Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Southern Illinois University/ENG 102 Argumentation & Research (Summer 2017)
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- Course name
- ENG 102 Argumentation & Research
- Institution
- Southern Illinois University
- Instructor
- Kristine Hildebrandt
- Wikipedia Expert
- Shalor (Wiki Ed)
- Subject
- English
- Course dates
- 2017-05-31 00:00:00 UTC – 2017-06-30 23:59:59 UTC
- Approximate number of student editors
- 10
This 4 class unit will explore the use of Wikipedia in education. Students will become trained editors of Wikipeida. They will be charged with completing a small editing project (built up of smaller editing, reading, and short essay response components). At the end of the summer session, students will write and present publicly to the class a persuasive essay detailing their thoughts on whether Wikipedia and Internet reference sources should or should not be used in higher education research and research writing. This larger essay (approximately 7-10 pages, double spaced) will make use of evidence gathered from course readings, outside readings, and their own experience as Wikipedia editors in this smaller four-class unit.
Timeline
Week 1
- Course meetings
-
- Friday, 9 June 2017
- In class - Friday 6/9
- Getting Started on Wikipedia
1. This is due before the start of class on Friday 6/9:
- Create an account and join this course page, using the enrollment link your instructor sent you.
2. This course page breaks down writing a Wikipedia article into a series of steps ("milestones"). These steps include online trainings to help you get started on Wikipedia.
Our course has also been assigned a Wikipedia Content Expert. Check your Talk page for notes from them. You can also reach them through the "Get Help" button on this page.
This project is designed to jumpstart your thinking and discussion for the final graded essay of the summer term (worth 30% of your grade for the class as a whole, and which we will begin working on in Weeks 4-5), which asks the question:
Are online websites like Wikipedia credible as sources of information?
3. All of the work and thinking that you do in these next few days will provide the foundation for your stance on that essential question. The following items will earn points (a grand total of 100 points), which will count towards the 25% category of "Wikipedia-specific activities" for ENG 102:
- Each of the 6 online trainings:
- 5 points each for a total of 30 points.
- Important note: You cannot get credit if you don't have a username (5 points for signing up before Friday's class)
- Your username must be enrolled on this course page. Check the Students tab to find your name (5 points for enrolling in the right course page)
- The Article Critique in Week 3 of our summer session:
- 25 points in composing a brief essay that critiques an article of your choice.
- The Wikipedia Stub edit exercise in Week 3
- 20 points in choosing, researching, and revising/enhancing a stub article.
- The Wikipedia Reflection in Weeks 3-4:
- 25 points in composing a brief essay that reflects on your experience with critiquing and editing Wikipedia
4. We will work on this in class on Friday 6/9
- We will use class time today for a combination of group discussion and also online trainings. In particular:
- Editing Wikipedia pages 1–5, which we will discuss together
- The first of six online trainings (see below: "Wikipedia Essentials")
- Evaluating Wikipedia, which we will discuss together
- We will also read (in class) and discuss this article: Christensen, Tyler Booth. (2015) "Wikipedia as a Tool for 21st Century Teaching and Learning." International Journal for Digital Society, 6 (2), pp. 1055–1060.
- Assignment - Homework
- due by start of class on Monday 6/12
It's time to think critically about Wikipedia. You need to do the following, which will count towards your grade for this Wikipedia component.
1. Complete the "Evaluating Articles and Sources" training (linked below, the 2nd of six required trainings).
2. Create a section in your sandbox titled "Wikipedia Evaluation" where you'll leave notes about your observations and learnings.
3. Read three of the following:
- One Wikipedia article
- One essay about Wikipedia
- One of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines
As you read, consider the following questions (but don't feel limited to these):
For the Wikipedia article:
- Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?
- Check out the Talk page of the article. What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?
- How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
For the essay about Wikipedia:
- What did you learn about Wikipedia that you didn't already know?
For the policy or guideline:
- What surprises you about this specific rule or guideline?
