Wikipedia:United States Education Program/Courses/MPP Integrative Core I (Mills College)/Timeline

Wikipedia Essentials

 * Read Welcome to Wikipedia (available in print or online from the Wikimedia Foundation)
 * Read Five pillars, an explanation of Wikipedia's basic rules and principles
 * Handouts and videos--review as needed: Video on creating an account, Talk pages tutorial video, Evaluating Wikipedia article quality brochure, Account and user page creation handout, Wikimarkup cheatsheet
 * How to cite sources: Referencing handout, Referencing: Wikicode handout, Plagiarism handout, Citing sources tutorial video, RefToolbar citation tool tutorial video

First steps

 * Create a Wikipedia account, create a user page, and sign up on the list of students on the course page.
 * To practice editing and communicating on Wikipedia, leave a message for the instructor on his/her user talk page.

Approaching your Wikipedia article

 * Find the article in Wikipedia and review its history to spot any major changes since last fall.
 * Add the class assignment banner to the article (see below), removing last year's banner if present.
 * Make initial edits to the article using the sandbox.
 * Review any comments on the Talk page.

What should the articles include

 * A description of the genre
 * An outline of what a "generic" report in this genre would usually contain
 * Some concrete examples of reports in this genre by government agencies or thinktanks (with links)
 * An explanation of the types of analysis and data that typically go into this genre

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