1. Editing Wikipedia instead of writing a
paper
Greta Munger, Davidson College
“to change the way people think”
–Denis Diderot (1750)
Encyclopedia
or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts and
Crafts
2. Civic engagement
…to assist students in developing humane
instincts and disciplined and creative minds for
lives of leadership and service…
Davidson College Mission Statement
3. Developing the assignment
Defining an entry
Initial definition
Imagine this is all they read, what to know?
Methods
How do we define and measure this?
Specific results
This is the bulk of the article.
Theory
To the extent that there is some consensus.
4. Wikipedia assignment
Traditional literature review
Students work individually
1500-2000 words
4-6 peer reviewed sources
Wikipedia project
Students in pairs
No specific word count
Add 15 peer-reviewed sources
5. Wikipedia Day 1
Registering, linking, and markup
User page details…
Register at Wikipedia
Link to Davidson College (external)
Link to course page
APS template
Infobox user template (make it pretty!)
Talk to a fellow classmate on their User page
Say “hi” to Online Ambassador
“Meet & greet” section of his talk page
Places to register…
Register at APS
Add your name to the list of students on our course page
6. Wikipedia Day 2
Finding sources and adding references
Citation wizard, DOI search
7. Markup
What you see in textbox
Mental rotation is the ability to manipulate mental representations of two-
dimensional and three-dimensional objects about various axes of rotation, with
larger orientation differences require more processing time<ref>{{cite
journal|last=Shepard|first=R. N.|coauthors=Metzler, J.|title=Mental Rotation of
Three-Dimensional
Objects|journal=Science|date=1971|volume=171|issue=3972|pages=701–
703|doi=10.1126/science.171.3972.701}}</ref> <ref>{{cite
book|last=Revlin|first=R|title=Human Cognition Theory and
Practice|year=2012|publisher=Worth Pub|isbn=9780716756675|pages=237-
241}}</ref>.
{{reflist}}
What you see as the preview (and when page is saved)
Mental rotation is the ability to manipulate mental representations of two-
dimensional and three-dimensional objects about various axes of rotation, with
larger orientation differences require more processing time[1] [2].
1. ^ Shepard, R. N.; Metzler, J. (1971). "Mental Rotation of Three-Dimensional Objects".
Science 171 (3972): 701–703. doi:10.1126/science.171.3972.701.
2. ^ Revlin, R. Human Cognition Theory and Practice. Worth Pub. pp. 237-241.
8. Wikipedia Day 3
Articles & partners assigned
Article
structure described
Develop tentative list of sources
Goal: 15 peer reviewed articles by next week
10. Writing concisely
Typical student sentence
“In a study done by Brown and Munger (2010), they
manipulated whether the camera was rotating or translating
through the scene and found larger representational
momentum for rotations.”
APA rewrite
“Brown and Munger (2010) found larger representational
momentum for camera rotations compared to translations.”
Wikipedia rewrite
“More representational momentum occurs for camera
rotations compared to translations through a scene.[1]”
1. ^ Brown, Travis A.; Munger, Margaret P. (2010). "Representational momentum, spatial
layout, and viewpoint dependency". Visual Cognition 18: 780–800.
doi:10.1080/13506280903336535.