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Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Vanderbilt University/Research on Conflict and Collective Action (spring 2022)

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Course name
Research on Conflict and Collective Action
Institution
Vanderbilt University
Instructor
Carwil Bjork-James
Wikipedia Expert
Ian (Wiki Ed)
Subject
Anthropology
Course dates
2022-01-17 00:00:00 UTC – 2022-05-06 23:59:59 UTC
Approximate number of student editors
5


Course description: Students on the Bjork-James team of the Research on Conflict and Collective Action will be working on Ultimate Consequences, comprehensive database of deaths in Bolivian political conflict during the democratic era, 1982–present.

Our project draws on journalistic, advocacy, and scholarly sources to comprehensively document all deaths in political conflict. This approach overlaps with Wikipedia's focus on verifiability, neutral point of view, use of reliable sources, and careful research. Many events described in the database are notable, a criterion for inclusion on Wikipedia.

For this semester, students will write narrative accounts for events in which 4 or more people were killed (currently n=32). The accounts will summarize the protest campaign underway, participating movements, nature and sequence of deadly events, responsibility for deaths, outcomes for movements, and accountability for perpetrators of violence. Narratives will only draw on existing sources and avoid "original research", as defined on Wikipedia.

Main article writing goal: Your goal for this assignment is to produce a page that meets the Good Article criteria (WP:GA?). That page explains these criteria, which can be summarized as well-written, with a defined structure, well-researched, broad in its coverage, and neutral.

Writing advice: The Perfect Wikipedia Article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:The_perfect_article | Writing Better Articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Writing_better_articles

Student Assigned Reviewing
19tgraglia
Alwalk
Sophia244 User:Hcb8513/sandbox
Hcb8513

Timeline

Week 2

Course meetings
Tuesday, 1 February 2022
In class - Introduction to the Wikipedia assignment

Welcome to your Wikipedia assignment's course timeline. This page guides you through the steps you'll need to complete for your Wikipedia assignment, with links to training modules and your classmates' work spaces.

Your course has been assigned a Wikipedia Expert. You can reach them through the Get Help button at the top of this page.

Resources:

Assignment - Get started on Wikipedia

Create an account and join this course page, using the enrollment link your instructor sent you. (Because of Wikipedia's technical restraints, you may receive a message that you cannot create an account. To resolve this, please try again off campus or the next day.)

When you finish the trainings, practice by introducing yourself to a classmate on that classmate’s Talk page.

Milestones

This week, everyone should have a Wikipedia account.

Week 3

Course meetings
Tuesday, 8 February 2022
Assignment - Evaluate Wikipedia

 It's time to think critically about Wikipedia articles. You'll evaluate a Wikipedia article, and leave suggestions for improving it on the article's Talk page.

  • Complete the "Evaluating Articles and Sources" training (linked below).
  • Choose an article, and consider some questions (but don't feel limited to these): 
    • Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference?
    • Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?
    • Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
    • Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?
    • Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
    • Check a few citations. Do the links work? Is there any close paraphrasing or plagiarism in the article?
    • Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?
In class - Discussion

Week 4

Course meetings
Tuesday, 15 February 2022
Assignment - Add to an article

Your goal in this assignment is to add one to three cited sentences to an article. You may choose to either edit the article that you critiqued in Week 3, or an article related to the place you are working on for the Land Acknowledgement segment, due next week.

Assignment - Choose possible topics



Resource: Editing Wikipedia, page 6

Week 5

Course meetings
Tuesday, 22 February 2022
In class - Consider these resource in your editing and writing process…

 

 

Guide(s) for writing articles in your topic area

Cultural Anthropology (important side note: some parts of ethnographies are great reliable sources and others should be carefully attributed. Ask me in class about the differences if you are using an ethnography as a source.)

History

Assignment - Start drafting your contributions

Resource: Editing Wikipedia, pages 7–9

Milestones

Everyone has begun writing their article drafts.

First checkpoint requirements:

  • Write an initial lead section and a complete outline of the article (using section headers of various levels) and post it to your userspace.
  • You must post a bibliography of at least ten sources you plan to use to somewhere in your userspace (preferred), or on the article’s talk page. Provide the reference information, not just weblinks.

Week 6

Course meetings
Tuesday, 1 March 2022
In class - Complete draft of your aticle (Second Checkpoint)

Post a complete draft of your aticle (later modifications and expansions are permitted). Refer to the assignment sheet for overall advice and resources.

Your goal for this assignment is to produce a page that meets the Good Article criteria (WP:GA?). That page explains these criteria, which can be summarized as well-written, with a defined structure, well-researched, broad in its coverage, and neutral. For technical reasons, we won’t be requiring that the article be illustrated (criterion 6), although you may add images if you wish. Your article won’t be judged on its stability from conflicting edits (criterion 5) either. As something of fall-back, read the B-class criteria on WP:ASSESS, as a minimum standard. (To see each level in detail, you will have to click the [show] links.)

If you are expanding one section of an article, you are strongly advised to write a multi-paragraph summary and then expand the section into a sub-article as explained on WP:SUMMARY. You’ll use a little trick called {{Main}} to link one to the other, which I can demonstrate in class.

Second checkpoint requirements:

  • Your draft article is clearly written and supported by referenced facts. There is an overall outline of sections and subsections that makes sense for the article and that describes major aspects of the topic (even if those sections have not been fully written yet).
  • Your first-draft version of the article has a lead that complies with WP:LEAD.
  • Your draft article should include specific facts directly referenced to at least five of these sources.
Assignment - Peer review one article

Use this guided framework step by step. While you are here to be encouraging, the most important gifts you can give your classmates are your clear impressions, your evaluations on ALL of the suggested criteria, and helpful suggestions for improvement.Guiding framework

Week 7

Course meetings
Tuesday, 15 March 2022
Milestones

Every student has finished reviewing their assigned articles, making sure that every article has been reviewed.

Assignment - Respond to your peer review

You probably have some feedback from other students and possibly other Wikipedians. Consider their suggestions, decide whether it makes your work more accurate and complete, and edit your draft to make those changes.

Resources:

  • Editing Wikipedia, pages 12 and 14
  • Reach out to your Wikipedia Expert if you have any questions.
Assignment - Continue improving your article

Now's the time to revisit your text and refine your work. You may do more research and find missing information; rewrite the lead section to represent all major points; reorganize the text to communicate the information better; or add images and other media.

Week 8

Course meetings
Tuesday, 22 March 2022
Assignment - Begin moving your work to Wikipedia

Now that you've improved your draft based on others' feedback, it's time to move your work live - to the "mainspace."

Resource: Editing Wikipedia, page 13

In class - Share, Review, Repeat?

With one article each posted to Wikipedia's article space, we will meet to review the narratives, articles and what we've learned so far. At this point, we will decide whether to repeat the drafting process to post additional articles this semester.

Week 9

Course meetings
Tuesday, 29 March 2022
Assignment - Exercise
Assignment - Polish your work

Continue to expand and improve your work, and format your article to match Wikipedia's tone and standards. Remember to contact your Wikipedia Expert at any time if you need further help!

Week 10

Course meetings
Tuesday, 5 April 2022

Week 11

Course meetings
Tuesday, 12 April 2022

Week 12

Course meetings
Tuesday, 19 April 2022

Week 13

Course meetings
Tuesday, 26 April 2022

Week 14

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