Steps involved in editing Wikipedia

It is a good idea to start by taking the Wikipedia training for students that covers all the key rules and important steps, from familiarising yourself with the editing tools to specific techniques on how to, for example, integrate links, pictures, and references. Once you have a sense of what is involved, you can start planning your work for the semester. You will also want to create a Wikipedia account with a handle that I can recognise so I can trace the changes you made in the articles.

After familiarising yourself with Wikipedia and how it works, you need to find an article that needs improvement (which requires assessing the quality of an article). Any article can obviously be improved, but some are more difficult than others either because they are about very well known people (such as Napoléon Bonaparte, for example) or because they are about controversial topics and keep being edited by people with specific agendas. For this assignment, you want an article about something that is specific enough to be manageable (as you would for a research essay). You also want to ensure that you can find enough information to actually modify the article using reliable sources that do not involve primary source research (Wikipedia does not allow the publication of original research). One useful place to start looking for articles to improve is to explore Wikipedia's own list of "stubs" (incomplete articles).

You can develop a research proposal for writing a Wikipedia article. It should essentially provide an assessment of the existing article (or stub) and explain why you want to improve it and what you think you will be able to add to it from your preliminary research.

You will then need to research the topic as you would for any other kind of research assignment, finding a combination of various secondary (and possibly some primary) sources that present a variety of perspectives on the topic about which you will be writing. It could be a good idea at this stage to develop a research bibliography (either for formal submission or for informal feedback) to help you assess the quality of your own research.

By about mid-term, you should have a good body of research and you should be starting to jot down ideas and to organise your article (or the sections you wish to improve). Don't think too much at the start about page layout or other details of that nature. Focus on the ideas you want to add and on writing in as much of a neutral voice as you can. It is a good idea to meet with the instructor at this time to discuss ideas about the project and how progress is being made.

You can then start playing around in the Wikipedia sandbox, which allows you to fiddle around with an article without it being visible. It is a good tool to develop a strong draft of your article. The goal is to add 2500 words or more to the original article (not necessarily in one block).

Once you have a well constructed and referenced article (see rules on plagiarism), publish it. Be aware that other Wikipedia readers may also choose to edit the article; your additions should be of strong enough quality that they are not being removed the next day. It is a good idea to publish your edited version at least a week before it is due and to follow its evolution on the site. You can address the edits that may or may not have been done in your self-reflection to accompany your submission of the assignment.

The final submission of the assignment

Once you have edited the Wikipedia article of your choice, you must submit the following on Blackboard for assessment:

• The article exported as a PDF with your contributions highlighted. To export an article to PDF, use the "Download as PDF" link in the left sidebar in Wikipedia. The final version of the Wikipedia article must include clear references for all material that was used in research, and these must be formatted using Wikipedia's own referencing style (this is the only exception to the rule about using the Chicago Manual of Style in history courses). Any ideas and data that come from outside sources must be clearly traced back to their origin.

• In addition to the modified article to be posted on Wikipedia, submit a 1-2 page self-reflective essay explaining the successes and challenges you met along the way and the research strategies you employed. This should highlight how you met the outcomes related to research projects in the course.

• If you used reference works that were not directly referenced in the Wikipedia article, you may attach a complete bibliography.

As specified in the Blackboard submission tool, all these should be submitted as attachments to a single submission.