User:Ryan (Wiki Ed)/Sandbox

Editing Wikipedia articles about History (page 1)

Editing Wikipedia can be daunting for newbies, especially as a student editor contributing to Wikipedia for the first time in a class assignment. This guide is for students assigned to add content about history to Wikipedia.

Be accurate

Wikipedia is a resource millions of people use to inform themselves about history. Reasons for reading about history on Wikipedia are as diverse as history itself. By documenting and sharing accurate and objective content about historical figures and events, you will help to ensure that people around the world have access to a wider spectrum of human knowledge.

Understand the guidelines

Take time to read and understand the suggestions here to maximize the value of your contributions to Wikipedia. If you post something that doesn't meet these guidelines, resolving it may take up a lot of extra time and effort that could have been spent improving content.

If you aren't comfortable working within these guidelines, talk to your instructor about an alternative off-wiki assignment.

Engage with editors

Part of the Wikipedia experience is receiving and responding to feedback from other editors. Don't wait until the last day to make a contribution, or you may miss important comments, advice, and ideas. Volunteers from the Wikipedia community might respond or ask questions about your work. If they do, make sure to reply. Thank them, and work with them to improve the article. They may also make changes to your work or, if it does not follow these guidelines, may remove it from the article. If this happens, don't just add it again! Ask the editor who made the change why they did so and what you can do to improve it. Discussion is a crucial part of the Wikipedia process.

Avoid close paraphrasing

Use your own words. Plagiarizing by copying-and-pasting or by close paraphrasing — when most of the words are changed, but the structure and meaning of the original text remains — is against the rules.

Plagiarism is a violation of your university's academic honor code. Plagiarism on Wikipedia will be caught by other editors or automated plagiarism-detection tools. When that happens, some or all of your work will be deleted and there will be a permanent online record of the plagiarism tied to your account. Even standard resources or authors, such as textbooks, are under copyright and should never be directly copied. The rules for plagiarism apply everywhere on Wikipedia, including articles that you're working on in sandboxes.

The best way to avoid this hassle is to make sure you really understand your material, and write about it in your own words. If you aren't clear on what close paraphrasing is, contact your university's writing center.

Make a difference

Take the time to understand the rules and guidelines. They may seem intimidating now, but soon you'll be contributing your knowledge and judgement to a resource you, and millions of other people, use every day.

Getting started (page 2)

Picking an article

Look for topics that are missing or aren't well developed on Wikipedia. Find articles that are incomplete in some important way. For example:

• A biography of a general might leave out their post-conflict role as an administrator;
• An article about a husband and wife team might lack mention of the contribution of the less famous spouse to their joint endeavor; or,
• An article that focuses on a single perspective, like a colonial war that only tells the story from the perspective of the European participant.

If you choose to create a new article, keep in mind that Wikipedia has strict rules about the kinds of articles that can be created. If you create a new article, the onus is on you to show that it meets Wikipedia's "notability" criteria. In general, this means that you should only create articles about topics that have been discussed in depth by at least articles in two high-quality sources. (Two is the bare minimum; it's a good idea to have three or four sources.) Decide whether this topic is best dealt with as new article, or whether it would be better off as a section in an existing article.

Sourcing

Because Wikipedia articles can be written by anyone, and because there's usually no way to determine whether the editor of an article is actually an expert on the topic, Wikipedia articles need to reflect what other, reliable sources, have said about the topic. Unlike other history papers you've written, a Wikipedia article prioritizes secondary sources over primary sources. Before you spend too much time working on an article, it's important to establish whether the subject of the article has been adequately covered by reliable, secondary sources.

A historian interprets primary source documents. A Wikipedian writing about history reports on the interpretations made by historians, and on the analyses of these works by other historians. This limits the kinds of things that you can write about on Wikipedia, and the way you should write them.

Use these sources:

• Peer-reviewed journal articles found in databases like EBSCOhost, ProQuest, and JSTOR
• Books written by historians that synthesize and evaluate a period in time
• Reputable newspaper articles synthesizing the history of a topic

Don't use these sources:

• Most newspaper articles from the period you're writing about
• Diaries or letters from people directly involved
• Archival records
• Other primary sources

If you're unsure about your sources, review the Dashboard training module on "Sources and Citations" or ask your instructor for help. Detailed information about Wikipedia's sourcing guidelines are available at this shortcut: WP:RS

What's a shortcut? (Pullout box)

The text WP:RS is what's known on Wikipedia as a shortcut.

