Classroom Exercise[edit]

Our classroom exercise today will be to clean up several articles using authoritative sources from the library's collection. Please consult the list of all articles with unsourced statements for the up-to-date list of articles needing improved citations and references.

List of Articles Needing Citations[edit]

Manuel Andrade Díaz: Need to find sources for several political events.
Plutarco Elías Calles (Mexican politician, 1877-1945): Citations needed for several statements
Afro Mexicans in the Mexican War of Independence: Citations needed
Afro-Colombian: Citation needed
Afro-Latin American: Citation, page verification needed –Peru, Colombia, PR
Buenos Aires: Needs source for Census quotation and esp. War of Independence
Coca production in Colombia: Need to verify several statements on eradication
Tango music: Need to verify several statements with sources
Colombian Emerald Trade: Needs statistical source
Colonial Chile: Needs citations for statements
Economy of Colombia: Needs citations esp in Human rights in mining and foreign investment sections

List of Articles Needing Bibliography[edit]

Afro-Colombian: Further references
Slavery in Brazil: Needs additional references in "Further Reading"
Buenos Aires: Needs additional references in "Further Reading"
History of the Tango: No section for further reading –need to add bib; esp. Simon Collier
Slavery in Brazil: Needs additional references in "Further Reading"

Learning Outcomes[edit]

Students will

learn to interact with Wikipedia from an editor's perspective;
learn to find authoritative source for factual assertions;
gain practical experience looking for authoritative sources in library databases and other scholarly resources;
gain practical experience with Wikipedia markup;
understand the Wikipedia peer review process.

Getting Started[edit]

Wikipedia is 15 years old. During that time it has developed many nuances and complexities. It is a massive multiplayer encyclopedia project. While it has no central editing group, there are many checks and balances in place to guide the development of content in the encyclopedia.

Wikipedia itself contains lots of support documentation to help you get started as an editor and contribute effectively to the encyclopedia. See the Wikipedia documentation list below for more information.

As with anything, start slow and gradually master the practice. Join a project - attend a edit-a-thon - ask questions (Ed Warga and Cliff Anderson are on campus and happy to help).

One starting point is reviewing articles and improving them incrementally. Try proofreading existing articles. Try researching statements flagged citation needed.

Account and UserName[edit]

Choose a username
Start an account
Create your user page, talk page and sandbox

Two Ways to Edit[edit]

To edit a document, click the edit link on the article page. You can use one of two editors.

Beta visual editor - for those who like wisywigs and word processors. Adjust preferences to turn this feature on.
MediaWiki editor - use mediaWiki markup to edit text in the Wikipedia text editor.

Practice in your sandbox[edit]

Let's review how to edit Wikipedia in your sandbox

Adding Citations[edit]

Step by Step

Place curser next to statement where you wish to provide a citation
Click the Cite Tab in the editor menu
Select a Template
Input metadata about the resource
Click Insert

Citation Needed[edit]

Using a template, Wikipedia users can flag content that they think needs an inline citation to a resource. A template renders a note on the page using this syntax: {{TEMPLATE TEXT}}

Here are some inline cleanup template examples. Take a look at the Verifiability section.

Bibliography[edit]

A bibliography is a list of resources containing information about the topic. If you want more information about the topic, consult the resources listed in the bibliography.

In Wikipedia a bibliography is list of citations not used as inline references.
Use the citation templates to add the citation to the page, and then remove the "ref" tags from the markup: <ref>''citation''</ref>.
Last, First (2015). Title. Location: Publisher. ISBN 9780123456786.

Wikipedia Documentation[edit]