Wikipedia:Workshop/Sample exercises

Below are exercises which workshop participants may copy to a sandbox and edit. Use Sandbox or create one as a subpage of your user page. (Workshop participants and Workshop project editors, please discuss the exercises, or suggest new or replacement exercises on this project page's talk page.)

 Be careful not to edit on this page. We can fix it if you do so, just tell us right away.

If you are new to Wikipedia, start from the first exercise. If you have some experience, skip the parts with which you already are familiar. If you finish the exercises, study the Cheatsheet and follow links to study whatever subject you need to explore more.

Save an edit
Per Tutorial/Editing
 * 1) go to a sandbox and type several lines of text
 * 2) write an edit summary
 * 3) preview your work
 * 4) save it.

Apply bold and italics
Per Tutorial/Formatting use three apostrophes for bold and two apostrophes for italics. Use five for bold italics, though that is seldom used. Copy the exercise below to a sandbox. - This whole sentence should be bold. This whole sentence should have italics.  Leave this part alone but put the last four words in bold. Now put the first three words of this sentence in italics. Make this whole sentence bold and italics. Put italics on the names of books and bold the names of individuals: What Color Is Your Parachute? Janet Jackson. Green Eggs and Ham. King Tut. Bhagavad Gita. Madonna.

Create section headers
Per Tutorial/Formatting. First, copy the exercise below to a sandbox. Note for this exercise: Section titles starting with an asterisk (*) have two = (equal) marks (remove the asterisk when you add them); those without an asterisk have three. The topic is the history of the United States. -

Colonial period
After a period of exploration by people from various European countries, Spanish, Dutch, English, French, Swedish, and Portuguese settlements were established.

Spanish colonization
Spanish explorers were the first Europeans to arrive in what is now the United States with Christopher Columbus' second expedition, which reached Puerto Rico on November 19, 1493

Dutch colonization
New Netherland was the 17th century Dutch colony centered on New York City and the Hudson River Valley, where they traded furs with the Native Americans to the north and were a barrier to Yankee expansion from New England.

French colonization
New France was the area colonized by France from 1534 to 1763.

British colonization
The first successful English colony was established in 1607, on the James River at Jamestown.

Political integration and autonomy
Following Britain's acquisition of French territory in North America, King George III issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763 with the goal of organizing the new North American empire and stabilizing relations with the native Indians.

Formation of the United States of America (1776–1789)
The Thirteen Colonies began a rebellion against British rule in 1775 and proclaimed their independence in 1776 as the United States of America.

Early national era (1789–1849)
George Washington—a renowned hero of the American Revolutionary War, commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, and president of the Constitutional Convention—became the first President of the United States under the new Constitution in 1789.

War with Britain
In response to multiple grievances, the Congress declared war on Britain in 1812.

Abolitionist movement
After 1840 the growing abolitionist movement redefined itself as a crusade against the sin of slave ownership.

Compromise of 1850
The issue of slavery in the new territories was seemingly settled by the Compromise of 1850 brokered by Whig Henry Clay and Democrat Stephen Douglas.

Secession
After Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 election, eleven Southern states seceded from the union between late 1860 and 1861, establishing a new government, the Confederate States of America, on February 8, 1861.

Civil war begins
The Civil War began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces attacked a U.S. military installation at Fort Sumter in South Carolina.

Casualties
Based on 1860 census figures, about 8% of all white males aged 13 to 43 died in the war, including about 6% in the North and approximately 18% in the South, establishing the American Civil War as the deadliest war in American history.

Wikipedia article links
See Tutorial/Wikipedia links and the video. First copy the exercise below to a sandbox. Properly format all the important subjects in the sentences below so they link to the appropriate event, person, organization, entity, etc. which has a Wikipedia article - and Wikipedia does have an article on almost everything! You can search either words or phrases you are in doubt about or don't bother to link it if you are in doubt. Someone will come along and link it at some point.

If you see a phrase below in (parenthesis) this is the name of an article which goes before the appropriate phrase in a WP:piped link. Over time you will learn how to find the name of relevant articles to create such piped links. See the relevant paragraphs in the History of the United States article to check what you missed. - The history of the United States traditionally starts with the United States Declaration of Independence Declaration of Independence in the year 1776, although its territory was inhabited by Native Americans in the United States Native Americans since prehistoric times and then by European colonization of the Americas European colonists who followed the voyages of Christopher Columbus starting in 1492. The largest settlements were by the English on the East Coast, starting in 1607. By the 1770s the Thirteen Colonies contained two and half million people, were prosperous, and had developed their own political and legal systems. After the American Revolution the United States Constitution Constitution became the basis for the United States federal government, with war hero George Washington as the first president. - The women's suffrage in the United States women's suffrage movement began with the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, and the Declaration of Sentiments demanding equal rights for women. Many of the activists became politically aware during the abolitionist movement. The women's rights campaign during "first-wave feminism" was led by Mott, Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, among many others. The movement reorganized after the Civil War, gaining experienced campaigners, many of whom had worked for prohibition in the Women's Christian Temperance Union.

