Good afternoon!

I’m writing a quick post in response to your requests from this morning’s Wikipedia Workshop.  We’ll talk more after break, but I wanted to make sure you had my feedback in case you’re already working on finding sources and coming up with a strategy to improve your articles.

Questions you raised:

• Finding sources: this was by far the most common question.  You should take advantage of the rich library resources available to you at the College of Wooster.   The Latin American Studies LibGuide organizes many of these tools.  You can start with online encyclopedia databases like Credo for a broad overview.  For biographies, check out the Biography Reference Bank.  For more detailed research on Latin American topics, Historical Abstracts is my next stop.  Depending on your topic, resources like LGBT life or Chicano Database will be helpful.  Come see me or a librarian for help.  IF YOU USE THESE OFF CAMPUS, you need to connect with the VPN.
• Writing: We’ll have peer review in class, and you can always get helpful feedback from the Writing Center.  And remember to refer to Wikipedia’s guidelines on tone.
• Shaping a “Stub” Article: I find it very helpful to look at models from similar articles for ideas about what works and what doesn’t.  For example, when I created the article for Kerolin Nicoli Israel Ferraz, I looked at how other soccer players’ pages were structured, and what kinds of information they included.
• KH seeing my work: Don’t worry, as long as your are logged in, Wikipedia lets me track all of your contributions to class articles.  I can also see the History pages for each article.
• Translation: there is a helpful tutorial on translation if this is part of your project.

The next steps in this project:

Before class on Friday, October 18th you will:

• Complete Wikipedia Peer Review Training.
• On your article’s talk page, create a new heading to introduce your proposed edits.
• On the talk page, write a few sentences about what you plan to contribute to the selected article, and why these additions are important. Think back to our discussions of content gaps, Wikipedia’s 5 Pillars, and the American Historical Association article.
• Compile a list of at least 6-8 relevant, reliable books, journal articles, or other sources. Post that bibliography to the talk page of the article you’ll be working on.

We’ll work on peer review of your improvement plans, as well as any technical or technological questions that may arise in class that Friday.