Background

Throughout the course, we have been reading not only about Wikipedia and the debates about its place in academic discourse, but we have also begun to become knowledgeable about the way that Wikipedia works.  We understand that an article's quality standard is its verifiability, organization, and sentence level writing.  We also understand that no one person or group of people is responsible for the creation of any Wikipedia article, that anyone can edit an article.  The test, however, is whether revisions or edits will stand the test of time and in what form they will survive, or if they, in turn, will be omitted by future Wikipedia users.

Task

Your task is to identify a Wikipedia article dealing with an album/CD or song that you can improve and revise according to the conventions and expectations of the Wikipedia community. This should not be an article that is already a featured article according to Wikipedia.

This will be a group assignment (up to three people).

Structure

The structure of the article should be based on the criteria established by the Wikipedia community.

The highest standard for Wikipedia articles is Featured Article status.  Use the criteria for a Featured Article and the criteria at "Wikipedia: Wikiproject Albums," and "Wikipedia: WikiProject Songs" to guide your work.

The writing for this assignment will occur in two places

• each group's Wikipedia Article Collaboration page here on our course wiki
• each group's actual Wikipedia article on Wikipedia that the group is improving

On the collaboration page in our course wiki, your group is expected to do the following:

1) Create an action plan

2) Explain which criteria are being addressed and why

3) List possible new sources for information for the article and evaluate them according to the six Purdue OWL criteria

4) Paste the 350 words of new text added to the Wikipedia article into this wiki as well

5) Explain the other editing change made (see #2 below) to the Wikipedia article

6) Create a link to the Discussion/Talk page for your article

In Wikipedia itself, your group is expected to do the following:

1) As a group, add to your article 350 words of new text that follow Wikipedia criteria for Wikipedia featured articles or the "Wikiproject: Albums" or "Wikiproject: Songs." Pay particular attention to

• NPOV
• using quotation, paraphrase, and summary appropriately, thus avoiding copy/paste plagiarism
• including accurate and credible citations

2) As a group, also add one of the following to your Wikipedia article:

• make changes in organization (move things around)
• add subheading
• add image
• add table of information
• edit for style or grammar
• add citation for uncited material that already existed in the article before you began working on it

3) Announce and explain your planned changes on the Discussion/Talk page for your article. Also, monitor the Discussion/Talk for response from other Wikipedians

4) Login and include an edit summary whenever making edits

Additional Resources

Grading rubric

Sample Format for Wikipedia Collaboration Page

Student Sample

Being Alive Group

Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix group

Page on which to post Collaboration pages (combining Creel's, Gibney's and Kuhne's sections)