Wikipedia talk:Education program archive/CUNY, York College/Psychology Independent Study: Wikipedia (Spring 2015)

Assignment #2
After reading through the Editing section of the interactive training, I felt fascinated by Wikipedia’s method of teaching novices how to edit and format on this website. At first, I was a bit puzzled on how to create a user page or even start a sandbox page. After watching some tutorials, which I found more helpful, I learned that a sandbox page is actually a space where one could edit or start a new article without the fear of it getting deleted. Additionally, the sandbox seems like a great concept because a user could keep their work on it until when they feel ready to have it go “live.” As for text editing portion of the interactive training, I found these tasks fairly easy to accomplish. It was interesting to discover how adding several apostrophes or equal signs could transform the way a word or a sentence looks. Moreover, learning how to compose wikilinks was also intriguing since Wikipedians could link other articles to their own; all a reader has to do is click on this link and it will direct them to the article they wants readers to view.

As for citing sources, it was interesting to discover that applying a “ref” tag could create a citation or footnote for a corresponding article. Since I wanted to learn more on how to edit on Wikipedia, I decided to begin the “More Markups” tutorial, which was the best part of this section. I impressed myself when I clicked the “Save Page” button and viewed what I had just modified. Overall, the editing section on Wikipedia’s was both understandable and entertaining. Also, it was helpful that Wikipedia provided links at the end of this module that would direct users to the Teahouse, the Help desk, or even the Help channel, where they could live chat with other users.

Ana L. Cortez (talk) 14:41, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Reaction paper on the topic of the Editing section of the interactive training
When the Wikipedia training goes into the part about editing, I was afraid before I get start. The Getting Started section introduces me the basic tasks of editing and formatting tasks such as creating headers and editing subsections. The ways to use those basic tasks are similar to the way to use Microsoft Word. There are two types of edit, edit source and edit beta. I never know that there is a VisualEditor in Wikipedia, however it is disabled at English Wikipedia. I had tried to create my sandbox before I do the training, but it confused me. The sandbox looks like similar to the user page, but it is not. It is the place where we can practice for our editing and drafting before we release article to public. Also, there is a specific editing tutorial for the sandbox. Citation of sources is another important thing in editing Wiki. Putting information or sources that did not cite properly could against the Wikipedia policy. Actually citing sources is not as hard as I thought after I the training. There are only four steps to do the citation. It is easier for me to do the assignments after I review the Editing section in Wikipedia training. Now I know what a sandbox is and how it functions. I also know how to create my user page, change and edit in my page. When I post something on other user’s page, I found out that I have to sign for what I post. --Minyi Ruan (talk) 07:00, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Assignment #3
After going over the rest of the interactive training modules, I felt very informed about Wikipedia’s purpose, which is to allow regular people to create reliable and informative articles for others to read. Throughout the last modules, they emphasized the importance of creating unbiased articles that contain dependable sources. It was very helpful that Wikipedia informed newcomers about what is considered a good article and how to identify a reliable source. Even after emphasizing it plenty of times, Wikipedia did not fail to discuss how unusable bad sources are.

It was interesting to discover that a user’s work can appear on Wikipedia’s main page as a “Did you know”article. In order to qualify, an article must go live from our sandbox in a certain amount of days. This article should basically comply with Wikipedia’s pillars, such as including reliable sources, citations, and most importantly, obey Wikipedia’s copy right regulations. Although the article may be short, I think this is a great opportunity to let others take a glimpse at your work.

I also decided to read over “Editing Wikipedia articles on Psychology,” which exemplified what a good article looks like and how to properly organize it. Whether the article is about a psychologist or a psychological condition, they provide a template that would help structure any article in psychology. I believe that this would be advantageous for users like me, and I will certainly reflect back on this text when we start editing.

Overall, I learned that everyone has to start from somewhere on Wikipedia, like editing stub articles. Obtaining a high article grading will not come easy, but is accessible, if the pillars are followed and most importantly, if the user puts a lot of effort into writing it. Ana L. Cortez (talk) 02:11, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Assignment 3 Reaction paper
The third assignment was a challenge to me, because it was hard for a beginner to find an article and expand on it. First of all, I was confused for choosing a qualify article. There were certain requirements in article choosing. However, I felt more confidence to find an article after I finished the rest of Wikipedia training. The Medical topics section identified what are good and bad resources, and listed examples for both of them. It also provided a full guideline on identifying reliable medical sources. I think it will be more convenience to check whether my source will qualify or not. Secondary, some of the topics that I planed to expand were good topics. They were either highly controversial, or well developed already. I felt that it is not easy to get a good starting point that finding a good article. However, I found another amazing things later on the Help with choosing articles section. It not only tells beginners where should go when we have questions, it also provided the list of Stub categories for us to look up. I felt that I will use the Teahouse a lot later for my writing. Finally, the specialized help pages provided the best information in how to edit medical topics and book citing. There was a special link in editing Wikipedia articles on Psychology. I felt more confidence to do this project later, since there are many accessible resources in Wikipedia, the Teahouse and the Wikipedia content expert that I can contact with.

