User:Tatompki/Introduction to Abnormal Psychology Wiki-Project

This page has information on the online writing assignment taught on Wikipedia by Tanya Tompkins for Introduction to Abnormal Psychology - PSYC 181, Linfield College, Fall 2011.

The goal of this assignment is for several groups of students to choose an underdeveloped or missing article on Wikipedia, related to Abnormal Psychology, and improve it to Good Article status during the duration of the course.

Introduction for students

Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, is an encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone. It has many millions (!) of editors (Wikipedians), many of whom are students like you. The vast majority of them are volunteers who find editing this site to be an enjoyable experience, even a hobby. Therefore I hope you will enjoy this exercise and the course! After all, there are not many exercises that tell you to do something that over a million people think is 'fun'. :)

It is important for you to follow instructions and not get behind in following the assignment timeline, there will be little or no credit for late assignments. Last February, the Association for a Psychological Science (APS) launched the APS Wikipedia Initiative (APSWI) whose mission is to "deploy the power of Wikipedia to represent scientific psychology as fully and as accurately as possible and thereby to promote the free teaching of psychology worldwide." They found that there are about 5500 articles associated with the Project on Psychology at Wikipedia. Of those, only 30% have even been reviewed. Only 2% are good articles and only 1% have ever been featured. Despite the poor quality of information available these articles are still being frequently used as a way to learn about the discipline. For example, these low quality articles have been visited over 64,000 times in the past six months. Our job is to work with others to improve the information available to the worldwide community.

According to the APS, the broad goals of the initiative are to:

Ensure that articles about psychological research and theory are accurate, up-to-date, complete and written in a style appropriate for the general public
Ensure that articles are based on independent reliable secondary sources
To represent scientific controversies and scientific consensus fairly, writing articles in a neutral style
Improve and review articles to Good Article and Featured Article quality
Assess psychology-related articles and tag them appropriately when there are problems

Even though you may be new to psychology you will find that you are learning about topics in the field where there is either no information available on Wikipedia or there are many 'stub' class articles that you will be able to significantly improve upon. Even as a newbie you can evolve from being a consumer to a producer of knowledge. In many ways this assignment develops many of the same skills as a more traditional research paper. However, instead of turning it in to me at the end of the semester and then never thinking about it again, you will be contributing to an ever-evolving open source of information to the global community. Hopefully, you share my excitement and judgment about this being super cool!

Where to Start?

Wikipedia:Tutorial is the best place to start your adventure with this wiki. Please familiarize yourself with instructions for students and if you have any questions, check the Wikipedia:FAQ/Editing or Help:Contents and if you cannot find what you are looking for, ask the friendly people at Wikipedia:Help desk - or just <contact me - Tatompki>.

Before making any major edits, it is recommended that you create an account (video tutorial). You definitely need to have an account before attempting to do any wiki-related coursework (otherwise I will be unable to confirm if you have completed the exercise). After you create an account, if you know your group already, add your user name to the relevant section of this page.

Remember that Wikipedia is not a project limited only to our college. We are guests here and we should all behave accordingly. Please make sure you read Wikipedia:Wikiquette. Please try to think what impression you want other Wikipedians to have of our college — and of yourselves.

You should expect that the professor, other students, your friends, and even (or especially) other Wikipedia editors (not affiliated with our course) will leave you various messages on your talk pages. When working on the exercises below, you should log in to Wikipedia and check your messages as often as you check your email (I strongly recommend you read 'as often' as 'at least daily'). Whenever you have a new message and are logged to Wikipedia, you will see a large orange message, 'You have new messages', on every Wikipedia page you access. To make this message disappear, you should click on it and read the message. Note that it is customary to leave new messages at the bottom of the talk/discussion pages, and to reply to somebody's messages on their talk pages. If you want to leave somebody a message, make sure you are editing their talk page, not their user page. Remember to sign your talk and discussion messages (you may want to watch this tutorial on using talk pages).

Some other useful tips: whenever you are done with an edit and want to save a page, fill out the edit summary box and view a preview of the page after your edit to make sure it looks as you actually want it to look. Only then click the "Save Page" button. You may find the page history tool and watchlist tools to be very useful when you want to check what changes by other editors have been made to the article(s) you are working on.

