Wikipedia:United States Education Program/Courses/Behavioral Ecology (Joan Strassmann)/Assignment 7

WikiProject Assignment 7 Behavioral Ecology, Biology 372, Teacher: Strassmann, TAs: Adu-Oppong, Scott, Sukhum

In this assignment you will add to your existing assignment another 10 references and 1000 words, for 20 references and 2000 words in all. This means you will have generated quite a comprehensive entry on the topic, likely to achieve Good Article status. Each person does their own independent assignment. Only after they are done does the rest of the team check the work. This is not a group assignment. However you can talk with each other to help you decide what to work on.

When is it due? Thursday 24 Oct. 2013 11:59 PM

What is it worth? It is worth 150 points out of the 600 total for the entire Wikipedia assignment.

What exactly do I turn in? You turn in a document on Blackboard named Wiki24Oct with the following: 1. Your name. 2. The honor code. 3. Names of others in your group (one or two names), and what they did on your paper. 4. Your topic, including chapter in Davies, Krebs, West, specific topic, and organism. 5. Links to your Wikipedia entry. 6. A paragraph describing exactly how you exercised your fact checking, writing, or Wikipedia expertise. If asked, you should be prepared to provide further documentation on this, so save copies of edited work or similar. (30 points). 7. Paste into the document your entire 2000-word entry along with the 20 references (120 points).

What do I do? In this assignment you will further use your expertise in behavioral ecology to improve Wikipedia. Focus on extending the entry of a single organism under the WikiProject that you have chosen in assignment 3 (the one due on 17 Sept.). The organism that you chose should have information in the literature on how it exhibits the kinds of behaviors discussed in your chapter. You should extend your discussion of what exactly the animal does that is of interest and why they have evolved to do it. Remember to follow the general format of Wikipedia with lots of headings.

What if the topic I chose for the first 1000 words does not have enough information for another 1000 words? Ideally, you choose a deep topic, an organism with lots of information in the first place, one you could write 5000 words on even, with enough sub categories. But if you run into trouble, or get really tired of the first organism, you can move to a new organism. Just remember, you will have to add enough to the new organism to be able to nominate it for Good Article later on.

What do I do with the three sets of peer review comments and edits my colleagues have put up on my entry? You should respond to these comments carefully. Use them to improve your article. Do not ignore them. As you fix your piece, you should also put comments in the Talk section as to what you are doing.

What if other Wikipedians have taken down or totally changed my first 1000 word entry? Look at why they did this. If it is because there were serious problems with it, fix them. If it is because the others felt the material did not fit, and you disagree, argue with them. Get help from others in the class to participate. Do your best to keep your material up there, even if modified. Try to understand what is going on. Ask us. But ultimately, this assignment is about adding an additional 1000 words on different information from the first 1000. Try to learn from your experience so the new words stick.

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. But these additions will not count towards this assignment, which is about behavior. Anything you add should follow the Wikipedia principles, hold a neutral tone, and be well referenced.

Can you give me some examples of good work on Wikipedia in this general area? OK, here are a few. Some of them are not based on specific animals, but rather on specific aspects of a given animal. The entry on love darts of snails and slugs is good in a lot of ways but needs more on how they evolve and conflicts of interest. People from the sexual selection or mating system teams could add this. The entry for the monarch butterfly is pretty good. One of my students, Ben Ong, brought the piece on the American white ibis a lot of the way towards being a Good Article, then a Featured Article. I want this for you for all your pieces.

Can you give me some examples of important species with interesting behavior that are in dire need of work? Unfortunately, this is very easy. We could begin with one of my favorite birds, the great egret, of which I have many photos you could use. The American coot is another one that is important. Black-throated blue warblers have great biology on extra pair copulations and parental care, and the article is a total stub. The one on the Northern mockingbird isn’t much better. If you do birds, I have a great book you can use, but only in my office. If you go to some of my much loved insects, Polistes annularis has a tiny article. Polistes exclamans has nothing. Stingless bees, Meliponinae, aren’t much better. Some of these stubs don’t even have the Wikipedia requirement of an outline. I would disagree that these two are of low importance. You could work on getting that changed if you do them.

How do I get a draft of the assignment from my partners so I can serve my role as Wikipedia expert, writing expert, or fact checker? Ask them for their assignment. Give them your assignment so they can do their role. Leave time to do this before the final deadline, because you will have to revise your entry according to their comments, or get help uploading the work. You might consider having a last session together so you can contribute your role efficiently and chat with them as you do it. Teamwork works well with frequent face-to-face contact.

Do I have to actually change something on Wikipedia? Yes. Add your modifications to the appropriate page. Include the course banner. Briefly describe what you have done on the talk page for your topic.

What if I really bomb this assignment? You will have an opportunity to earn back some of the points by responding to our comments and revising your entry thoughtfully.