Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Capilano University/ENGL 300 - Digital Writing Studio (Spring 2017)
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- Course name
- ENGL 300 - Digital Writing Studio
- Institution
- Capilano University
- Instructor
- Brian Ganter
- Wikipedia Expert
- Shalor (Wiki Ed)
- Subject
- Writing, Rhetoric, Style (Advanced Writing in the Digital Age)
- Course dates
- 2017-01-05 00:00:00 UTC – 2017-05-12 23:59:59 UTC
- Approximate number of student editors
- 35
This course introduces students to various genres and platforms of “writing” (composition, research, scholarship, and public writing) in the age of digital environments.
Timeline
Week 1
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 21 February 2017
- In class - Introduction to the Wikipedia project for ENGL 300 (Capilano University)
Welcome to your Wikipedia project's course timeline for the "Wikipedia Read|Write" Assignment. This page will guide you through the Wikipedia project for your course, ENGL 300, Digital Writing Studio.
This page breaks down the writing, editing and/or revising of a Wikipedia article into a series of steps, or milestones. These steps include a few online trainings to help you get started on Wikipedia. It also outlines what is specific about our ENGL 300 assignment: how can we apply our discussions of rhetoric, digital rhetoric and style to the execution of a collaborative writing assignment?
Our course has also been assigned a Wikipedia Content Expert. Check your Talk page for notes from them. You can also reach them through the "Get Help" button on this page.
To get started, please review the following handouts:
- Editing Wikipedia pages 1–5
- Evaluating Wikipedia
- In class - Getting Started & Practicing the Basics
- If you do not have an account on Wikipedia already you can open one by clicking the "Log In" link at the top right corner of any standard Wikipedia page.
- Create an account (using your course avatar name if possible -- or something similar). Then join our custom "ENGL 300" Wiki Edu course page, using the enrollment link your instructor sent you by e-mail. The link should be in your Capilano University Student e-mail.
- Now it's time to dive into Wikipedia. Below, you'll find the first set of online trainings you'll need to take. New modules will appear on this timeline as you get to new milestones. Be sure to check back and complete them! Incomplete trainings will be reflected in your grade.
- Finally, once you finish the trainings below, practice getting around by introducing yourself or saying "hello" to a classmate on that classmate’s Talk page.
- Assignment - Assignments and Final Reflection
This assignment moves through a few different phases. We will start by doing a few minor edits on Wikipedia directly. The bulk of our assignment however, will be working on our drafts behind the scenes, using our own personal page and this private course dashboard to work on. Only later on will we move our writing into public onto the live Wikipedia front page.
Make a note: the "Wikipedia Read|Write" Project concludes with a response paper in which you reflect upon your experiences in the assignment itself. This will be our second and final response paper for ENGL 300.
Take a moment, at the start of this project, and make a few written notes about your expectations, perhaps biases or initial impressions about the project or about writing for or editing Wikipedia. What academic writing skills, if any, might you gain (or lose)? Are you skeptical about the usefulness of the project? Peer review will happen here; is that a useful part of a writing process for you? What do you think about having your writing edited or deleted by others? By anonymous Wikipedians? How was your childhood? Tell me all about your mother....
Later on you can refer to ways in which these expectations were confirmed or refuted at the completion of the project -- in your concluding response paper.
These initial notes or thoughts will not be collected or marked.
- Milestones
By the end of this first week, everyone should have a Wikipedia account.
Week 2
- Course meetings
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- Tuesday, 28 February 2017
- Assignment - Evaluating Articles and Sources
It's time to think critically about Wikipedia articles. In this section you will evaluate a Wikipedia article of your choice, and leave at least two suggestions (or more if you like) for improving it on the article's Talk page.
Step One
- First, complete the "Evaluating Articles and Sources" training (linked below).
Then move on to Step Two
- Select an article -- NOT the one you wish to revise or add to. We will get to that later. Consider some questions for the article you just selected (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?
- Feeling overwhelmed? Start simple. Focus on a word in an article that could be replaced by another (better, more accurate or complex) word. Make this your suggested change, and do it twice.
- Choose at least 2 questions relevant to the article you're evaluating. Leave your evaluation on the article's Talk page. The Talk page can be accessed on the upper left of any Wikipedia article. The format for talking is loose, so make it up as you go along if you are unsure.
- Be sure to sign your feedback with four tildes — Vlone6 (talk) 15:37, 25 April 2017 (UTC). This will automatically insert the time and your user name into the comment.
- Assignment - Getting Started and Practice
- Copy Editing an Article
In this assignment you will practice using the Edit Page. It can be found at the top right of any Wikipedia page.
Choose any Wikipedia article. It should be different than the one you have selected above.
Click on "Edit" on the upper right, and use this page to read through and make three copy edits. This might involve things such as fixing grammatical mistakes; breaking up longer sentences into shorter sentences; joining two shorter sentences to make longer sentences, or adding transition phrases ("however"; "first, second, third"; "moreover"; "for example"; etc.). Then, make the appropriate changes. Save them by clicking the "Save" button at the bottom. Return to the "Article" front page to make sure your changes were accepted.
For this assignment you DO NOT need to contribute new information, ideas, or research to your chosen article.
- In class - Talking Points
- In-Class Discussion on the"Rhetoric of Neutrality"
Now that you're thinking about what makes a "good" Wikipedia article, consider some additional questions about "neutrality."
- How do we define "neutral"? Does it mean the same thing as "objective"? "Balanced"? "Unbiased"?
- How do different rhetorical communities define neutrality or balance differently? An encyclopedia editor? A journalist? An academic?
- Does neutrality indicate the absence of bias? Or a heightened awareness of one's own bias? Are those the same thing? Should a writer be "up front" about his/her biases? Or can he/she simply cast them aside? Example for discussion: The political leanings of a teacher.