Please direct any questions to <my talk page - Tatompki>. If you want the quickest response to your inquiry you should email me or drop by to see me during office hours, and ask about Wikipedia how-to; but please try to find the answer first on the Help:Contents.

Assignment

Now that you are familiar with the Wikipedia environment, it is time to jump into your assignment.

Project Overview

Your assignment is to choose an underdeveloped topic related to abnormal/clinical psychology to research and write about on Wikipedia. You will perform a literature search on that topic, and work with an assigned group to create a new article or expand an existing one, following any and all Wikipedia standards first and foremost. During the active project phase, you will monitor and respond to feedback on your article, and assist other groups by reading and commenting on their work.

Project Details

This assignment is worth 250 points (25% of your grade), which includes the accompanying individual and group homework that will prepare you to complete the assignment.

On Blackboard I will post group assignments ASAP after our second class meeting. Please check during the first week to make sure that each of you has been given a group number (and not more than one!). This is your Wikipedia assignment group, and it is composed of the people you will work with for the duration of the semester. Your first homework assignment (see Blackboard for Homework #1) is to find a time to meet with your group to discuss strategy, options and schedules. You and your group will choose an abnormal psychology-related article and create or expand it (see below for suggestions on how to find an appropriate topic). Once you have chosen your article, you will write up a one page proposal, outlining important information about it, what points you will cover in your article, and a short list of resources. I will give you feedback on your proposal and encourage you to also make time to visit me in office hours to discuss your proposal as a group. The deadlines for this assignment are listed below.

Once you have gotten my approval, work together to create an interesting, in depth article about your chosen subject. Make sure you familiarize yourself with encyclopedia-type writing before you begin. Writing for Wikipedia is very different from writing an essay, although not that far from writing a descriptive scientific paper, and you need to write in an appropriate format. Please read the following guidelines to get a handle on how you should write your article BEFORE you start writing:

Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, which summarizes what Wikipedia is, and what it is not;
Wikipedia: Five Pillars, which summarizes 5 key principles of Wikipedia
Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, which describes Wikipedia's core approach to neutral, unbiased article-writing;
Wikipedia:No original research, which explains what is, and is not, valid encyclopedic information;
Wikipedia:Verifiability, which explains what counts as a verifiable source and how a source can be verified;
Wikipedia:Citing sources, which describes what kinds of sources should be cited and the manner of doing so; and
Wikipedia:Manual of style, which offers a style guide;
Wikipedia:Your first article, which describes the process involved in writing your article.

Wikipedia maintains a high standard of writing, and has taken great pains to improve these standards. You need to follow their directions to the letter, since deviating from these standards will invite article deletion. If your article gets deleted you have to start over.

Regarding the length of the article, quality of sources used, and such, see the articles that other undergraduates have written for their social sciences courses: here or here.

Feel free to include photos, but remember that not all pictures on the web are free for the taking. Familiarize yourself with Wikipedia's Copyright Policy to ensure you are not doing anything wrong (copyright violation, in the real, world, means what plagiarism does in academia). Remember that any violation will be caught and dealt with by the plethora of editors on the site (and you do not want your group article to suddenly sprout a Copyright Violoation (AKA: copyvio) template like this group did...).

Here are some useful links so you can avoid this fate:

Write it in Your Own Words - Guide from Purdue University
Wikipedia:Copy-paste
Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing
Wikipedia:Quotation (When not to use them)

Your article must include at least two academic books and/or journal sources per group member. However, keep in mind that this is a minimum requirement. You should also include a list of external links giving the reader more information on your subject, and link to your page from other Wikipedia pages, so your page is not an orphan. To answer that question in your head: yes, you can go on someone else's article and link to your own. That's the beauty of Wiki!

You are welcome to use Wikipedia:Peer Review and related tools (see tips section below) and seek creative comments on your article. In other words, if you can get other Wikipedia editors to help you, I am totally fine with that.

Once you begin writing your article, you are required to respond to any comments on your paper and act accordingly (make proper changes, defend your choices, etc). These comments will give you substantial feedback on your work, and allow you to make your final product better. I too will, at various points in the semester, read and comment on your work. If you listen to my feedback, formal peer reviews and/or other seasoned Wikipedians you'll end up with a much stronger article (and better grade!).