Around 1912 the feminist movement began to reawaken, putting an emphasis on its demands for equality and arguing that the corruption of American politics demanded purification by women, because men could not do that job. Protests became increasingly common as suffragette Alice Paul led parades through the capital and major cities. Paul split from the large National American Woman Suffrage Association NAWSA, which favored a more moderate approach and supported the Democratic Party and Woodrow Wilson, led by Carrie Chapman Catt, and formed the more militant National Woman's Party. Suffragists were arrested during their "Silent Sentinels" pickets at the White House, the first time such a tactic was used, and were taken as political prisoners. Finally, the suffragettes were ordered released from prison, and Wilson urged Congress to pass a Constitutional amendment enfranchising women.

Wikipedia category links
Per Tutorial/Wikipedia links, at the bottom of every article is a list of category links which shows what categories the article is in. So at the bottom of an article on Bird you will find the following categories listed: Birds - Animals - Biological pest control - Dinosaurs. Click the link to the article Bird, click "edit" and you will see near the bottom how a list of categories is added. If you create a new article, find the categories similar articles are in. Otherwise, this is something you will become more knowledgeable about and interested in adding.

Citing sources
Tutorial/Citing sources has a lot of information about formatting references to create footnotes. You'll see people do it in a variety of ways, including using complicated looking "templates." But all you have to know for now is how to make a simple link like the below.

Make such simple links for all the references below, putting the various words and phrases in the appropriate order. Don't forget your Wikilinks to famous people, books, periodicals, etc. But do NOT try to put them inside your external links. Format the references also. In general book, movie and album titles are italicized and articles have quotation marks around their titles; so make those formatting changes too. Some editors italicize publication names, others do not. Adding ISBN to book numbers is helpful but not required.

"Copy this whole section to a sandbox and include the "references" section at the bottom'' so you can see how your footnotes look after you save your page. - You should now be in an editing screen in a sandbox looking at this model:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1278863/Richard-Kay-17-May-2010.html "Watch out, boys. . . Liz Taylor's coming home" Daily Mail'' May 17, 2010.

http://www.times-series.co.uk/news/topstories/8927698.Dame_Elizabeth_Taylor_dies_aged_79/ by Alex Hayes "Hampstead Garden Suburb born Dame Elizabeth Taylor dies aged 79" Times of London March 24, 2011

http://books.google.com/books?id=ScE8F_pMuAAC Elizabeth by J. Randy Taraborrelli Grand Central Publishing 2006  ISBN 9780446532549

Alexander Walker ISBN: 978-0802113351le 1990 Elizabeth: the life of Elizabeth Taylor G. Weidenfeld Publishers p. 22.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/thr-chief-film-critic-todd-170552 Chief Film Critic Todd McCarthy Remembers Elizabeth Taylor Todd McCarthy March 23, 2011 The Hollywood Reporter

by Associated Press http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/12/02/elizabeth.taylor.ap/index.html Striking writers give Elizabeth Taylor a pass December 2, 2007

by Times staff An update on Elizabeth Taylor's four children http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/qampa-an-update-on-elizabeth-taylors-four-children/1064792 January 12, 2010 St. Petersburg Times

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9M70HVO0.htm Taylor estate will earn dollars from scents by Ryan Nakashima March 26, 2011 Bloomberg Businessweek

Searching Wikipedia
Search for the following using either or both Help:Contents and Searching in the Wikipedia search box "WP:_____"
 * how to make a word bold; administrator assistance; how to insert an image; conflict of interest policy
 * a Category and/or a Wikiproject on: automobiles, feminism, physics, the country of Andorra

Editing talk pages
Per Tutorial/Talk pages, look at the following talk pages as examples of how editors communicate. Note editors don't always follow formatting rules for talk pages. Talk:Talk:History of the United States - Talk:Bird -Talk:Elizabeth Taylor

Then copy the conversation below to a sandbox and format it, including using asterisks (*) for bullet points and number signs for numbered lists (#) - I think this article about this wealthy family is very confusing. What can we do about it? [Signed User:#1]

I agree! This is a list of what I think should be done:

Make the lead shorter.

Put the sections in chronological order. I don't know what order they are in now!

Make it clear what the relation of all these family members are.

Include family member birth dates where appropriate.

