Wikipedia:United States Education Program/Courses/Behavioral Ecology (Joan Strassmann)/2013 Assignment 4

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WikiProject Assignment 4

Behavioral Ecology, Biology 372, Teacher: Strassmann, TAs: Adu-Oppong, Scott, Sukhum

What exactly do I turn in? You turn in a Word document that tells us the text of comments on five Wikipedia pages on different animals. First you write and sign the honor code at the top of the page. In this assignment you will carefully follow the instructions to bring an article written by students last year to Good Article status. Here is a great link for the criteria of a good article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GACR#Criteria

Here is the table of articles and which discussion section they are assigned to.

Boahemaa Common side-blotched lizard Boahemaa Silver Fox Boahemaa Synalpheus regalis (shrimp) Boahemaa European Pied Flycatcher Boahemaa Pygmy marmoset Boahemaa Blue-footed Booby Jason Long-tailed Widowbird Jason Scissortail sergeant Jason Wedge-capped capuchin Jason Guianan Cock-of-the-rock Jason crab-eating macaque Jason Red-collared Widowbird Jason Leptothorax acervorum (ant) Kim Barbary macaque Kim Stalk-eyed fly Kim American bullfrog Kim Pemphigus betae (aphid) Kim Dunnock Kim Thalassoma bifasciatum (fish) Kim Great Reed Warbler

When is it due? 26 September 2013

What is it worth? It is worth 50 points out of the 700 total for the entire Wikipedia assignment.


 * 1) What exactly do I turn in? You turn in a document on Blackboard named Wiki26Sept with the following:
 * 2) Your name.
 * 3) The honor code.
 * 4) Names of others in your group (one or two names), and how you divided up the work.
 * 5) Your organism from the list above. Who does what will be worked out within discussion sections.
 * 6) Links to your Wikipedia entry.
 * 7) A paragraph describing exactly what was requested to make the article a Good Article, if such exists, and what you did to bring it up to standard. If asked, you should be prepared to provide further documentation on this, so save copies of edited work or similar. (25 points).
 * 8) Paste into the document your actual writing (25 points).

What do I do? In this assignment you will improve the work of a student from last year so the article can attain Good Article status. Look at the review under the Talk tab for the article to see what needs to be done. Add carefully to the article, in particular in the areas that are weak, whether or not this has significant behavioral content. Look at some Good Articles to get an idea of the kinds of things that need to be added. This assignment will help you become an active member of the Wikipedia community because your work will be centered on what others require of the article. Remember to follow the general format of Wikipedia with lots of headings.

How do we divide up this project within our groups? In this case, the whole study group will be working on the same article, so you need to decide yourselves what needs to be done and how to divide it up. This is the only assignment that has efforts of different individuals so melded together. The point is to work hard to identify what can make the piece better and do it. Look at other good pieces to get an idea of what this one needs.

What is a Good Article? Here are the criteria of a good article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GACR#Criteria
 * 1) A Good Article needs to have 6 attributes:
 * 2) Well-written
 * 3) Verifiable with no original research (this means references to all the points)
 * 4) Broad in coverage
 * 5) Neutral
 * 6) Stable (this means people don’t keep changing what it says, that it is accepted)
 * 7) Illustrated by images

Should I add headings in the Wikipedia entry? Yes. Wikipedia prefers relatively short chunks of text, 200 to 600 words, it seems. Headings are key to helping readers navigate through the page. You should also be sure to keep the outline at the beginning of the entry up to date, reflecting any new headings you have added.

Can I change areas of the Wikipedia entry on this organism that are not behavior? Yes, you can change anything you like on this or other organisms. You may add things that are missing like geographic distribution, diet, taxonomy, appearance, or links to Wikimedia photos, for example. Anything you add should follow the Wikipedia principles, hold a neutral tone, and be well referenced. These areas will be essential in your goal of attaining Good Article status for this article.

What if it seems like the article should already have Good Article status, but no one has judged it? There is always something that can be done to improve an article. Figure out what it is and do it. Remember, for this assignment, it may not be in the behavior area, though there could well be things worth adding for behavior.

Can I become a judge and judge articles for Good Article? Yes, you can, but you should not judge other articles in the class.
 * 1) You will need to make time for routine editing, in the area of this class, of another class, or your hobby. I strongly encourage you to make editing Wikipedia part of your life. Here is how you become a judge:
 * 2) You have an account, and routinely edit.
 * 3) You have a reasonable editing history – as a guide, enough edits that a track record can be established.
 * 4) You have read our policy on vandalism and understand what is and what is not vandalism.
 * 5) You are familiar with the basic content policies: Biographies of living persons, Neutral point of view, No original research, Verifiability and What Wikipedia is not.
 * 6) You are familiar with the basic legal policy: Copyrights.
 * 7) You have read the guideline on reviewing.

Who will bring the article I work on to Good Article status? I’m hoping the TAs can judge Good Article for articles in other sections. I’m not totally up on this. At any rate, there are a lot of articles, not only ours, that need judges, so I hope the TAs and you will become judges.

Can I keep working on this after the assignment is turned in if the Wikipedia community wants more changes? Yes, you can. The goal is to move all these articles to Good Article status, something that cannot necessarily happen on a short time frame. The other goal is for you to get a better idea about this process for your own work. All through the course, you will be rewarded if you keep polishing articles, researching and improving them.

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