Wikipedia:School and university projects/Piotrus course intro boilerplate: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 22:21, 5 May 2011

Revision as of 22:30, 5 May 2011

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[[Wikipedia:Tutorial]] is the best place to start your adventure with this [[wiki]]. Please familiarize yourself with [[Wikipedia:School and university projects - instructions for students|instructions for students]] and if you have any questions, check the [[Wikipedia:FAQ/Editing]] or [[Help:Contents]] and if you cannot find what you are looking for, ask the friendly people at [[Wikipedia:Help desk]] - or just <[[User_talk:Piotrus|contact me]] - '''replace Piotrus with instructor username here'''>.

Before making any major edits, it is recommended that you [[Special:Userlogin|create an account]] ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WP_tutorial_en_New_user_account.ogg video tutorial]). You '''definitely need to have an account''' before attempting to do any wiki-related coursework (otherwise we will be unable to confirm if you have completed the exercise). After you create an account, if you know your group already, add your name [[#Editors in SOC0438|to the relevant section of this page]].

Remember that Wikipedia is not a project limited only to [[University of Pittsburgh|our university]]. We are guests here and we should all behave accordingly. Please make sure you read [[Wikipedia:Wikiquette]]. Please try to think what impression you want other Wikipedians to have of our university — and of yourselves.

You should expect that the course lecturer, other students, your friends, and even (or especially) other Wikipedia editors (not affiliated with our course) will [[Wikipedia:Talk page|leave you various messages]] on your [[Wikipedia:Talk page|talk pages]]. When working on the exercises below, you should log in to Wikipedia and check your messages as often as you check your email (I strongly recommend you read 'as often' as 'at least daily'). Whenever you have a new message and are logged to Wikipedia, you will see a large orange message, 'You have new messages', on every Wikipedia page you access. To make this message disappear, you should click on it and read the message. Note that it is customary to leave new messages at the bottom of the talk/discussion pages, and to reply to somebody's messages on their talk pages. If you want to leave somebody a message, make sure you are editing their talk page, not their [[Wikipedia:User page|user page]]. Remember to [[Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages|sign your talk and discussion messages]] ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Talkpages.ogg you may want to watch this tutorial on using talk pages]).

Some other useful tips: whenever you are done with an edit and want to save a page, fill out the [[Wikipedia:Edit summary|edit summary box]] and [[Wikipedia:Show preview|view a preview of the page after your edit]] to make sure it looks as you actually want it to look. Only then click the "Save Page" button. You may find the [[Wikipedia:Page history|page history tool]] and [[Wikipedia:Watchlist help|watchlist tools]] to be very useful when you want to check what changes by other editors have been made to the article(s) you are working on.

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* '''Plan'''. But minor edits alone won't get us much closer towards [[WP:GA|Good Article status]]. We need to have a sense of what more needs to be done, and an overall plan for the article. Look at [[Wikipedia:GA#Social_sciences_and_society|models]] and guidelines (e.g. [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style|Manual of Style]] or the [[Wikipedia:Guide for nominating good articles|Guide for nominating good articles]]). What sections are required? What will be the article structure? What information is needed? Who in your group will write what?

*By Monday, May 24, each group should have an article selected. You should inform the instructor of your article selection (you can email the instructor or post a message to his talk page, or talk to him before or after the class). Make sure it is listed next to your group in the [[#Articles edited|Articles edited]] section of our wiki page. (2P) Also, find a Wikipedia article that is missing an inline reference (different from the article your group is working on); find and add a reliable inline reference to it (2P) and post some constructive suggestions on how to improve the article further on the article talk page (1P). '''Finishing this assignment on time is worth 5% of the course grade.'''

*By Wednesday, May 26, you should have a plan (who will read what, who will work on what aspects of the article) in place. You should post a preliminary "to-do" list on article's discussion page and inform the instructor that you have done so. The "to do" list should consist of a list of what points you will cover in your article, how it will be structured, who will work on what sections, and a short list of resources. This list should be about one page in length if you need a yardstick. ''Each'' group member should participate in creation of that list, describing their own tasks. If the article does not exist, you should [[WP:STUB|stub (start)]] it (see [[Wikipedia:SUBSTUB#Differences_between_a_stub_and_a_substub|what makes a good stub]] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:How_to_create_a_Wikipedia_article_-_Right_to_science_and_culture.ogv you may want to watch this "article creation" tutorial]). '''Finishing this assignment on time is worth 5% of the course grade.'''. Groups which create very good to do lists and stubs may receive up to 2 {{fontcolor|green|extra credit}} points (2P).

* As another {{fontcolor|green|extra credit}} 2P activity, post a constructive question, related to your project, to [[Wikipedia:Reference desk]]. Report what answer you got on your article talk page and notify the instructor about your report with a diff. (Note: it may take a day or so for a reply to be posted to your question at the reference desk)

* '''Share'''. You will need to divide up the tasks that we've identified in the planning stage. Who is going to do what and when?

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;Talk pages

Whenever editing a talk page, add four tildes <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> to the end of all comments you make on talk pages. This will let people know who is talking. You can also just press the [[:Image:button_sig.png|signature button]] ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Talkpages.ogg you may want to watch this tutorial on using talk pages]).

;Selecting an article

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* remember its a collaborative assignments. Work with your colleagues from the first day on a single wiki-draft. Groups whose members work alone and try to combine their parts a day or so before the final submission don't do very well.

* don't focus solely on your own sections. Help your teammates by proofreading their section, see if they have trouble with things you've figured out.

* image questions? See [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/UploadingImagesHandout.pdf this image uploading handout], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_basics_-_Uploading_files_to_Wikimedia_Commons.ogv this uploading image video tutorial], [[Wikipedia:Images]], and in particular, the [[Wikipedia:Finding images tutorial]] and the [[Wikipedia:Picture tutorial]]. Try to avoid looking for images on "the web", focus on the Wikipedia's sister project, [[Wikimedia Commons]], which has millions of images that can be used on Wikipedia without any restrictions.

* reference questions? See [[Wikipedia_talk:School_and_university_projects/User:Piotrus/Fall_2009#Using_templates_and_.3Cref_name.3D_.3E_makes_it_much_easier|here]] on how to add footnotes and proper references to your article