Wikipedia:University of Edinburgh/Events and Workshops/Burn's Night

Burn's Night in a nutshell:

Where?: In-person and remotely wherever you are
When?: 25 January 2024 2–5PM GMT
Cost: Free!!!
How do I sign up?: Register via Eventbrite.

Image gallery

Robert Burns (25 January 1759-21 July 1796).
A collection of poems and letters ascribed to Robert Burns, 1809.
A Ceilidh held in a hall at North Kessock, near Inverness.
Traditional Highland Dancers at Dornoch Highland Gathering.
Traditional Burn's Night Supper.
The Haggis being brought in to be addressed on Burn's Night, at Dundee Burn's Club.

New images for event

Cock-a-leekie soup from a Year in the Scots Kitchen by Catherine Brown
Bannock made with beremeal from Orkney
A Burns supperː clapshot, haggis, bannocks and cheese

Info about the event

Did you know that most volunteer Wikipedia editors are male, and that there are fewer and less extensive articles on Wikipedia about women and issues important to women? There are thousands of notable women who meet Wikipedia’s standards for notability but don’t yet have a page.

Come and help us add more Women Writers and Poets to Wikipedia at our Burns Night editathon!

Your 1,2,3,4 to get started!

Link to online webinar
Create your Wikipedia account
Once you have created your account join the Wiki dashboard
View our Worklist below and Add your chosen page here to let others know which page you have decided to research and write about today.

Still not sure where to start? Have a look at the suggested obits on notable women and our monthly Women in Red worklist of pages to create/improve below and decide who you want to work on. More redlinks can be found on WikiProject Women in Red's crowdsourced and Wikidata-driven Redlist index.

Schedule

Online training webinar on Thursday 25 January 2024 will begin at 2.15pm (BST). Please login at 2pm.
Link to online webinar

2:00 pm – 2:15 pm: Everyone log-in and housekeeping
2:15pm – 3:15pm: Welcome and Wikipedia training from Ewan McAndrew and Ellie Whitehead.
3:15pm – 3.30pm: Tea and comfort break.
3:30pm – 5:00pm Research and Editing with aim to publish by 5:30pm
5:00pm – 5:20pm: Publish articles with help from Ewan and Ellie
5:20pm – 5:30pm Event recap and close

Join us as we help make Wikipedia better!

Editing

Questions about editing? Read the Wiki-editing FAQ!

Use the PrepBio tool

The PrepBio tool is very handy for creating stub entries on Wikipedia using the structured data information in Wikidata.
Employed by Edinburgh University list
Women educated at the University of Edinburgh with no Wiki article
Women born in Edinburgh
Women who died in Edinburgh
Women employed by Edinburgh University without an article
Female Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh

Worklist

Cite what you write! 50–100 words or more written with a neutral point of view AND backed up with citations from reliable published secondary sources is enough to get a new article published. e.g. Example of minimum requirements

Robert Burns

Robert Burns - no mention/photo of his skull on his Wikipedia page! [1][2][3][4]
- Read up on Robert Burns in Edinburgh on this Edinburgh library resource - can any of this be added to his page?

Scottish Women Poets

Scottish Women Writers

Scottish Gaelic Writers

Burns' Daughters

Poems by Robert Burns

Now Westlin' Winds
I Dream'd I Lay
A Poet’s Welcome to His Love Begotten Daughter – one of the first poems to be written by a father to his daughter.
The Highland Lassie O, Highland Mary and To Mary in Heaven – about Mary Campbell

Scottish Tradition

Food and Drink industry in Scotland
Culture of Scottish Mining
Scottish lilt, Flora McDonald's Fancy, Sailor's Hornpipe and The Scotch Measure – types of Highland Dance

Some articles could also be improved/expanded. A few suggestions:

Highland Dress - only small part about women – majority about men/only pictures of men
Burns Cottage
Gay Gordon's - Dance - the history of it/meaning/where did it come from/when does it happen
Ceilidh – images from America
Scottish Country Dance – images from America
James Macsween and Jo Macsween - create pages for the Macsween family
Haggis - to include the names of James and Jo Macsween

Task for 25 January workshop – writing AND publishing your 1st Wikipedia page

Research an article missing from Wikipedia. We are looking to draft 50–100 words+ in your own words and where you cite what you write (citations after the full stop) with at least 2-3 references. e.g. something like this or longer.
Use the Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women to write your new Wikipedia page in your Sandbox and use the ISBN number 978-1-4744-3627-4 when citing this book (and add the page number consulted also).
Add your chosen page here so class mates know you have reserved an article to work on