What do you think? [Signed User:#2]

I wrote this article and I thought it was fine like it is, except for spelling mistakes. But I'm beginning to see your point. [Signed User:#3]

I think the chronological order should be as I have it numbered below:

The parents meet and are married and slip deep into poverty.

The children are born and inherit the fortune from the uncle who hated the brother.

The widowed aunt bribes authorities and gets legal guardianship of the children and moves to England.

The children come of age and move back to Argentina.

The parents win the lottery.

The children are embarrassed by the parents being so "nouveau rich" and move back to England. The parents follow them back and become famous.

How does that sound? [Signed User:#1]

OK, you caught me. I just read a couple articles and got confused myself. Sounds like you read a lot more about this family. Let's do it!! [Signed User:#3]

Article clean up
Copy the whole article below to a sandbox. Correct sections, wikilinks, external links, spelling, grammar, references, vandalism, etc. Note that when the same reference is used more than once, we create a "Ref name" link so that each time the reference is used it will go back to the same footnote. To keep it easy, we have left in the original "ref name" in this example from the Wikipedia article Mr. Big (police procedure). Compare your version to the "Mr. Big" article, noticing that the references may be done differently in that article. - Mr. Big also known as the Canadian technique'''  is a covert investigationable techniques used by undercover copper investigators in some parts of Canada and Australia to solve cases for which confessions are considered necessary for successful prosecution of which. In this method, police officers pose as members of a criminal gang in order to gain the confidence of the suspect, enlisting the suspect's participation in an escalating series of fictional crimes. Once the suspect's trust has been gained, the police persuade the suspect to confess to the earlier, real crime.

History

The technique was developed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (‘RCMP’) in Vancouver, Canada in the early 1990s for "Cold case (criminology)" i.e., you know, cold case homicide investigations. In British Columbia, the technique has been used over 180 times, and, in 80% of the cases, it resulted in either a confession or the elimination of the suspect from suspicion by those sneaky coppers.REFERENCE:Brian Hutchinson CMP Turns to "Mr Big" to Nab Criminals: Shootings, Assaults Staged in Elaborate Stings National Post - 18 December 2004 Since 1990, police in Victoria Australia have also used the technique on over 20 cases, and have successfully obtained murder confessions in several.(This article was a big helP:  Lawyers Warn Against Police Stings  Ian Munro September 9, 2004 http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/09/07/1094530612495.html It was in The Age.)  In Australia, police have applied to the courts, unsuccessfully, to suppress the publication of the details of these tactics.

Description

While the details of this here technique vary from case to case, the methodocity is for an undercover police unit to pose as members of a fictitious gang into which the suspect is inductaped. The suspect is invited to participate in a series of escalating criminal activities (all of which are faked by the police), including robberies, control of prostitution, and standing guard during gang's baaaadd-ass activities. In addition, the "gang members" build a personal relationship with the suspect, through drinking together and other social activities. The goal is to win the confidancees of the suspect. Eventually, the suspect is told that the police have a renewed interest in the original crime, and that the suspect needs to give the gang further details. The suspect is told that the boss (the so-called "Mr. Big") may have the ability to influence that police investigation, but only if the person admits all of the details of their earlier crime. They are also told that if they aren't completely clear about any past crimes, the gang may not be willing to continue to work with him, as he may be a liability - in otherwords you know who has got to get offed.

Criticism

Defense lawyers and criminal specialists have argued that the method is flawed for several reasons. In particular, they assert that the method may produce unreliable confessions. Len Hartnett, a lawwyer for a Lorenzo Fatava, who was in part convicted in part by using a confession obtained from this type of operation, argued that the police officers encourage confessions, "telegraph what they want to hear," and act as an authority figure to the suspect who is in a relatively powerless position. Prosecutors have countered by stating that a confession alone would never be considered sufficient evidence to prosecute a criminal in these cases, and that additional evidence would be necessary.(This all comes from this here article RCMP's 'Mr. Big' stings challenged which I seen printed in http://www.canada.com/northshorenews/news/story.html?id=45d97927-464c-4301-89a8-d62cadecb414&k=88657 from August 24, 2010 in the North Shore News. Check it out!!)

Mr. Big Documentary-really cool

In 2007, Tiffany Burns directed a documentarial entitled Mr. Big that examined this here method. The movie includes interviews with targets of the operation, there families (Burns herself is the sister of Sebastian Burns, who was convicted of murder in part due to being caught by a Mr. Big operation), and RCMP videos of various aspects of Mr. Big operations. Check it out.

External links to check out
 * http://www.mrbigthemovie.com Website for Mr. Big documentary which is reall educashunal and check it out.