Finally, you will read and evaluate/comment on your classmates' articles. Please make your comments constructive and useful. You will not get credit for such comments as "good article!" or "I liked it!" Suggest something that can be realistically improved, compare their article to yours and see if your group has learned any tricks that can help them. Also refrain from any abusive or inappropriate language. Remember, you are the face of our college for the semester--make us proud.

At the end of the semester, each of you will turn in a portfolio (this may be in print form or an ongoing log on your user page - if the latter please email me a notification with your user name so I can view your portfolio online and turn in your confidential group process evaluation form):

Constructive comments you made when reviewing the work of another group, so I can give you the points for reviewing other articles. Please highlight your user name for clarity. Label that page(s) as: Peer Review. (5 points)
Constructive comments you made on your own group article's talk page, and on the talk pages of other editors (if relevant). Label that page(s) as: Communication. Note that only on-wiki communication is accepted, off-wiki communication like emails will not be graded. (10 points)
Collection of all of your contributions from Wikipedia and other class activities. Label that page(s) as: Contributions. (70 points)
Brief reflective essay that evaluates your individual and collective experience, discusses both challenges and successes (10 points)
Each member of the group should fill out the group process evaluation form (found on Blackboard) to grade themselves and the other members of the group. Fill out the form and either place it in the folder, or hand it to me personally. Make sure you have your group's number on the form! (5 points for including)

Stages and deadlines

Week One: Introduction to Wikipedia

Readings and Tutorials

Welcome to Wikipedia
Video on creating an account
Account and user page creation handout
Should you use your real name?
Wikipedia Tutorial (including making an edit in the Wikipeida Tutorial Sandbox)
Five pillars

Assignment (due week 2)

Create a Wikidpedia account. (1 point)
Create a user page with information about you that will also be used to track your progress (and if you choose will take the place of a hard copy portfolio) See example for ideas: User:MTHarden/ExampleStudent (3 points)
Create your Wikipedia Sandbox which is a great place to test and experiment with wiki syntax. (1 point)
Homework #1 - meet as a group (see Blackboard for specific assignment) (3 points)
Sign up on the list of students (see bottom of the page) in the group you have been assigned. (1 point)
Finish the Wikipedia Tutorial, including making an edit in the Wikipedia Tutorial Sandbox. (1 point)

Week Two: Start Playing

Get familiar with Wikipedia. Make some trial edits, however minor. Demystify the process. Leave behind any sense of intimidation. As Wikipedia puts it, learn to be bold. Learn basic editing skllls. The three students who have made the highest number of constructive edits to Wikipedia before Tuesday, Sept. 13th (mainspace edits or constructive talk page comments count) will receive 1 extra credit point.

Readings and Videos

Wikimarkup cheatsheet - learn basic editing skills
Talk pages tutorial video

Assignment (due week 3)

To practice editing and communicating on Wikipedia, introduce yourself and leave a message for a classmate on their user talk page. Just a reminder to sign your post with four tildes. (1 point)
Make at least one constructive edit to a Wikipedia article outside the sandbox - subject doesn't matter. (2 points)

You should do so by leaving a message on the professor's talk page and/or documenting on your user page. (1 point)

If you successfully post a diff of your edit to the instructor's Wikipedia talk page you will earn 1 extra credit point.

Week Three: Continued Practice & Exploring Topics

As you begin to explore potential topics you should also familiarize yourself with the components of a good article and what distinguishes it from a bad article. In the process you will continue to practice with editing and communicating on Wikipedia.

Readings and Videos

Links

Assignments (due Week 4)

Critically evaluate an existing Wikipedia article related to the course (and preferably on a topic linked in some way to one your group is interested in pursuing). Make sure to add a constructive edit summary and don't forget to leave a message on the professor's talk page and/or document on your user page. (3 points)
Research and list 3–5 articles on your Wikipedia user page that you are considering using as a focus for the group main assignment. Number your list in priority order, with wiki-links to the articles. Be sure to specify if you are intending to create a new article or are planning to improve upon an existing one. (3 points)
Share them with your other group members by posting the link to your userpage on their talk pages, and ask your instructor for comments. Posting this question to your instructor and all other group members on their talk pages (don't forget to sign and link your userpage is worth 2 points).

