Use this thread to discuss how to accomplish this assignment. Remember, this is an optional assignment. The points count towards your "Small stuff" grade, which has a maximum potential value of 200 points. These points will act as extra credit applied to those 200 points, so if you have missed an assignment this will offset those points.
You should use the comment thread for this post to seek and provide advice about how to do the assignment. Remember, tens of millions of people all over the world have figured out how to make helpful edits to Wiki projects of all kinds. It will take a little effort, but it is not very hard. Put that effort in before seeking help, and if you do need to seek help, make sure you can provide the necessary information to help people be able to help you.
This info is on the wiki syllabus also:
Replacement Assignment #1: Constructive Edits to Wikipedia Sociology Articles
1. What: This assignment asks you to learn how to make small helpful edits to Wikipedia in the area of Sociology. There are many pages related to Sociology, and all of them can be improved. Small improvements can be made by anybody with a basic commitment to doing good work. You will just have to dig a little deeper than the textbook to be able to improve on the current articles. So, you task will basically have three parts: learn to edit effectively in the Wiki system, learn enough about a topic to make a small but valuable improvement to an article, and document and discuss your contributions for the assignment.
2. How:
1. Create a Wikipedia account for your self. You should do this in order to document your contributions and because unregistered editors are more likely to have their edits removed as suspected vandalism. Once you have created an account you need to learn how to make basic edits. Make sure you are actually logged in when you make your edits.
2. Practice editing in the sandbox. Notice the edit summary box below the main editing box. Use it when you start making helpful edits to actual articles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sandbox
3. After you practice making basic edits, stop by the talk page for the Sociological imagination. Read the conversation there and look for ways that you could start making helpful edits. Ask questions there, or in the blog thread on this assignment.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sociological_imagination
4. Look for sociology related articles that need work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Sociology#Articles_needing_work
3. What to turn in:
1. A single page word document including three parts.
1. A description of the types of contributions you made, including URLS to the article(s) you work worked on and a URL to your user page.
2. A description of the resources you used to learn stuff for the content of your edits. Include relevant bibliographic information.
3. A discussion of what the experience of contributing to Wikipedia was like, what you learned, what you thought about, how these things connect to ideas from the course.
4. Grading: There will be three grade levels for this assignment.
1. Meh. 5pts. Bare minimum completion, little evidence of effort or involvement.
2. Nice. 10pts. Fully completed, honestly assessed, good job of completing all parts, thoughtful reflections.
3. Wow! 15pts. All parts completed, evidence of substantial effort and or learning; thoughtful reflections; overall a great job.
5. Due date: Friday of Week 9. March 5th.
1. How to turn it in, part one: Type up a word document, documenting all three parts of the assignment. Print it out and bring it to class on Friday March 5th. Put your name on your paper version, also put the gmail login you use when you post to the course blog comments.
2. How to turn it in, part two: copy and paste the contents of your assignment into a comment blog post about this assignment. The blog post will be made on the thursday before the assignment is due. Don't put your full name on your blog comment version, just first name and you gmail login will be enough for us to match up the electronic and paper versions.
3. You need to turn in both parts, the paper and the electronic version.
§ Helpful hints:
§ Take a look at this advice: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_write_a_great_article#How_to_develop_an_article
§ The Wiki Project on Sociology lists several articles needing work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Sociology#Articles_needing_work
§ The entry on "Sociological imagination" needs a lot of work, and I have started making improvements to it. Others are welcome to make improvements too. Many other entries need attention too.
i should of done the original assigned homework so i wouldn't have to do this lol
ReplyDeleteIt's easier to do the gapminder assignment ha
ReplyDeleteHeh--- well both assignments require a little bit of effort and learning. Its not that hard to do though, you should be able to get it all done in just a couple 15min sessions.
ReplyDeleteI need a little advice to make sure that what I want to post for the wiki assignment is acceptable. Also I haven't been able to figure out how to site my references on the wiki doc.
ReplyDeleteMy idea is based on sociological body, this is my heading for the wiki page: ==Two examples of how body image can become distorted and related to sociological factors:==
From that I laid out some facts and definitions of examples that I got online and from the section in our book. I just want to make sure that I'm thinking on the right path. I put a good amount of time and effort into this. I just am looking for some feedback and advice about the references.
