Wikipedia:United States Education Program/Courses/Behavioral Ecology (Joan Strassmann)/2014 Assignment2

Behavioral Ecology Wikipedia Assignment 2 Due 11 September 2014 Get back to course page

Assignment 2: Review of Wikipedia assignment
Behavioral Ecology, Biology 472, Teacher: Strassmann, TAs: Earnest, Vernier

When is it due? Thursday 11 September 2014

How much is it worth? 70 Points

What exactly do I turn in? You turn in a Word document on Blackboard that contains your comments on five Wikipedia pages of different wasp, bee, or ant species, along with a link to one comment you posted on a Wikipedia Talk page. Remember to first write and sign the honor code at the top of the page.

Assignment Instructions

 * In this assignment you will find and read five organism-based entries and evaluate them, as described below. You will also put something on the talk page of at least one organism to get comfortable with adding information. It does not have to be too detailed.


 * Join the WikiProject Vespidae
 * Note :WikiProject pages are places to discuss the overall organization of knowledge in Wikipedia on a certain topic and to alert WikiProject communities about the importance of developing pages in a particular area. This is not the place to discuss details relating to specific changes you will make to a page if the overall categorization of the knowledge makes sense.
 * According to the WikiProject Guide, a WikiProject is a group of editors that collaborate on encyclopedic work at collection of pages devoted to the management of a specific topic or family of topics within Wikipedia. It is not a place to write or discuss the details of specific encyclopedia articles, but a resource to help coordinate, organize, and share ideas about article writing.


 * Your contribution should make your aim clear to other Wikipedia editors. Keep in mind that other Wikipedia editors may access your user page to better understand your contributions.

Instructions:
 * 1.    To begin, find and join a WikiProject that is relevant to your contribution. We have created one for wasps, but there is also one for Insects.
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Vespidae
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Insects


 * A.    Since we are all working on wasps, everyone should join the same project, the  Vespidae. Add your username to the list of participants for this WikiProject and any other WikiProject you would like to join.


 * B.    All WikiProjects are different, but instructions for adding yourself to the project list of participants can usually be located by looking through the WikiProject page's outline. To add yourself to the Vespidae WikiProject list, edit the participant list and add your username in alphabetical order.


 * C.    Once you are a member of the project, you should contribute to that project's discussion page to notify the community of your planned work. You do not need to contribute for this assignment. This will be an ongoing thing.


 * 2.    Write brief commentaries on 5 entries. You will post at least part of one of your commentaries on the corresponding Wiki page's Talk page. These do not all need to be put on Wikipedia, unless you want to. This could be as simple as "This page would benefit from having a Taxonomy section." Make sure you're signed in to Wikipedia when you post these so your comment will be attributed to you. Tell us the name of your comment when you give us the link.


 * A.    Consider the criteria for Good Article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GACR#Criteria, and evaluate where this piece hits or misses the mark in answering the questions in the rubric.

Look at entries on 5 wasps, bees, or ants. Each student should do five different species, but you don’t have to check around with everyone. Just choose independently. You should pick organisms that have fairly thorough entries to do this assignment. Here are some examples, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polistes_exclamans, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polistes_annularis, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ropalidia_marginata, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eciton_burchellii. Do not use any of these examples to do the assignment, but you should look at them to get a feel for good work.

Write a paragraph evaluating the entry. Consider how complete the entry is. Note missing categories focusing on behavior of the kind that your chapter covers. Often a good way to tell what is missing is to compare different entries. Comment on the writing. Look at the Talk, History and Discussion sections and comment on what you see there. Do you agree with the comments? Do you agree with the importance ranking? Your comments on each entry will be about 200 words. Remember, you do not need to solve the problems you see, or do any research. The purpose of this assignment is to get you comfortable with looking at and evaluating Wikipedia entries in the area of your specialty. Details are expanded under grading rubric, below

Turn in the document showing your work. Submit to Blackboard. The deadline is 11 September 2014 at midnight. When you submit your comments to Wikipedia, tell us with a link in your document.

Submit these files to the relevant assignment tab on Blackboard and for full credit save the file as follows: WikiProject.pdf (or .jpg)

Rubric
For each organism:

70 points in all 14 points per organism, x 5 organisms

''Full points will be given to entries in each category that are thorough, exhibit careful thinking, and tie to the material of the course. Your writing should be intelligible without going back to the original Wikipedia page.''