Week 4: Finding and Citing Sources

Learn to evaluate good sources to use on Wikipedia and begin to practice with citing sources and creating reference lists. Please note that all citations for your article should be in APA style.

Readings and Tutorials

Assignment (due Week 5)

Add one to two sentences of new information supported with at least one well-sourced and reliable citation to a Wikipedia article. Please choose the article from the list of 3 to 5 that you are considering for the group main assignment. Don't forget to add a constructive edit summary and please post some constructive suggestions on how to improve the article further on the article talk page. (7 points)

* Don't forget to leave a message on the professor's talk page and/or document on your user page. (1 point)

Weeks 5 & 6: Selecting and Planning Your Article

You should at this point feel fairly comfortable editing and communicating on Wikipedia. However, minor edits alone won't get us much closer towards Good Article status. We need to have a sense of what more needs to be done, and an overall plan for the article. Look at model and guidelines or the "Guide for Nominating Good Articles" (see "readings" below). What sections are required? What will be the article structure? What information is needed? Who in your group will write what?

Readings, Handouts and Videos

Ideas about Starting Your First Article
Moving into main space
Models
Manual of Style
Guide for nominating good articles
Add the {{Educational Assignment}} template to the talk page of your article. It should look like this:

This article is currently the subject of an educational assignment. Further details are available here.

Assignment (due Weeks 6 and 7 - see specific dates below)

NO LATER THAN Thursday, October 6th, each group should have an article selected. You should inform the instructor of your article selection (please email the professor or post a message to her talk page). Make sure it is listed next to your group in the Articles edited section of our wiki page. (3 points)
NO LATER THAN Thursday, October 13th, you should have a plan (who will read what, who will work on what aspects of the article) in place. You should post a preliminary "to-do" list on your article's discussion page and inform the instructor that you have done so. The "to do" list should consist of a list of what points you will cover in your article, how it will be structured, who will work on what sections, and a short list of resources. Each group member should participate in creation of that list, describing their own tasks. If the article does not exist, you should stub (start) it (see what makes a good stub and you may want to watch this "article creation" tutorial). (10 points)
As another extra credit 2-point activity, post a constructive question, related to your project, to Wikipedia:Reference desk. Report what answer you got on your article talk page and notify the instructor about your report with a diff. (Note: it may take a day or so for a reply to be posted to your question at the reference desk)

Weeks 7 through 10

Begin working on developing your article. This will require researching, reading and writing collaboratively with your fellow group members

Videos

Assignments

Share. You will need to divide up the tasks that we've identified in the planning stage. Who is going to do what and when?
Research. This is vital. A wikipedia article is worth nothing unless it comprises verified research, appropriately referenced. This will entail library as well as internet-based research.
Assemble and copy-edit. As the referenced research is added to an article, there will be an ongoing need to continue to re-organize and to ensure that it doesn't become too heavily linked and/or cited. That being said, it is better to err on the side of too much than too little when it comes to linking and citing (refer back to readings/tutorials from Week 4). This evolution of the article should be reflected in the article talk page discussion and in edits made to the article.
Informal Review. First, informal reviews among ourselves (fellow group members, classmates and professor) will take place Week 10 and 11. You must have an first draft ready by Friday, November 4th and submit it to me so that I can comment on it and provide feedback/advice. You can try the Wikipedia peer review to get additional input. (20 points for first draft submitted on time)

Weeks 10 & 11

Continue editing and refining your article. Go live with it and possibly nominate it for "Did you Know?"

Handout

Submitting an Article to the Did you Know Process

Assignments

NO LATER THAN Tuesday, November 15th, each of your group members should look at an article being developed by other groups in the class for review (please make sure that no more than 2 members review the same group's article). You and review it on that article's talk page and write a summary for your own group (on your own article's talk page) saying whether anything that group has done is valuable for you. (15 points)
Revisit your first edits. Have they been retained? Have they been improved by others? Post a report on your userpage, and notify the instructor for another extra credit point. If you improve the edit yourself and discuss it with other editors that might have disagreed with it previously, you may receive another 2 extra credit points.

