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Next, it's time to figure out what article you are going to work on. Check your course page for specific instructions on choosing an appropriate topic for you class. Here are some general considerations when choosing a topic.
Advice for choosing an article to work on
[edit]- Choose a term that is well established in the discipline, but only weakly represented on Wikipedia. The best choice is a topic where a lot of literature is available, but isn't covered extensively on Wikipedia.
- Scope: Look for topics that are specific and narrow enough to be manageable, but broad enough that sufficient sources exist to write a solid, sizable article.
- For expanding existing articles, gravitate toward "stub" and "start" class articles. These articles often have only 1-2 paragraphs of information and are in need of expansion.
- Before creating a new article, spend 15-20 minutes searching related topics on Wikipedia to make sure your topic isn't already covered. Often, an article may already exist under another name or be a subsection of a broader article.
What to avoid
[edit]- Trying to improve articles on very broad topics (e.g. "Law") or articles that are already of high quality on Wikipedia
- Trying to improve articles on topics that are highly controversial, e.g. "Global warming, Abortion, Scientology, etc. (Start a sub-article instead.)
- Working on something only sparsely covered by literature
- Starting articles with titles that imply an essay-like approach, e.g. The Effects That The Recent Sub-Prime Mortgage Crisis has had on the US and Global Economics instead of Subprime mortgage crisis
Picked your topic?
[edit]Once you know what you want to write about, click this button to input the title. If it doesn't exist yet, be sure to pick a sensible, neutral, commonly used term for the title. Unless it's a proper noun, don't capitalize anything except the first letter of the first word.