Ideas for articles to create

Margaret Laidlaw – m. Hogg, born Ettrick 1730, died Ettrick 1813. Tradition-bearer.
Robena Anna Laidlaw (later Anna Robena), m. Thomson, born Bretton, Yorkshire, 30 April 1819, died London 29 May 1901. Pianist.
Mary Lamond – born Edinburgh 22 Feb. 1862, died 15 March 1949. Deaconess and president, Church of Scotland Woman’s Guild.
Ena Lamont Stewart (Murdina May Lamont Stewart), n. Lamont, born Glasgow 10 Feb. 1912, died Dalmellington 9 Feb. 2006. Playwright.
Margaret Troup Laws - n. Gray, born Aberdeen, 4 Feb. 1849, died Edinburgh 17 Sept. 1921. Teacher, translator, missionary.
Margaret Leigh (Margaret Mary Leigh), born Oxford 17 Dec. 1894, died Inverness 7 April 1973. Author and farmer.
Rev. Dr Mary Irene Levison , n. Lusk, born Oxford, 8 Jan. 1923, died Edinburgh, 12 Sept. 2011. Church of Scotland minister.
Jennifer McCrindle aka Jenny McCrindle, born Glasgow 19 Sept. 1968, died Glasgow 26 Oct. 2014. Actor. Daughter of Libby Robertson, office worker, and George McCrindle, insurance agent.
Ann Smith MacDonald aka Annie Smith MacDonald n. Johnston, born Barony, Lanark, 20 Nov. 1849, died Edinburgh 21 Oct. 1924. Artistic bookbinder. Daughter of Lucy Leitch, and Fred Johnston, bank cashier.
Louisa MacDonald (scholar) born Arbroath 10 Dec. 1858, died Marylebone, London, 28 Nov. 1949. Scholar, pioneering college principal, Australia. Daughter of Ann Kidd, and John Macdonald, WS and town clerk.
Margaret MacDonald (estate manager), of Sleat, n. Montgomerie, born Eglinton c. 1716, died 30 March 1799. Estate manager. Daughter of Susanna Kennedy of Culzean, and Alexander, 9th Earl of Eglinton.
Mary MacDonald (poet) n. MacDougall, born Ardtun, Isle of Mull, 1789, died Ardtun 21 May 1872. Gaelic poet and hymn writer. . Daughter of Anne Morrison, and Duncan MacDougall, farmer.
Lily McDougall aka Lily Martha Maud McDougall, born Glasgow 25 July 1875, died Edinburgh 21 Dec. 1958. Artist and hostess. Daughter of Matilda Milne, and William Henrie McDougall, banker.
Agnes McDouall, n. Buchan-Hepburn, born East Linton 27 Sept. 1838, died Logan 15 March 1926. Gardener and plant collector. Daughter of Helen Little, and Sir Thomas Buchan-Hepburn.
Hope MacDougall, MACDOUGALL of MacDougall, Margaret Hope Garnons, born Athlone, Ireland 21 Jan. 1913, died Oban 22 Dec. 1998. Historian and collector. Daughter of Colina MacDougall, and Alexander James MacDougall, Chief of the Clan MacDougall.
Helen MacFarlane, [Howard Morton], m1 Proust, m2 Edwards, born Barrhead 25 Dec. 1818, died Baddiley, near Nantwich, 29 Mar. 1860. Radical journalist, first translator of The Communist Manifesto. Daughter of Helen Stenhouse, and George Macfarlane, owner of calico-printing mills.
Jessie MacFarlane, m. Brodie, born Edinburgh 20 Jan. 1843, died Edinburgh 18 August 1871. Itinerant preacher. Daughter of Mary Maxwell Turner, and Archibald McFarlane, clothier.
Margaret McGhie, fl. 1760–1770s, Aberdeen. Innkeeper.
Betty MacGregor aka Elizabeth MacGregor Janet Elizabeth (Betty), MD, FRCPath, OBE, n. McPherson, born Glasgow 12 Jan. 1920, died Lynn of Lorne 8 Oct. 2005. Doctor and cytol�ogist. Daughter of Jean (Jennie) Craig, and Andrew McPherson, company secretary.
Margaret MacGregor Margaret Ann Kinniburgh, n. Burns, baptised Edinburgh 11 Nov. 1838, died Glasgow 20 Jan. 1901. Bible Woman and Lady Mission Superintendent. Daughter of Jeanie Marshall, and James Burns, clerk.
Frances McIan Frances Matilda (Fanny), n. Whitaker, m1 McIan, m2 Unwin, born Bath c. 1814, died London 7 April 1897. Artist, painter of Highland scenes. Daughter of Sarah Hawkins, upholsterer, and William Whitaker, cabinetmaker.

Upcoming research sessions

Thursday 25 January - 2–5pm in the Digital Scholarship Centre, 6th floor of the Main Library. Book your space here!

Join WikiProject Women in Red

Join WikiProject Women in Red by registering in the box at the top of the WIR page. You can then add a userbox to your user page.

Things to remember – anyone can edit BUT cite what you write!