- Why do we value the lack of bias?
- Milestones
Students will learn how to use the Talk page and the Edit page to propose or make changes on an article.
Week 3
- Course meetings
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- Tuesday, 7 March 2017
- Assignment - Start by Choosing a Broad Topic, Then Select an Article
Crack your knuckles and get down to the business of narrowing down a topic and selecting a Wikipedia article you can either REVISE or WRITE from the ground up.
Start by choosing a possible topic and looking at articles within that topic area that might be related to one another.
- Review page 6 of your Editing Wikipedia guidebook.
- Choose 3 potential articles in the same topic area that you can tackle, and post links to the three articles on your Wikipedia user page. For articles that already exist, check the Talk page to get ideas about what other Wikipedians might be doing.
- The aim here is to narrow down and choose a final article to work on not because it seems to "need work" but because it represents some particular expertise of yours.
- Indicate your final article on your Talk page and if it exists include a link to it.
- Next we move on to rounding up some sources.
- Assignment - Finalize your topic / Find your sources
- On the Students tab, assign your chosen topic to yourself. (If the article you've chosen does not exist yet, assign yourself your article title as it will be when you're finished.)
- In your sandbox, write a few sentences about what you plan to contribute to the selected article.
- Think back to when you did an article critique. What can you add? Post some of your ideas to the article's talk page, too.
- Compile a list of relevant, reliable books, journal articles, or other sources. Post that bibliography to the talk page of the article you'll be working on, and in your sandbox. Make sure to check in on the Talk page to see if anyone has advice on your bibliography.
- Assignment - Draft your article
You've picked a topic and found your sources. Now it's time to start writing.
Creating a new article?
- Write an outline of that topic in the form of a standard Wikipedia article's "lead section." Write it in your sandbox.
- A "lead" section is not a traditional introduction. It should summarize, very briefly, what the rest of the article will say in detail. The first paragraph should include important, broad facts about the subject. A good example is Ada Lovelace. See Editing Wikipedia page 9 for more ideas.
Improving an existing article?
- Identify what's missing from the current form of the article. Think back to the skills you learned while critiquing an article. Make notes for improvement in your sandbox.
Keep reading your sources, too, as you prepare to write the body of the article.
Resources: Editing Wikipedia pages 7–9
- Milestones
Everyone has selected a topic, picked an article and started writing
Week 4
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 14 March 2017
- Assignment - Expand your draft
- writing, research, conventions
- Keep working on transforming your article into a complete first draft. Get draft ready for peer-review.
- If you'd like a Content Expert to review your draft, now is the time! Click the "Get Help" button in your sandbox to request notes.
- Assignment - Peer review and copy edit
- First, take the "Peer Review" online training.
- Select two classmates’ articles that you will peer review and copyedit. On the Articles tab, find the articles that you want to review, and then assign them to yourself in the Review column.
- Peer review your classmates' drafts. Leave suggestions on on the Talk page of the article, or sandbox, that your fellow student is working on. Other editors may be reviewing your work, so look for their comments! Be sure to acknowledge feedback from other Wikipedians.
- As you review, make spelling, grammar, and other adjustments. Pay attention to the tone of the article. Is it encyclopedic?
- 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. It's time to work with that feedback to improve your article!
- Read Editing Wikipedia pages 12 and 14.
- Return to your draft or article and think about the suggestions. Decide which ones to start implementing. Reach out to your instructor or your Content Expert if you have any questions.
Week 5
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 21 March 2017
- Assignment - Begin moving your work to Wikipedia
Once you've made improvements to your article based on peer review feedback, it's time to move your work to Wikipedia proper - the "mainspace."
Editing an existing article?
- NEVER copy and paste your draft of an article over the entire article. Instead, edit small sections at a time.
- Copy your edits into the article. Make many small edits, saving each time, and leaving an edit summary. Never replace more than one to two sentences without saving!
Creating a new article?
- Read Editing Wikipedia page 13, and follow those steps to move your article from your Sandbox to Mainspace.
- You can also review the [[../../../training/students/sandboxes|Sandboxes and Mainspace]] online training.
- Assignment - Continue improving your article
Do additional research and writing to make further improvements to your article, based on suggestions and your own critique.
- Read Editing Wikipedia page 12 to see how to create links from your article to others, and from other articles to your own. Try to link to 3–5 articles, and link to your article from 2–3 other articles.
- 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 Content Expert at any time if you need further help!
Week 6
- Course meetings
-
- Tuesday, 28 March 2017
- Assignment - Final article
It's the final week to develop your article.
- Read Editing Wikipedia page 15 to review a final check-list before completing your assignment.
- Don't forget that you can ask for help from your Content Expert at any time!
- Assignment - Response Paper
Write a short response paper (2–3 paragraphs) on your experience with Wikipedia and the Wikipedia assignment.
Consider the following questions as you reflect on our course Wikipedia assignment:
- Critiquing articles: What did you learn about Wikipedia during the article evaluation? How did you approach critiquing the article you selected for this assignment? How did you decide what to add to your chosen article?
- Summarizing your contributions: include a summary of your edits and why you felt they were a valuable addition to the article. How does your article compare to earlier versions?
- Peer Review: If your class did peer review, include information about the peer review process. What did you contribute in your review of your peers article? What did your peers recommend you change on your article?
- Feedback: Did you receive feedback from other Wikipedia editors, and if so, how did you respond to and handle that feedback?
- Wikipedia generally: What did you learn from contributing to Wikipedia? How does a Wikipedia assignment compare to other assignments you've done in the past? How can Wikipedia be used to improve public understanding of our field/your topic? Why is this important?
- Milestones
Everyone should have finished all of the work they'll do on Wikipedia, and be ready for grading.