I think that you should just add your idea as an edit to an already existing page... for example, someone would search for "body image" and through that they could use your edits as useful on already existing pages.
ReplyDeleteOk...thank you Kelli
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kelli-- the best thing to do is to try to improve the pages that already exist. it is a lot of work to start a new one from scratch.
ReplyDeletethe link on the syllabus points to pages in the sociology project that need work-- there are lots of them. a big way lots of them can be improved is by adding small parts that reference the text book or another published resource.
I think I have all of the information I want to include. But does anyone have some advice on how to out in the references. I tried a few ways with the reference button. But when it is previewed it says there is an error. So I am a little confused now. I'm sorry I am not great with computers so I'm learning as I go. I got the hard stuff done now just need to figure out how to get it on there properly. Thanks everyone.
ReplyDeletedoes this help?
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_article_does_not_cite_any_references_or_sources.
What should be on our user page??
ReplyDeleteIt tells me that I have to create one for my user name? What should I be putting on it?
I'm grateful we have this opportunity to make up assignments. I'm not sure what the "C. Rock In-Class Assignment" was or how/when I missed it, so if I do well on these make-ups, it'll be a huge help!
ReplyDeleteHow do we reference material we learned in class that we take from our notes to improve a page? Also we are supposed to put a link to our page in the one page write up we do as well as to the articles we edit, what is our page? What link do we copy?
ReplyDeleteWhen we have to post the page we write in the blog do we paste the whole thing or can we simplify the first part by just writing the pages we did and what we learned and felt about it. I don't know about others but I feel that my entry would be very long if I posted the whole page.
ReplyDeleteHey folks-
ReplyDeleteI will create a new thread for turning in your info. But here is how you get your user page url:
it will look like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Htw3
but with your login where Htw3 is.
When you are logged in to Wikipedia you should be able to click on a link at the top of the page that is for your user page. it is just a page that you can edit how you want. You can write: "Hello world" or whatever. The point is, is that on the links on the left side of the page is one called "User contributions" that is one way I can see the edits that you made.
Dont include the content of the pages you edited-- just include the URL, I can look at the content on the site itself.
From the research that I did last night I found that a lot of the information for sociology was there it was just worded in a way that is hard to understand for someone who isn't big soc buff. I think its easiest to just look through some of the suggested pages and chose a topic that interests you.
ReplyDeleteThe editing process is easier than it seems and there is a lot of information just from the soc book that is helpful for this assignment.
Do we have to make an actual bibliography though or just write down what we used?
When editing a page, are we making a big contribution by editing one page or would you rather see smaller contributions to multiple pages? I would have no problem doing either one, however, it would be nice to know which one you prefer.
ReplyDeleteWhere should we post the link for our gapminder project?
ReplyDeleteIs this the page that we put out actual assignment on?
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Caitmitchell
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sociology
did i do this right? the second part to turn in is just doing our username URL and the URL of what we contributed right?
This is great that this class gives us the opportunity to make up the small points... What I like the most is that we are not just writing some big research paper, we are actually contributing in the world of sociology.
ReplyDeleteUsername: kileyerin12
ReplyDeleteURL for my user page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kileyerin12
URL for edit 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steps_in_the_research_process
URL for edit 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_research
My User Name: hd258109
ReplyDeleteURL for My User Page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hd258109
URL for Edit 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Martineau
URL for Edit 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociological_question
Stephanie
ReplyDeletearizonabuckeye10@gmail.com
URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sociological_imagination#Proposal_for_structural_changes_to_article
Description: I edited the definition of the Sociological Imagination. What the Sociological Imagination taught me was the basic idea of being in someone else’s shoes. For our group project, we learned this by using the example of 9/11 with the relief efforts. The reason that many people participated in this effort was because they could empathize with the victims and the families of the victims. Also, many people put themselves in the victim’s shoes, because they had either been through similar things or because they just wanted to help. They were Americans and wanted to stand united and be supportive of their country. By assisting with 9/11, this gave them the opportunity to be patriotic and give their part.
