This is the project page for the Wikipedia extra credit assignment for COM 257-001, Fall 2013 semester at North Carolina State University. Here you can find information about the assignment as well as some helpful resources.

Assignment description and grading

This assignment is for extra credit only. It is completely optional.

First, locate an article on a topic relevant in some way to course concepts -- preferably one that interests you personally.

This article might be one that doesn't presently exist or only exists as a stub.
"relevant in some way to course concepts" should be interpreted broadly to include a good deal of subjects under these headings: media, technology, communication, art, news, journalism, public relations, bias, persuasion, politics, internet, radio, television, telephony, text messaging, satellites, broadcasting, mobility, cyborgs, what it means to be human, philosophy of technology, consumerism, anti-consumerism, propaganda, rhetoric, utopias, dystopias, music, movies, theater, publishing, writing, and a lot more
I want to approve all article topics before you start them -- both because I want to understand how it's connected to one of the above subjects and because I don't want you to waste your time if it's something people on Wikipedia might not think is "notable."
- this may sound like a tall order, but it's not. Find an article that doesn't exist, think of a way it connects to the above subjects -- even in a weak or tangential way -- and we'll go from there.

Between now and the end of the semester you will write, research, and otherwise develop your article to be the best it can possibly be.

Your article will be evaluated using the Good Article Criteria. "Featured Article" is a label given to Wikipedia's best entries. "Good Article" is just a notch down in quality and still demands very high standards (only 1 in 286 articles have the Good Article label). *Good Articles are well-written, a proper length, accurate, verifiable, comprehensive, neutral, stable, properly formatted, organized well, follow style guidelines, and use media when appropriate.

Note hat you are not actually expected to attain Good Article status, which requires considerable development time, a nomination and peer review process often wrought with delays, and usually at least one round of revisions -- in other words, it can take longer than we have left in the semester.

An article that satisfies all of the criteria will net you 5 points added to your final grade. You may complete up to two articles for this assignment for a possible 10 points.

A warning: 10 points is a full letter grade. That's huge. But the points don't come easy. Most if not all of the articles will not succeed in receiving all 5 points. Look to the other Good Articles for an idea of the kind of quality full credit will require.

You may work on this project alone or in groups of no more than three people.

Advice: Start work on this immediately, get feedback from me and/or through Wikipedia:Peer review, revise, and repeat.

A note on academic integrity

Some people think Wikipedia is kind of a free-for-all when it comes to copying/pasting to/from it. Although Wikipedia is not copyrighted, almost everything else is. That creates a legal problem, so text that you copy/paste from another website, article, book, etc. into your article will almost certainly be removed by someone, the article tagged for deletion in particularly egregious cases, and a warning or ban for you. Additionally copyright is totally separate from plagiarism and academic integrity. Even though a source like Wikipedia or something published by the US Government is technically free to use, failing to cite your sources creates at least one or two problems: first, on Wikipedia no original research is allowed and practically everything must be verifiable in secondary sources; second, if it seems you are claiming the work as your own, that amounts to plagiarism which -- as I'm sure you've heard several times by now -- is a big issue at the University level potentially leading to academic probation, a failing grade, or expulsion.

A note on Wikipedia's transparency

Everything you ever do on Wikipedia will always and forever be saved in its archives, attached to your name.

Resources

Finding an article

Wikipedia:Requested articles - categorized list of articles people have requested
Wikipedia:Most wanted articles lists the most commonly linked to pages that don't exist
Category:Stub categories is a categorized list of stubs (very short articles that could use elaboration)
- Category:Top-level_stub_categories
Wikipedia:Most wanted stubs functions like the Most Wanted Articles list, but is for stubs not non-existent pages
Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles - goes through other encyclopedias and reference works to find topics they cover that do not have a corresponding article on Wikipedia. Lots of potentials which will mostly satisfy notability requirements.

You could also find an appropriate WikiProject or WikiPortal. These are specialized groups or content hubs who maintain lists of certain types of articles.
- Directory of WikiProjects
- List of portals
- for example: Wikipedia:WikiProject Media

General help

Wikipedia:Tutorial is a good place to start. Also Help:Contents. If you can't find what you need, you can contact those at Wikipedia:Help desk or contact me.

Wikipedia:Your first article is a good explanation of just that.

Wikitext / WikiMarkup

The Editing Wikitext Wikibook.

