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Wikipedia talk:Education program archive/Kansas State University/Public History (Spring 2015)/Timeline

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Timeline

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The assignment is broken into 3 gates to help you keep track of the process and to ensure that you have enough time to become familiar with Wikipedia. Though grading will be focused on the final product of a Wikipedia article. Here are some deadlines for finishing the individual gates:

  • Gate 1: April 17– Complete introduction to Wikipedia and select topic
  • Gate 2: April 24 – Begin research and writing on your topic, and get feedback and review from your peers
  • Gate 3: April 27 - add additional material to the topic on Wikipedia before the final day of the assignment due date

If you would like to see some examples of the kinds of contributions, you can model your work on the history sections on the following Wikipedia articles:

Gate 1
Due April 17

This gate is designed to get you familiar with Wikipedia: you will gain the necessary pieces of information to ensure that you understand the basics of Wikipedia:

  1. The first step for this assignment will be to create a Wikipedia account. To do this, go to the top right of any page on English Wikipedia and click on the “Sign Up” link. Fill out the form and make sure that you keep track of the user name that you choose.
  2. Next you will need to join the course page for our class. You can find the class page by typing “Education Program:Kansas State University/Public History (Spring 2015)” into the search bar for English Wikipedia. Join the class by clicking the “Enroll” button in the top left corner. The enrollment token will be “publichistory”. This page helps us keep track of the various activities you do on Wikipedia and will be a source of information as you progress throughout the semester.
  3. Take the Interactive Training under the “Resources” tab at the top of the page. Make sure that you complete all of the activities that it asks you do in your sandbox. These will provide you with a basic understanding of how to contribute to Wikipedia.
  4. Identify an article that you believe that you can edit. You are looking for articles about a particularly community in Kansas, that don't have a significant, well-cited, history section that documents that towns history. These articles can most easily be found at:
  5. List of cities in Kansas
  6. List of unincorporated communities in Kansas
  7. List of cities in Kansas
Gate 2

Gate two is designed to get you started with the assignment, to start we want to make sure you have sources to write the Wikipedia article.

  1. The first step is to find academic, scholarly or other reliable sources (editorially controlled newspapers) to help write the article. Remember Wikipedia articles are about organizing and summarizing major documented opinions on the subject. We recommend doing research with both paper and digital resources both available publically, such as the Kansas Historical Society website, like Newspapers.com or other library databases.
  2. Create a bulleted list of the sources you found on the sandbox assigned to you. Make sure that you use proper academic citations. Wikipedia doesn't have a standard citation style, but whichever style you choose (Chicago, etc.) be consistent. If you want, a tool similar to RefWorks, is available in the editing window called “Cite” — the tutorial introduces this tool, it makes it easier to add citations.
  3. Begin drafting your changes for the Wikipedia article in the sandbox, emphasizing the development of individual sections for the article. Remember, you will only be adding a limited amount of material, most the likely to the history section. Common sections for articles about towns or other populated places include an lead section, a section discussing history, and several sections discussing other characteristics of that town or city. Other sections likely will develop around different areas of discussion in the sources: but your focus is on the history of that town.
Gate 3

On Thursday, April 23th, you will get feedback from your peers and move the work you have been doing into the live Wikipedia article. After the feedback and writing the content for a public audience, explaining the information you find in sources as thoroughly and as clearly as possible. Also, remember, more sources does not necessarily make a better addition. Make sure that you are explaining thoroughly the information that you find in those sources, helping the reader.

Once you have finished your section draft, click the "Edit" button of your draft in the sandbox, and copy the text that you want to add the article. Then go to the article which you will add the text, and click "edit" on the history section or add a section using level 2 headers (for example "==History=="). Once you are happy with your addition to the article, and an edit summary describing where you drafted the content (for example "Moving from draft in User:USERNAME/Sandbox"). Make sure to click "save", to complete the addition of the material.

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