Citation: Giddens, Anthony. "Sociological Imagination." Introduction to Sociology . 1996. Karl Bakeman. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc, 1996. Print.
Ciara Shutts
ReplyDeleteSociology article: Control Theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_theory_%28sociology%29
My Wikipedia account page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cc12step
Google account user name
ciarashuttts@gmail.com
1. Some of the contributions I made was making the definition of control theory more clear and easier to understand. I also gave an example to Travis Hirschi’s idea of humans are selfish and we do the things that will give us the greatest benefits. I also added some other thoughts and Ideas.
Urls:
http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/jhamlin/2311/Reckless.html
2. In class text book:
Giddens, Anthony, Mitchell Duneier, Richard Appelbaum, and Deborah Carr. Introduction To Sosiology. Seventh . New York City: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009. 182. Print.
3. Contributing to Wikipedia was a nice experience. I felt as if I am helping someone understand the information better when they read the article, I felt like I made a significant contribution to the constantly changing and growing society. I liked making the edits and maybe I will make more in the future throughout my college career while becoming more informed on different subjects. These things connect to the course by participating in the constantly changing society. It made us try something new and come together with other people from all over the world to create these articles to help inform all other people that are curious about a certain topic.
My user name is: th238108
ReplyDeleteMy page URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Th238108
The URL I changed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_lag#References
1) When I got to the Social Theory page, the conflict theory section seemed to be in disarray. There were repeated bullets, and the points that were made were not made clearly. I edited the page by deleted the ‘confusing’ information and adding a paragraph that is concise and to the point.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_conflict#Conflict_Theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/AshMierz
2) The resources that I used were two textbooks. I used our text book from class, and I also used another Sociology book from another intro to Soc class.
Henslin, James M. Essentials of Sociology: a Down-to-earth Approach. Boston: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon, 2009. Print.
Giddens, Anthony, and Anthony Giddens. Introduction to Sociology. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2009. Print.
3) Editing a wikipedia page was intimidating because the entire world sees what you write, and knowing that other people may be using my paragraph for their knowledge is somewhat frightening. Initially, editing was a bit difficult. One does not see how much effort has to be put into typing out all the details (such as bolding words, making lists, bulleting, makings links, etc). However, after looking up my information and completing my ‘critique’ the overall experience was pretty easy.
Editing this page relates to class because we talked a lot about social networking and the impact that the Internet has had on the world. We talked about how easy it is the access information through the new technologies that we experience. Wikipedia is a prime example of this. Anyone can edit it, however there are certain stipulations (the information must be accurate, cited, and it is reviewed by people who are employed by Wikipedia to be sure that no one adds false, inaccurate information) and anyone can access it.
Overall, the experience was new, and most likely something that I will not do again. However, it was pretty cool seeing my paragraph put up on Wikipedia (I made people in my dorm read it after I finished it).
Stephanie
ReplyDeletearizonabuckeye10@gmail.com
URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociological_imagination
Description: I edited the definition of the Sociological Imagination. What the Sociological Imagination taught me was the basic idea of being in someone else’s shoes. For our group project, we learned this by using the example of 9/11 with the relief efforts. The reason that many people participated in this effort was because they could empathize with the victims and the families of the victims. Also, many people put themselves in the victim’s shoes, because they had either been through similar things or because they just wanted to help. They were Americans and wanted to stand united and be supportive of their country. By assisting with 9/11, this gave them the opportunity to be patriotic and give their part.
Citation: Giddens, Anthony. "Sociological Imagination." Introduction to Sociology . 1996. Karl Bakeman. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc, 1996. Print.
I used my Wikipedia account , Schmidy19 to edit
ReplyDeleteThis is the page I edited http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_structure#Overview
I changed the social structure page by adding the sociological definitions of society, stratification, Network, and Social Structure variables. I used my notes from class for the information.
I found editing on Wikipedia much easier to do than I anticipated. In the past, I was under the impression that you had to have some sort of credentials to edit on the site but now I understand that literally anyone can. To understand social structure, I think it is important to understand those terms and how they apply to it. I think I communicated that very effectively. It's been over a week since I posted the changes and they are still up, which gives me the impression that they were accepted as helpful and contributing.