Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/University of Maryland College Park/Sex for Sale Prostitution in Transnational Perspective (Fall 2021)

Can sex be sold? Is prostitution work or violence, and who gets to decide if it is legal or illegal? The sex industry has provoked considerable debate in academia, policy circles, and aid organizations globally. This interdisciplinary seminar will engage with these debates through an exploration of histories of prostitution across time and space and in a variety of theoretical and material contexts. While the main focus of the course will be on nineteenth- and twentieth-century United States, Europe, and the Middle East, the students will also explore cases from South and East Asia and Latin America. The class will use this transnational lens to interrogate social and cultural assumptions about bodies, agency, and social institutions. It will also consider a variety of social movements (from anti-prostitution to SlutWalks) and regulatory policies, from criminalization to legalization. The students will engage in readings, research, and reflection and the Wikipedia assignment will be a major component of their course assignment. In the Wikipedia assignment they will either create new content or expand and update an existing article based on extensive research and clear citations. Students will be given latitude to research and write about the sex industry in any historical period or geographic location. They will also be encouraged to play close attention to the complexities of class, race, and nationality in the formulations of their research and to explore and write about communities, countries, practices traditionally left out public narratives. As such, another major learning objective of the assignment is to practice conveying sensitive and/or difficult topics to a large public audience by harnessing the power of research.

Week 8
Welcome to your Wikipedia assignment's course timeline. This page guides you through the steps you'll need to complete for your Wikipedia assignment, with links to training modules and your classmates' work spaces.

Your course has been assigned a Wikipedia Expert. You can reach them through the Get Help button at the top of this page.

Resources:


 * Editing Wikipedia, pages 1–5
 * Evaluating Wikipedia

Create an account and join this course page, using the enrollment link your instructor sent you. (Because of Wikipedia's technical restraints, you may receive a message that you cannot create an account. To resolve this, please try again off campus or the next day.)

This week, everyone should have a Wikipedia account.

Week 9
Resource: Editing Wikipedia, page 6

Week 11
Reach out to your Wikipedia Expert if you have questions using the Get Help button at the top of this page.

Resource: Editing Wikipedia, pages 7–9

History

LGBT+ Studies

Women's Studies

Everyone has begun writing their article drafts.

Week 12
Guiding framework

Every student has finished reviewing their assigned articles, making sure that every article has been reviewed.

Week 13
Now that you've improved your draft based on others' feedback, it's time to move your work live - to the &quot;mainspace.&quot;

Resource: Editing Wikipedia, page 13

Week 14
Now's the time to revisit your text and refine your work. You may do more research and find missing information; rewrite the lead section to represent all major points; reorganize the text to communicate the information better; or add images and other media.

Continue to expand and improve your work, and format your article to match Wikipedia's tone and standards. Remember to contact your Wikipedia Expert at any time if you need further help!

Week 15
It's the final week to develop your article.


 * Read Editing Wikipedia page 15 to review a final check-list before completing your assignment.
 * Don't forget that you can ask for help from your Wikipedia Expert at any time!

Week 16
Everyone should have finished all of the work they'll do on Wikipedia, and be ready for grading.