Citing sources

The basics

Per the verifiability policy, any statement that is or could reasonably be contested should be accompanied by one or more reliable sources to back it up. Likewise, all sources quoted, referenced, or otherwise utilized in the writing of an article must be properly cited. There are a couple ways to do this, but the citation style should be consistent throughout each article.

If contributing to an existing page, use whatever style is already in place or start a discussion on the talk page explaining why you'd like to change it.

General information about citing sources on Wikipedia

ProveIt

I recommend you use ProveIt, a tool that makes the citation process a bit easier. Go to Special:Preferences, go to the Gadgets tab, and check the appropriate box to enable ProveIt.

While editing with ProveIt enabled, you will see a toolbar in the bottomright part of your browser with two tabs: "References (#)" where # is the number of references currently on the page, and "Add a Reference."

Detailed instructions are available here but basically you just click Add a Referenc and fill in as many fields as appropriate -- including a unique "<ref> name." When you're done filling in information about the source, click in the edit box, placing your cursor where you want the citation to go, and click "Insert into edit form" at the bottom of the ProveIt "Add a Reference" tab.

To reuse a reference, click the "References (#)" tab and click the reference you want to reuse. It will first highlight the citation in the edit box. Click in the edit box to place the cursor where you want the additional use of the citation. At the bottom of the "References (#)" tab click "Insert this reference at cursor."

To edit a reference you've already added, select the "References (#)" tab, click the reference you want to edit, select "edit this reference," and save when done.

ProveIt has some quirks that may prove annoying. A good practice is to save the page any time you make a change, then edit the page again to allow ProveIt to refresh.

The rest of this citations section assumes you're not using ProveIt and/or want more control over your citations

In-text citations

Although Wikipedia does not specifically mandate it, footnotes are preferred--and far more common--than parenthetical citations in-text. For most people, this is probably the biggest difference between citing sources on Wikipedia and doing so in an academic research paper. Footnotes are handled through the <ref></ref> tags and in almost all cases should be placed at the end of a sentence after the ending punctuation.

What goes between the <ref> and </ref> tags is either a full or short citation, but use of one or the other should be consistent throughout the article.

A full citation is equivalent to what you would see in a Works Cited list: it should be formatted in a standardized citation style like APA or MLA, all citations should follow the same citation style, and it should provide as much information as possible to allow a reader to find the source (a hyperlink is ideal).
A short citation is equivalent to what you would see in a parenthetical in-text citation, the exact details of which depend on the citation style you choose for the article (APA, MLA, etc.). It contains basic information that can be cross-referenced with a separate list of sources.

Reference list

The kind of reference list you use partly depends on the kind of in-text citations you've chosen.

If you've used full citations in the text, you simply need a separate section called "References" at the end of the article which will contain all of the full citations.
If you've used short citations in the text, you will need two separate sections at the end of the article:
1. a "Works Cited," "Bibliography," or "References" section which will contain a list of full citations (kind of like a Works Cited section of a research paper). None of the footnotes link to this section.
2. a "Notes" or "References" section that contains all of the short citations. It is this section the footnotes will link to, which the reader can then cross-reference with the other section above.

Examples of articles using the "full citations with references" method

Examples of articles using the "short citations with bibliography and references" method

Relevant wikimarkup to use when citing sources

The easiest way to figure out how references are managed is to see how they've been done in the past. Edit a page that already uses them (preferably a Featured or Good article) and compare the wikimarkup inside to how the page looks.

Add a reference by using the <ref></ref> tags. Just put your citation in between them and it will appear in the references list at the bottom.

If one doesn't exist, you'll need to include the tag {{reflist}} at the bottom of the page in a separate section called something like "Notes" or "References."

If you want to reuse the same source, give the tag a name. For example, <ref name="McLuhan">McLuhan, Marshall. (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.</ref>. Later, if you simply put <ref name="McLuhan"/> it will refer back to the citation above without having to duplicate the citation itself.

Wikipedia Norms, Etiquette, and Style

Most policies and guidelines can be derived from The Five Pillars.
What Wikipedia is NOT
Citing Sources and Verifiability
Notability - I strongly recommend you familiarize yourself with this one before creating an article
Neutral Point of View
Manual of style
Reliable sources
Assume good faith
Conflict of interest - in case you're thinking about writing an article about a person or organization you're personally connected to

Not sure about how certain policies are enforced? See the noticeboards and various records below. Note: These can be pretty overwhelming to new editors.