- If you had to summarize this rule or guideline into one sentence, how would you describe it?
Come to class on Monday with notes about each article you read left in your Sandbox. I will call on each student during our discussion to ensure that students have done the readings and made notes.
Week 2
- Course meetings
-
- Monday, 12 June 2017 | Wednesday, 14 June 2017 | Friday, 16 June 2017
- In class - Monday in class
- Reading and Evaluating Wikipedia Articles
Today we will return to the four original Wikipedia articles I had you briefly reference when we began to identify and evaluate online research sources. If you recall, they are:
1.Zombie/Zombies
2. Illegal Immigration
3. Donald Trump
4. Medial Marijuana/Medical Cannabis
I will group you into four smaller groups, and together, in class, each group will more carefully read the chosen article and come back together and discuss the following questions. You will work as a group to provide answers to these questions. I strongly encourage you to each take notes on this activity, as it will provide the basis for your next homework assignment (which will be worth 20 points):
Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference?
- Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?
- Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
- Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?
- Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
- Check a few citations. Do the links work? Is there any close paraphrasing or plagiarism in the article?
- Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?
- Check the "talk" page of the article. What is the Wikipedia community saying about your topic?
- What is the article rated? For your final project, you'll be asked to make improvements to an article. We'd like to focus your improvements on articles that are rated stub, start or c-class according to Wikipedia's article assessment rating.
- Assignment - Homework
- due by the start of class on Wednesday 6/14
You have two assignments:
1. Complete the "Sources and Citations" training (worth 5 points)
2. A short essay response (worth 25 points):
Think about one content areas that you are interested in learning more about. Ever want to learn more about underwater basket weaving? Now's your chance. Want to learn more about that Forensic Science major you're considering: here you go. Choose one content area you're interested in and start exploring.
Your assignment is to fully evaluate your article (2-3 typed pages). As you read you can leave your notes in your Sandbox under "Article Evaluation." Use these questions to guide you (but don't feel limited to these):
List your article and a link to its Wikipedia page. Briefly describe the article you're critiquing (e.g., length, amount of detail).
Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference?
- Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?
- Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
- Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?
- Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
- Check a few citations. Do the links work? Is there any close paraphrasing or plagiarism in the article?
- Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?
- Check the "talk" page of the article. What is the Wikipedia community saying about your topic?
- What is the article rated? Look at Wikipedia's article assessment rating.
- Optional: Choose at least 1 question relevant to one of the articles you're evaluating and leave your evaluation on the article's Talk page. Be sure to sign your feedback with four tildes — NavyVetBly (talk) 19:10, 16 June 2017 (UTC).
Your completed evaluative essay should have an appropriate format for this class: It should have an introduction. The main essay body (which includes responses to the above questions, worked into a prose structure that weaves into the essay as a whole--no numbered responses! And there should be a conclusion that summarizes the overall evaluation of the article according to Wikipedia's standards and the standards we discussed in class. You will submit your completed essay to our class Blackboard page (assignments). It is due by the start of class on Wednesday.
- In class - Wednesday in class
- Editing Wikipedia!
Now we're going to work on article stubs: short, underdeveloped articles. These articles aren't finished and need further review, addition, revision, and/or most of all, information.
This activity, including the homework assignment for Friday, is worth 20 points for this unit.
1. I will let you independently spend some time looking through the list of Categories here. Some examples:
Category: Rock Music Stubs
Category: Comedy Film Stubs
Category: 1990's Horror Film Stubs
Category: Nursing Stubs
Category: 1990's Hip-Hop Album Stubs
Category: African American Stubs
Category: American Baseball Umpire Stubs
Category: American Novel Stubs
(there's a category for almost everything here)
Note: Just because it's a stub does not mean that there is no available information to add to this; it simply means that editors have not expanded the stub yet. This is your chance to start that needed expansion! However, not all stubs are so easy to edit and update. You will want to spend some time identifying a stub you really can work with.
2. After you've perused the categories, choose one topic and then one article that you feel you can make the most impact on for this project. Assign yourself the article topic next to your name on the Students tab above.