Week 12

Continue to revise and refine your article, incorporating ongoing feedback. Nominate your article for "good article" status.

Assignment

You should read and comment on the feedback your article received. Incorporate constructive suggestions into your article. (5 points)
Good article nomination. Before Tuesday, November 22nd, at the latest as there's a backlog of articles to be reviewed, and because a nomination can easily be put on hold until the article is improved in line with a reviewer's suggestions. (2 points)

This means your article should be mostly finished by then! But it doesn't mean your work is done, FAR FROM IT! You are responsible for keeping daily track of comments by reviewers (which may include your professor and/or outside editors), answering them and addressing them (if they are reasonable, when in doubt, ask the instructor). Here are some sample Good Article reviews and related discussions: example1, example2, exampe3. (15 points for improved second draft)

Week14

Assignment wrap up!

Assignment

Course instructor (Tanya Tompkins) will begin final assessments of your portfolios on Tuesday, December 6th so the final version of your article, your portofolio (see above for more information about what is to be included), and your group process evaluation are due by this date. I hope to be able to return to you by the final exam.

Note: total amount of extra credit you can get from the activities listed above is 7 points (this can add 3% to your final Wikepedia assignment grade). Through practice with editing, communicating, researching and writing you will earn 100 points. Note that you will earn another 50 points for the final article quality (see below) and another 100 points for turning in your complete portfolio on time that, in a coherent and organized way, documents your communication, your contributions (including peer review), and includes a brief reflective essay on the experience. Although the point values are clearly noted for individual assignments above, I want to also bring your attention to the fact that your documentation of your work (portfolio) also provides additional points for the same work (e.g., get 3 points for making an edit to a relevant article but also earn points collectively for communication and contributions in the portfolio).

Important tips

Read the fine manual :)

Wikipedia:FAQ/Editing will give you all the information you need to edit pages and start your own. Read it! Help:Contents and Wikipedia:Tutorial are very useful, too.

Practice

I suggest doing some practice edits on various pages, just to get a feel for how things work. You can start by adding material to your user page, but try to edit real articles, too. If you add some constructive content to abnormal-psychology-related articles, you may be eligible for extra credit.

If you are drawing a blank as to what you should edit for practice, there are many places you may want to check if you want to improve your Wikipedia-editing skills by editing Wikipedia. Feel free to check the following pages (and check week 3 links):

Create an account and sign in every time you edit

Whenever you edit, make sure that you are signed in (if in the top right corner of the screen you see "log in" button, you are not signed in!). If you are not signed in, you can't document on your user page, nor can I verify that you were the person who made the edit and give you points for it.

When creating a new account, think about the nickname you want to use here. Consider:

this is a publicly viewable project - do you want to use your real name (or Linfield email "nick")?
you may want to keep editing Wikipedia in the future - chose a nickname that you won't find annoying in a few years...

Talk pages

Whenever editing a talk page, add four tildes ~~~~ to the end of all comments you make on talk pages. This will let people know who is talking. You can also just press the signature button (you may want to watch this tutorial on using talk pages).

Selecting an article

You can chose to create an entirely new article related to abnormal psychology, if the topic you'd like to write about is missing. You can also expand an existing Wikipedia article related to abnormal psychology, if there is ample room for expansion (rule of thumb: if the article has only a few sentences, it is a good choice for expansion, if it has a few long sections, probably not). Most articles assessed as a "stub" qualify for this assignment. There are hundreds of abnormal psychology related articles to chose from: see here or here.

If you are drawing a blank on what article you could create or expand, here are some examples of articles that should be created or expanded: corumination, cyberphobia, Caregiver's syndrome, Alogia, Contagion, Postvention, Desensitization, Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Important tip: try to chose a subject that you are interested in. It's much easier to write about something interesting than it is to write about something boring!

As soon as possible, your group should agree on a topic and get in touch (by email) with me (Tanya Tompkins) so I can verify it is a good topic (see Weeks 5 & 6 assignment for additional details).

What kind of an article are we writing?