You can type shortcuts like this into Wikipedia's search bar to pull up specific pages that might otherwise be hard to find.

Underrepresented voices

The perspectives of indigenous peoples, marginalized groups, women, and the poor are often absent from Wikipedia articles on history. Where modern scholarship has given voice to these groups, editing Wikipedia can be an excellent way to add their perspectives.

The best way to add this information is in the main body of the article. as opposed to where? Integrate the perspectives of underrepresented voices throughout the sections of your article. Rather than in one section? Or is this to avoid having them create a separate article?

The information you add must come from reliable sources. Since underrepresented voices tend to be underrepresented in reliable sources, writing about them can be difficult. These problems are an example of systemic bias and are known to Wikipedians, but have proven difficult to overcome without dismantling Wikipedia's sourcing requirements (which would then open the doors to dubious content). This problem lacks easy solutions.

Structuring your article (page 3)

History articles cover a diverse range of topics; some elements of the article layout are common between different types of articles, while others vary.

Handling different perspectives

Part of creating a well-balanced history article is providing an overview of all major points of view about the topic. History can seem completely objective, but historians frequently disagree, and sometimes their methods or perspectives result in competing narratives or interpretations of a historical subject. Keep in mind that you're not just writing about the subject; you're writing about how historians have written about the subject.

Be sure to present all of the major points of view about a topic in a way that reflects the relative importance given to them by experts. Interpretations held by a minority of historians about a topic should appear in the article, but in a way that makes clear that they are only held by a minority of scholars in the field. When there's disagreement, it's usually a good idea to attribute an idea to its author explicitly in the text.

Truly fringe positions don't belong in these articles. For example, an article about the Egyptian Pyramids should not include claims that they were built by aliens, or that they were used to store grain.

Describing multiple points of view well is one of the most challenging parts of writing about history, but it's also one of the most important.

Lead section (pullout box)

At the top of every article is a lead section, which summarizes the rest of the article's content. It may be a good idea to save writing the lead section until the end, so you can be sure it properly summarizes what you've covered. It should cover all of the most important ideas from the article, and shouldn't include information that doesn't also appear somewhere other than the lead.

Events

Articles about historic events tend to have four main sections:

• Lead section
• Background (events leading up to and influencing the event)
• Event itself
• Aftermath or legacy (what were the lasting ramifications)

For good examples, see articles for 1689 Boston revolt, Sinking of the RMS Titanic or Burning of Parliament.

Political entities

Articles about historical kingdoms, nations, or civilizations tend to include the following sections:

• Lead section
• History
• Government or Administration
• Economy
• Society or Culture
• Legacy

For good examples, see articles for Kingdom of Mysore, Ancient Egypt or Parthian Empire.

Biographies

To learn more about writing biographies consult the Editing Wikipedia articles: Biographies handout, available at http://wikiedu.org/biographies

Military history

Wikipedia has an active community of editors interested in military history. They have a detailed collection of resources for new editors interested in that field available at shortcut: WP:MHAC

Wrapping up (page 4)

Key points

As you start writing, keep these guidelines in mind:

• Unlike most school assignments, Wikipedia doesn't permit original research. Your article should cover what the sources say, not your own interpretations or opinions.
• Write for a general audience. Don't assume people have subject matter knowledge. Avoid jargon, and briefly explain complicated concepts.
• Summarize what the sources say in your own words.
• Stick to the structure presented in this guide, but use your judgment about when to rename, combine, add, or remove sections.
• Be sure to write in an impersonal, fact-based, encyclopedic style. Don't approach a Wikipedia article like a blog post or personal essay. See the Editing Wikipedia brochure linked from your course page if you need a refresher on the difference in tone.

Final thoughts

• Don’t procrastinate! Writing good, reliable Wikipedia articles takes time. Don’t wait until the last minute. If you get stuck, always ask your instructor for extra time, rather than adding content to Wikipedia that doesn’t meet these guidelines.
• Remember to link to other pages on Wikipedia so readers can learn more about topics you mention.
• Give appropriate weight to aspects of the topic as the sources cover it.
• Check back on your page. It can be interesting to see how your article grows, but you may also have comments and suggestions from other editors, and want to get involved in new developments.