable!

Feedback

Unfortunately, I didn’t receive any feedback from other Wikipedia editors aside from my classmates/peers. I think it’s because I chose a fairly low priority type of article but it was helpful to read the talk page because I was able to see previous feedback from other editors to other editors. It looked like they were already suggesting changes that I was in process of editing such as the references and citations. It definitely made me feel as if I was on the right track.

Wikipedia Generally

My contributions to Wikipedia had taught me that this is a huge community with a large amount of support. Most of the talk pages I saw were filled with discussions about how to improve an article reinforcing to me how much care and attention people give. I learned that getting lost in Wikipedia links is a real occurrence and that you must always sign your post! In all seriousness, Wikipedia is an amazing place to research, write, and edit because you can receive feedback sometimes immediately from other editors.

Wikipedia as a platform for the course was a roller-coaster. I was always told by my teachers to avoid Wikipedia because it was better to be safe than sorry so in the back of my mind I avoided it like the plague. I do feel like there’s a learning curve for using Wikipedia but compared to the other assignments I’ve done in the past, it has definitely been an exciting experience! I think the largest challenge from me was to find a way to write in a style that was somewhere in between academic writing and “blog” type writing. Our textbook Writing & Editing for Digital Media gave great pointers and advice but ultimately it took practice and active editing to really get a feel for writing on Wikipedia. I hope my Wikipedia skills have improved but I think it may take much longer than a semester for me to really do it well. The learning experience was very humbling though because I had to refresh my research skills, writing skills, re-familiarize myself with a platform that intimidated me, and edit knowing that people beyond my professor and classmates would be able to see what I wrote.

My article topic probably matters more to locals in the Macon/Middle Georgia area but I think it introduces the public to the paper’s history at a surface level. I would love to continue using Wikipedia as a platform for this topic because it serves as a great introduction. It also offers links to secondary sources and related information if the reader decides to delve in further. For example, when we start researching for a school assignment we immediately go to the library or use the library’s online database. Wikipedia can be the central hub for the public in understanding almost any topic/field/area of interest. JenniferMGA (talk) 00:37, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Bolded text is not a proper subhead. Shouldn't it be The Telegraph? Wikipedia, as I think you have come to realize, is a strong reference tool—one that should be supported, not avoided. Why would your "teachers" discourage your use of it, I wonder? I bet your contributions will be very useful to the local community; I hope you continue to improve it and expand your work on Wikipedia. —Grlucas (talk) 16:53, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

@Grlucas:I'm sorry about the errors Professor! I'm not 100% sure why my teachers discouraged the use of Wikipedia but it could be because the Wikipedia of 10 to 15 years ago (when I was in middle/high school) isn't the "same" Wikipedia that we use today? Maybe you can answer this question but were the Wikipedia guidelines created at the start of Wiki or developed over time? Well, it has still been an experience. I'm going to keep working on The Telegraph article on my off time, I don't feel like I did it justice yet. Thank you again for your help and support! JenniferMGA (talk) 15:09, 29 February 2020 (UTC)