We are not doing any original research. You will not be collecting data, analyzing it, or writing about your experiences. We will not be witting an essay with personal opinions or judgments. Instead, we will be writing an encyclopedic article, summarizing an existing, verifiable state of knowledge from an abnormal psychology related area. See Wikipedia in brief for a short list of what an encyclopedic article we will be writing here is.

Style

The simplest way to understand the style you are supposed to follow is to examine articles that have passed Good Article (GA) or Featured Article (FA). You can see Wikipedia Good Articles from the section "Social science and society" here and Featured Articles from the section "Philosophy and Psychology" here. Here are a few good and featured articles relevant to psychology or abnormal psychology: Reactive attachment disorder, Beck Depression Inventory, Münchausen by Internet.

The technical details are explained in the Wikipedia:Manual of Style, but I find just looking at already-written articles much more helpful then studying the collection of the rules.

If you want to learn how to write nicely, check this guide:

How to satisfy Criterion 1a - despite the weird name, it is a very useful set of suggestions

Getting the article assessed as a GA

At the top of this page you will find a "how to" for nomination. There is also a dedicated guide for nominating good articles. If you can nominate it sooner than the deadline, the better for you - every day gives you more time to read comments by the reviewers and address them. Remember: you may get full credit (50 points) even if you don't address all the comments of the reviewer in time (particularly if s/he posts them very late); but addressing them and passing through the GA process guarantees you full credit (50 points) for this part of the assignment. The assignment does not end with the nomination, you will likely have to fix various issues pointed out by the reviewer. If the reviewer posts useful comments, you should do your best to address them; of course this mean you may disagree with him/her if you think you know better (reviewers are not perfect). Responding in a courteous and persuasive manner is key!

Useful links:

We don't own the articles

Wikipedia is a project with millions of editors, who collaborate on all articles. We don't own the articles we work on. Don't be surprised if you receive comments from editors who are not part of the course, or if they do edit your article. All editors are here to help; don't hesitate to get extra help - Wikipedia has ton of places you can do so.

Expect to interact (politely) with others

It is likely that over the course of the project, you will receive messages from editors outside our course, and that they will make edits to your article. Be polite in replying, and don't hesitate to ask them to explain something.

Work on Wikipedia

A. Don't work on a draft in Microsoft Word. Work on a draft in the article on Wikipedia. This way your colleagues (and instructor) will be aware of what you are doing the instant you do so, and can comment on it sooner.

B. Don't exchange comments by email. Exchange comments by using article's talk pages, for the same reasons as above (unless you are certain that your discussion has to stay private). If you like to receive email notifications, you can monitor the article's talk pages (and your own userpage talk page) by subscribing to that page RSS feed (see Wikipedia:Syndication).

Remember: gaining experience with wiki software may be more important to your future career than detailed knowledge of abnormal psychology. Three years ago, Technorati's chief technologist states that in five years "knowledge of wikis will be a required job skill". Hopefully you've learned a lot about a topic in the field that is of interest to you. Undoubtedly you will have developed a skill that will be useful to you in the future.

Plagiarism and copyvio warning

Plagiarism is not only against university's and course policies, it is also against Wikipedia policies (see WP:PLAGIARISM). And attributing somebody doesn't mean cut and paste jobs are allowed (WP:COPYVIO). Violations of plagiarism/copyvio policies will result in lower grade and other sanctions (see syllabus for policy). Please note that the course instructor is not the only person checking constantly for plagiarism and copyright violations; the Good Article reviewer will do so as well, and Wikipedia has a specialized group of volunteers specializing in checking new contributions for those very problems (you don't want your work to appear here or here!). In particular, note that extensive quoting is not allowed, and changing just a few words is still a copyvio (it doesn't matter if you attribute the source). Bottom line, you are expected to read, digest information, and summarize it in your own words (but with a source). For more info see: this plagiarism handout, Wikipedia:Copy-paste, Wikipedia:Quotations, Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing, a guide from Purdue University.

Getting extra help

You can always ask the course instructor for help. You should not hesitate to ask your fellow students from other groups for help, for example if you see they have mastered some editing trick you have yet to learn. We are here to collaborate, not compete. If you can lobby and get help/assistance/advice from other editors to improve your work (for example by using Wikipedia:New contributors' help page, Wikipedia:Requests for feedback, Wikipedia:Peer review, Wikipedia:Help desk or Wikipedia:Reference desk), I am perfectly fine with it. Be bold and show initiative, it usually helps. See also "how to get help" handout.

