Wikipedia:School and university projects/User:Piotrus/Summer 2008
Information on planning and resources for the Sociology SOC 0005 summer 2008 online writing assignment.
Stages
These seem to me the stages we need to pass through:
- Start. Get familiar with wikipedia. Make some trial edits, however minor. Demystify the process. Leave behind any sense of intimidation. As wikipedia puts it, learn to be bold. Learn basic editing skllls. By June 30 (second week), everyone should have made at least one edit.
- Plan. But minor edits alone won't get us much closer towards 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 models and guidelines (e.g. guidelines for articles about novels) on how to write Good and Feature articles. What sections are required? What will be the article structure? What information is needed? By the third week (July 7), each group should have an article selected and a plan (who will read what, who will work on what aspects of the article) in place. It would be useful to put details on article talk pages.
- Share. We will need to divide up the tasks that we've identified in the planning stage. Who is going to do what and when?
- Research. This is vital. A wikipedia article is worth nothing unless it comprises verified research, appropriated referenced. This will entail going to the library, as well as surfing the internet!
- Assemble and copy-edit. As the referenced research is added to an article, we need to ensure that it does not become baggy and disorganized, though there will be moments when it is obviously in a transitional stage.
- Informal Review. First, informal reviews among ourselves and consultation with the course leader. You can try the Wikipedia peer review to get additional input.
- Good article nomination. By July 21 (fifth week) the latest as there's a backlog of articles to be reviewed, and because a nomination can easily be put on hold until the article is improved in line with a reviewer's suggestions.
- Course leader (Piotr Konieczny) will do the final assessment of your work on July 28 (last week).
NB see also what wikipedia has to say about article development.
- Create an account and sign in every time you edit
Whenever you edit, make sure that you are signed in. If you are not signed in, course leader (Piotr Konieczny) will not be able to verify that you were the person who made the edit and give you points for it.
- Talk pages
Whenever editing a talk page, add four tildes ~~~~ 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 signature button.
Style guides
To get past the stumbling blocks of GA, articles will have to conform to the Wikipedia style guides. The three largest barriers are:
- Wikipedia:Layout – this guide describes heading and sub-headings.
- Wikipedia:Lead section – the all important abstract at the head of an article.
- Wikipedia:Manual of Style – the collection of rules.
Secondary style guide are specific to different projects. Articles must conform to these also. Conflict between any of these is inevitable and troublesome; editors simply have to work out conflicts through consensus.
- Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction) - collection of rules for fiction.
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Style guidelines – mostly lay out issues for articles on novels.
The simplest way to understand the various style guides is to examine articles that have passed GA or FA. You can see Wikipedia Good Articles from the section "Social science and society" here. Good sociology related ones include Social class in the United States, Anti-nuclear movement in Australia, African American culture, On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog. Other good examples include Featured articles from the section "Culture and society", for example: Society of the Song Dynasty, Max Weber, Fairy tale.