Note: If you cannot independently identify an article for which you can make an impact, I will randomly assign you to a stub (I have a back-up list). So, everybody will have a stub to work with.
3. Start researching. For your article, find at least 2 new (not already included in the stub) academic, peer reviewed sources that you could use to improve the content. List your Works Cited by creating a new section in your sandbox called "Works Cited" - you should use the "cite" tool on the Visual Editor for help with this.
4. Start editing!
First, review page 6 of your Editing Wikipedia guidebook.
Important points. When editing an existing article:
- NEVER copy and paste your draft of an article over the entire article. Instead, edit small sections at a time.
- DO Copy your edits into the article. Make many small edits, saving each time, and leaving an edit summary. Never replace more than one to two sentences without saving!
- AND ALSO, DO be sure to copy text from your sandbox while the sandbox page is in 'Edit' or 'Edit source' mode. This ensures that the formatting is transferred correctly.
Second, familiarize yourself with editing Wikipedia by adding a citation and making a small change to improve your article. You can draft your contribution in your sandbox to start, but eventually you should copy and paste your improvement and the correctly formatted citation into the article "live" - at a minimum, you should add 1-2 sentences to an article of your choice, and cite that statement to a reliable source, as you learned in the online training.
Additional Resources: Editing Wikipedia pages 7–9
- Assignment - Homework
- due before the start of class on Friday 6/16
You have two tasks:
1. You will continue to make edits to your chosen stub (20 points)
Whatever you were not able to accomplish in class, you must complete by the start of class on Friday. We will spend some time in class on Friday checking each student's edits. I will check that each student has identified and used two new sources and has made at least 1-2 sentences of addition to the chosen stub article.
2. You will complete two more training modules (5 points each)
- In class - Friday in class
- Wikipedia Reflection
This is our final class for the Wikipedia Unit. There are two planned activities.
1. I will spend time in class checking on each student's edits to their chosen stub (20 points)
By now, you have hopefully been able to:
- Learn about the history, the philosophy, and the practices of Wikipedia
- Learn (through readings) how other instructors and students think about Wikipedia
- Critically evaluate Wikipedia articles for their content, their structure and organization, any inherent biases, and the quality of sources that contribute to these articles
- Begin to do some minor modifications to existing pages that need content ("stubs")
2. Begin the 2nd essay (worth 25 points, and you will have time to finish this over the weekend before Monday)
You will write a reflective essay (2-3 typed pages) on your Wikipedia contributions.
Consider the following questions as you reflect on your Wikipedia assignment:
- Critiquing articles: What did you learn about Wikipedia during the article evaluation? How did you approach critiquing the article you selected for this assignment? How did you decide what to add to your chosen article?
- Summarizing your contributions: include a summary of your edits and why you felt they were a valuable addition to the article. How does your article compare to earlier versions?
- Feedback: Did you receive feedback from other Wikipedia editors, and if so, how did you respond to and handle that feedback?
- Wikipedia generally: What did you learn from contributing to Wikipedia? How does a Wikipedia assignment compare to other assignments you've done in the past? How can Wikipedia be used to improve public understanding of our field/your topic? Why is this important?
Again, this will be in an essay format, not just a series of responses (or you will not receive credit). Your essay should have an introduction (use the introduction to summarize the activities you engaged in during this unit and what types of articles you looked at and edited). Then, use the above prompts to flesh out the body of your essay into a series of well-organized and well-structured paragraphs that focus on each prompt as its own topic. Finally, conclude your essay by evaluating this learning experience in the context of what it might mean to your undergraduate educational and professional training in general.
- Assignment - Final Homework for this Unit
- Due before the start of class 6/19
1. You must complete the final online training: "Plagiarism" (see below, 5 points)
2. Your other task is to finish the 2nd essay (25 points) that was begun in class on Friday. You must submit your finished essay before the start of class to our class Blackboard page (assignments submission).