Some last pieces of advice

read the "getting extra help" tip above
try to complete the extra credit assignments outlined here
complete WP:TUTORIAL and edit some Wikipedia articles "for fun" early on; experience gained will be very helpful
work on a draft on Wikipedia, in the article; don't work in Microsoft Word or such
keep an eye on your userpage discussion page, and on article's discussion page, where other group members and other Wikipedia editors - and the instructor - may leave you tips, advice and other comment
remember its a collaborative assignments. Work with your colleagues from the first day on a single wiki-draft. Groups whose members work alone and try to combine their parts a day or so before the final submission don't do very well.
don't focus solely on your own sections. Help your teammates by proofreading their section, see if they have trouble with things you've figured out.
image questions? See this image uploading handout, this uploading image video tutorial, Wikipedia:Images, and in particular, the Wikipedia:Finding images tutorial and the Wikipedia:Picture tutorial. Try to avoid looking for images on "the web", focus on the Wikipedia's sister project, Wikimedia Commons, which has millions of images that can be used on Wikipedia without any restrictions.
reference questions? Revisit the Wikipedia:Tutorial/Citing sources and watch a video tutorial on how to add footnotes and proper references to your article.

Grading

This assignment is worth 250 points (25%) of your final grade. Out of that, 100 points (40%) is for finishing things on time, 50 points (20%) is for getting the GA status and the final 100 points (40%) is for documenting and reflecting on the article creation. Your 0-25% is then weighted by your contributions, assessed both by the instructor and your colleagues.

Getting an article assessed as a good article by the Wikipedia good article reviewer guarantees the group the unweighted 50 points for this assignment. If you have submitted your article for GA assessment on time but your article didn't finished going through the assessment process in time, due to the failure of the external Wikipedia reviewer to react promptly, or if I think the reviewer treated you too harshly and I am happy with your work, you may still get the full points. If the article is assessed below the GA class, the unweighted score will be lower (see table below):

Here is a description of quality classes for an article. What we are aiming is is the GA-class (or above, but the GA-class will guarantee you full points). Read carefully what the lower classes (B, C, start, stub) lack and make sure your article is better!

Article's quality class	Course credit points earned
stub class	2
start class	15
C-class	30
B-class	40
Good Article class	50
Featured Article class	75

The grade for this assignment is further modified as follows:

your 250 points (25%) will be weighted based on individual participation, incorporating the number and quality of that students edits to Wikipedia, and average group process ratings that reflect self and others' impressions of her/his input and contribution. The weighting is based on an average of my and your group's evaluation of your work.

What this means is that if a group had members who worked hard throughout the term (logged in regularly, discussed the article development with other group members and other interested Wikipedia editors on article's discussion page, and so on), and members who did very little work (logged in rarely, did not participate in discussions, and so on), their end grades for this assignment will be different. For example, if the end unweighted grade was 200 points (80%), members who did not contribute much to the group project may see their grade be much lower - 150 points, 100 points, or in case they did almost no work, close to no points (in other words, students who join the group and don't contribute to the group project should not expect to get a good grade from this assignment - remember: I can see how hard you are working).

Example: you get 200 points (80%) unweighted score. I and your colleagues rate your activity as 4 out of 5, so 80% of 100%. Your score of 200 points is multiplied by 80% yielding the final grade of 160 points (64%).

To avoid getting your grade weighted down, read the tips above, and in particular, follow those simple steps:

log in and make edits to the article regularly, preferably several times a week
discuss the article with other group members on article's discussion page, where the instructor can see that you are actively engaged in planning and developing the article

It is therefore NOT recommended that some group members specialize in tasks such as library research or off-wiki writing, which the instructor cannot verify.