Wikipedia is a tertiary source. Articles are backed up by facts from reliable, published secondary sources. Primary sources tend not to be used. A breadth & depth of quality sources helps demonstrates notability which is an important yardstick for articles staying on Wikipedia.
Write with encyclopedic content in mind. Not academic essay. Strip back your writing to the facts.
Write accessibly with a lay audience in mind. Any jargon needs explained the first time it is mentioned.
Write with a neutral point of view. Split text up into sections with headings.
Cite everything you write. Keep a note of urls (open access if possible), Journal articles DOI identifiers, Book ISBN numbers. Page numbers, volume numbers and book chapters should be included in your citation information too.
Draft content in your sandbox draft space first. Wikipedia is a work in progress for sure but you can prepare articles or new sections for articles in peace in your personal draft space (the sandbox) and migrate it when ready.
Write in your own words as much as possible. Even close paraphrasing counts as copyright violation. Short quotes can be included but need to be attributed.
Links in the main body of the article should only be to other Wikipedia pages. You only need to add links when the term is first mentioned in the article. Linking every time is considered overlinking. Sites outside of Wikipedia should be linked in a separate section at the foot of the page with an External links heading. No more than 5–8 links to websites outside of Wikipedia – we are not a link farm!
Images have to open-licensed to be allowed on Wikipedia. CC-0, Public domain, CC-BY, CC-BY-SA licensed images are allowed and are hosted on sister project, Wikimedia Commons. Open images can be searched for using search aggregator tools such as CC Search.

Some short video tutorials

These are all embedded in our student-created Wikimedian in Residence website here to make the how & why of editing Wikipedia much easier to engage with. Undergraduate student Hannah Rothmann’s work creating this website and the video resources above in lockdown Summer 2020 won an Open Education Global award recently. Because we felt that students, educators and everyone should be able to do this much more simply and have this ‘need to know’ information readily and openly available so I hope this is of use to you.

Images and videos

Video of a seal at Newburgh beach, Aberdeenshire (my home town)

Wikipedia pages can feel a tad lifeless without an image or short video to help illustrate it. We can change that. We can edit!
Just have a look at the images and videos we have added to the University of Edinburgh library page by way of illustration!

You can add pictures for use on Wiki-pages and beyond on Wikimedia Commons. Your Wikipedia account will work on Commons too – as well as all the other Wiki-projects and different language versions of Wikipedia.
Openverse.org - You can use image search tools like Openverse.org to find open-licensed images elsewhere on the internet. Just restrict your search for acceptable open-licensed images by filtering to only (1) Public domain, (2) CC-0, (3) CC-BY, or (4) CC-BY-SA images.
Wikimedia Commons – Once you have found an image with one of these licences then you can upload this image to Wikimedia Commons (a media repository of over 90 million free to use images, sound clips and movie clips) and it can then be inserted into a Wikipedia page.
Commons:Flickr2Commons is a handy tool to help import both an image and its description information across from Flickr automatically using the unique Flickr image ID or Flickr album ID to import an entire album of images. You just need to login to the tool on Mediawiki using your same Commons login details.
Commons:Video2commons is another handy tool to help convert video files to acceptable open formats (.ogg and .webm) for Wikimedia Commons and auto import the file to Commons once conversion is complete. You just need to login to the tool on Mediawiki using your same Commons login details.

Why not help document cultural heritage as part of the world's largest photo competition, Wiki Loves Monuments, where thousands of photos of listed buildings and monuments worldwide (interiors and exteriors) are uploaded for the benefit of the global open knowledge community every year

After today

Once you've learned the basics of editing using Wikipedia’s Visual Editor, I hope that you'll stay logged in and edit or create more articles. As a first step you may like to check out what What Wikipedia is not along with its 5 guiding principles: The 5 pillars. Some ways to keep track of your edits

You can view all your contributions to Wikipedia by clicking "Contributions" (in the top right of this page).
The Pageviews tool is a great way of measuring how many people are looking at the page you created/edited. You can even export the data if you'd like it for reports, etc.

The Wikipedia Adventure Start Page – a fun tutorial introducing new editors to Wikipedia
Visual Editor user guide
Questions – a guide on where to ask questions
The Teahouse new editor help space
Wikipedia Help pages
The simplified ruleset – a summary of Wikipedia's most important rules
Is your topic notable enough for an article?
Be Bold!
Don't let grumpy users scare you off.
Learn from others
How to write a great article
A simplified manual of style

Please sign your messages on talk pages with four tildes (~~~~). This will automatically insert your "signature" (your username and a date stamp). The or button, on the tool bar above Wikipedia's text editing window, also does this.
If you would like to play around with your new Wiki skills without changing the mainspace, the Sandbox is for you.
Check out upcoming Wikimedia in Scotland editing events.
Check out upcoming Wikimedia UK editing events.

Video guides to editing Wikipedia