--Minyi Ruan (talk) 05:45, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Editing a Wiki article
Hello Professor Ashton. I am not sure which topic would be okay for me to edit: vertical thinking or overexcitability ? I checked PsychINFO for articles pertaining overexcitability, the few I found belonged to education related journals. Can you please provide some feedback so I could start searching for sources? Thank you and I would appreciate your help.

--Ana L. Cortez (talk) 23:42, 9 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Dear Ana, Interesting. Vertical thinking is just another name for linear thinking (which is related to linear and nonlinear thinking). However, all of those terms are non-technical (that is non-psychological). Does that mean that you can't do it? Nope. You can! If you search in PsycInfo for "linear nonlinear thinking" you find a few hits in managerial psychology. So that's where you'll need to look for that. And notice that there are no Wikipedia pages on linear nor nonlinear thinking.


 * Overexcitability is a stub off the Positive Disintegration page. That page begins: "Unlike mainstream psychology, Dąbrowski's theoretical framework views psychological tension and anxiety as necessary for growth." So PD theory is not mainstream psychology. Kooky stuff? To continue on with this would require you to find material on overexcitability -- which may be difficult. Have you looked at the talk page on PD? Other editors say that it needs better writing.

Dr Ashton (talk) 19:20, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Adding new article
Hi Professor Ashton; I am planning to use neutral stimulus as a new article to replace one of my articles. The article categorize under experimental psychology, but Wiki talk page shows that the article is within the scope of Wikiproject Medicine. Can I work on this article? Thank you for your help.--Minyi Ruan (talk) 21:01, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Minyi - the co-listing is no problem, many areas of Psych overlap with medicine. I think the medicine tag was placed there to impose the medicine citation standards of wikipedia (there were problems with that over the last few years). This is definitely a psych topic. It's a very narrow topic. I checked out the Classical conditioning page and the other types of stimuli don't have their own pages Classical_conditioning. In fact, look at the talk page and you'll see that the lede paragraph is not liked, what's wrong with that is the first sentence which is just the basic definition. So I see opportunity for you! You could create pages for neutral stimulus, UCS, CS, UCR & CR; and rewrite the lede for the classical conditioning page! Dr Ashton (talk) 14:34, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi Professor: Thank you for your advice. If so, can use the topic as my Good Article and start to create a new page for that? --Minyi Ruan (talk) 21:18, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I would'nt say automatically that it's a good candidate for the GAS article. It might be. But it could be one of your 5 improvements. 2604:2000:1200:6169:95D8:CE6:391A:35D (talk) 21:38, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Good article
Hi Professor Ashton: I found a personality theory which is an assumption from George Alexander Kelly, the Theory of Personal constructs. On George Alexander Kelly's Wiki page, the editor only provided some basic definitions for each corollaries. Can I use this theory as my Good Article topic? Thank you for your help. --Minyi Ruan (talk) 00:07, 21 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, this page need expansion. BTW - I'm saying that out of personal bias. I actually have some copies of class handouts from Kelly's OSU courses (a friend was his student there, I'm much too young!). There are even corrections Kelly penciled in on the handouts. Besides my personal bias, PCP (Personal Construct Psychology) is a major school of psychotherapy in England. This article deserves expansion for that alone. Dr Ashton (talk) 18:56, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Update #1
Hello Professor Ashton, I am still working on my 5 articles. I am also searching for literature reviews to back up the various primary sources I have found on PsychINFO. Additionally, I have created a sandbox draft for my potential "good" article on self system. I forgot to include the user prefix on that article but luckily a Wikipedia editor redirected the page to my sandbox and notified me about such action. Just to make sure, you still believe that the topic of self system is a workable topic? Thank you for your help and I will write to you again in the next couple of days. Ana L. Cortez (talk) 21:50, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, look at the ideas section on the Freud page, Sullivan's page can also be elaborated like that. Dr Ashton (talk) 18:37, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I looked into two of my personality textbooks and found useful information regarding self-systems. I also realized that there isn't a wikipage for dynamisms in general since the self system is just one (but is the most complex) of the dynamisms. What do you think about this? Should I create a page for dynamisms instead?