Here is a checklist for article quality. If your article follows those guidelines, even if the the official Wikipedia reviewer fails to pass it as a Good Article, you may get your full 50 points for article quality:

Article is on one of the subjects that was approved by the instructor
Article includes intro summary (lead in the Wikipedia terminology), at least 3 body paragraphs per group member, conclusion, and bibliography
There are no grammatical/spelling errors throughout the paper (that does include absence of spurious capitalization, like Psychology instead of psychology and so on)
Introduction summarizes the subject properly and does not include unique information not present in the main body of the article
Conclusion sums up the paper without ending abruptly
Article is structured logically, and there are no weird gaps (Note: "weird gaps" occur for example when you chose to write about a disorder, but your group "forgets" to research etiology; or when you are presenting a historical account of a construct, but forget to include any information about who coined the term and did initial investigations)
Sources used are reliable
In-line citations are present and used correctly according to Wikipedia format see Wikipedia:Citing sources
In-line citations are done consistently in APA style
Body of the article explores the chosen subject in adequate detail. (Note: “adequate detail” means I shouldn’t be able to do a quick literature search and find information not included in the paper. I want you to search current and past literature, books, newspapers, websites, etc. and summarize all the information you find into an "easy-to-read and understand" article. If you are missing major bits of information, or have included incorrect information without citations to back up your findings, you will lose major points here).
Article should conform to Wikipedia writing standards (Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:No original research)

With regards to getting the full activity score:

Your group members will expect you to be easily reachable to discuss the paper, and come to their meetings
Your group members will expect you to do "your share" of the work
I will grade your activity based on two primary factors:

Whether you contributed to your paper on a regular basis (every few days) or not
Whether you were active on the article's talk page. This means that I see that you've attempted to address and fix any and all comments/suggestions given by me, your colleagues, the reviewer and the Wikipedia community. If the change was not made, adequate explanation was given (which did not include "this is for an class assignment, so leave us alone)

How to fail the assignment:

plagiarism, or extensive quotations
letting others do all the work and hoping you can still get some points
missing deadlines
logging in an editing only at the very end of the course, where you discover you are not sure how to edit Wikipedia, and that your contribution does not really fit the articles your other members were working on
not participating in the talk page discussions

Editors in PSYC 181

Course instructor: User:Tatompki (Tanya Tompkins)

You DON'T have to give your real name below, but if you don't, do email me with your name and account so I know whose account is whose.

Please add your username and name below by adding your username and first name to [[::User:|]] ([[::User talk:|talk]] · contribs) (name) so that it looks in the edit mode like this {{user|Username}} (Name). Once you do so, it will look much nicer, like the first entry under Group 1 (no, I'm not really in your group so the first person to edit with their name please replace me!

Group 1

Vkraft (talk · contribs) (Tori Kraft)
tjkimmett (talk · contribs) (Tyler Kimmett)
Andrewdewolf (talk · contribs) (Andrew DeWolf)
Dlaborte (talk · contribs) (Dominique Laborte)

Group 2

krhatley (talk · contribs) (Kelsey Hatley)
Kittybug (talk · contribs) (McKenna Peterson)
Smythadon (talk · contribs) (D. Smith)
kmfrance (talk · contribs) (Kirstie Franceschina)
danielle.scott4 (talk · contribs) (Danielle Scott)

Group 3

tiffanybn (talk · contribs) (Tiffany Neumann)
nbarton10 (talk · contribs) (Nicole Barton)
Kyokoyama (talk · contribs) (Kelly Yokoyama)
Aspadoni206 (talk · contribs) (Alex Spadoni)

Group 4

jlucas1 (talk · contribs) (Boo Lucas)
dandres19 (talk · contribs) (Danica Andresen)
mgreen1 (talk · contribs) (Melissa Green)
Mackleah (talk · contribs) (Maeleah Parker)

Group 5

wildcat707 (talk · contribs) (Nick Rawlins)
Jessilucas (talk · contribs) (Jessica Lucas)
Hfrueh (talk · contribs) (Helena Frueh)
BilliChavez (talk · contribs) (Juliann Johnson)

Group projects

Individual extra credit edits

Extra credit edits (the students have the opportunity to earn extra credit with abnormal psychology-related wikipedia editing).

What to do for extra credit? Edit abnormal psychology related articles and inform the instructor; they will be graded just like the regular assignment. You can start new articles or improve the existing ones.

Questions?

Post them at the discussion page of this article and/or email your course instructor!