Wikipedia:Training/For students/Other topics 1
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Getting to know your topic area
Making your contribution to Wikipedia starts with finding an article to work on. That means avoiding Good Articles and Featured Articles -- these have usually been developed by expert Wikipedians, who carefully maintain them.
Instead, you'll want to look for poor articles in your topic area and make them better. That usually means 'start' and 'stub' class articles. (On the next slide, we'll show you how to find some of those).
Check the available literature in your course work, class readings, or academic journals. Are there important people, things, theories, or events that aren't developed very well on Wikipedia? Search Wikipedia with a few different search terms to be sure.
If you can find a lot of information on a topic in your class or library, but not much information on Wikipedia, that is an ideal situation to work from. The more information you have available, the easier it will be to make a good contribution.
If you're still stuck, check out this handout for more ideas.
