Wikipedia:CARL Medical Editing Initiative/Fall 2019/Practice Editing

Getting Started Course Overview Practice Editing How to Edit
Resources and Videos Reliable Sources Community Consensus
(How to Use the Talk Pages) Track our Progress Academic Articles:
Medicine and Wikipedia

Practice Editing

Practice editing Wikipedia

These steps will be completed in class on November 11, 2019.

Step 1: Getting Started!

• Dr. Dawson's How to Edit Wikipedia Class Slides: Link
• "cheat sheet" - many new Wikipedia editors find this document helpful when transiting between academic style of writing and encyclopedia style (for Wikipedia).
• To learn how to edit Wikipedia on your own see How to Edit for a list of online tutorials and tools to learn how to edit Wikipedia.

Step 2: Create your personal "user page"

• This introduces you to the Wikipedia community (WP:MED) and lets them know why you are here
• Disclose any potential conflict of interest (COI) on your userpage. e.g.: I am a student working with (insert your affiliation). My goal is to improve ___(insert)___-related Wikipedia articles with paraphrased content from high quality secondary sources that meet WP:MEDRS. 
• You do not have to disclose your personal identity.

Step 3: Go play in your "sandbox"

• Wikipedia has a "practice area" called your "sandbox" (see tab on top left while logged in to Wikipedia). This is a great place to practicing clicking the "edit" button, adding references (via the citation button) etc. This information does not go into Wikipedia articles or to search engines.
• (Help:My_sandbox)

In-Class Editing Exercise: Sandbox, Talkpage, Userpage

a: Ensure you are logged on to Wikipedia.

b: Practice in your Sandbox

• Open your sandbox and click "edit"
• Find the "visual editor" by clicking on the pencil and choosing "visual editor". This allows you to bypass the "wikicode".
• Type in the name of your group's assigned Wikipedia article. e.g.: Asthma. Add a link to the name of your article by highlighting your article name and clicking on the "link" button. Click "Publish Changes" to finish this edit.
• Determine how many people view your article a year

-Access the WMF Page View Analysis Tool

-Insert your article name and set the "date type" to monthly. In the far right you will see "Pageviews". Record your monthly average article pages views (copy and paste this info) in your sandbox beside your group article name

e.g., type in: Asthma received an monthly average of 69,180 page views over the past 12 months.

• 2nd edit: Paste Assignment # 2 into your sandbox and click "publish changes".
• Review assignment # 2 in your sandbox and try to clean up spacing and formatting by experimenting with the visual editor formatting tools.

c: Go to your article’s talk page

• Read through the comments, check the talk page archive
• One group member: Click “New Section” to introduce your group

• Add in a Heading. (e.g.: “Queen’s University Student Editing Initiative”)
• Add in a few sentence introducing your work (sign with 4 x ~)

e.g.: Hello, we are a group of medical student’s from Queen’s University. We are working to improve this article over the next two weeks and will posting our planned changes on this talk page. We look forward to working with the existing Wikipedia medical editing community to improve this article and share evidence. We welcome feedback and suggestions as we learn to edit. Thank you. JenOttawa (talk) 22:57, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

d: Course Dashboard Review

• Review your class dashboard and ensure that 1) Your Wikipedia username is there and 2) you have selected your article via the sandbox. Try and find your other group members. You can see links to their sandboxes via the "editors" tab in the dashboard.

e: Edit Wikipedia

• If there is time remaining, try editing an actual Wikipedia article.

• Read a Wikipedia article on a medical topic that interests you (or your group article): Note: Only one person can edit a particular Wikipedia article at a time
• Find a typo and correct it
• Click "Publish Changes"
• Add in an edit summary (e.g., "Fixed typo")
• Click "Publish Changes" again

Editing Wikipedia (live)!

Tip 1: Start small!

• Develop your Wikipedia editing skills by starting with small edits.
• Suggestions:

a. Read a Wikipedia article in your field and try to correct a few typos or improve the readability/neutrality.

b. Work up to adding in a new reference to support an existing sentence in a Wikipedia article (be sure to read WP:MEDRS or at least my cheat sheet to make sure that the content you are adding is appropriate as per Wikipedia's Guideline for Reliable Sources).