Wikipedia as a Venue for Historical Research and Writing

Purpose

:If the Wikipedia entry for a topic is not the first thing you can look at in the course of your research, what are youto do? How will an assignment

ever

get done? In order to further explore some of the issues we dealt with in the firsttwo weeks about the ethics of history, various historical methods (especially the issue of objectivity vs. subjectivity,)and how historians employ various types of sources, you are going to be playing the role of historian and creating(or dramatically expanding) an entry on Wikipedia.This assignment hopes to help you achieve three major goals: improve your research skills, learn aboutWikipedia's place in terms of research, and learn the difference between

objective

and

analytical, argumentative,subjective

historical writing.

Procedure

:This assignment has two major phases. Due dates will be determined as we progress through the assignment.

Phase One

1.Create an account on Wikipedia so that you'll be able to log in and edit articles. Be sure to remember your user name so you can make edits with it

and

so you can tell me what it is in your first blog post (see #4 below.)2.Read throughWikipedia's guidelines for their entries. Consider how these guidelines will shape the entrythat you write and how these guidelines reflect a particular outlook toward history. Pay special attention totheWikipedia Content Criteriaand read through all of these pages in order to be

fully

familiar with thewebsites expectations and guidelines. Also check outWikipedia's page about "verifiability,"and their expectations about basing your research on secondary and tertiary sources as Wikipedia entriesshould NOT constitute original research.3.Go toWikipedia's Historical Stubs Page(can also be accessed in a different wayhere

) and browse throughthe various offerings for entries that have not yet been created in Wikipedia. You are free to select almostany entry -- the only limitation is that your topic in some way needs to deal with the field of WorldHistory. Aside from that, feel free to choose whatever era, issue, person, idea, etc. interests you.4.Write and post a

blog entry

explaining the process that you went through in deciding what you wanted towrite about and why you find that topic particularly interesting. Also briefly address what plans and/or strategy you have for researching this topic -- where will you find sources, how will you organize your research, how will you determine the validity and/or value of the sources you encounter? What strategiesdo you have to make your entry congruent with Wikipedia's guidelines?5.Research. I strongly urge you to useDiigoand annotate the various sources you find online. However,you'll also need to cull through secondary sources online inJSTOR ,Google Books, and even print sources. Be sure to organize your research well (both the digital and the print) so that you can synthesizethe material effective and make proper citations on your entry.6.Compose an

entry

of roughly 500 words about your topic of research to be posted on Wikipedia. To also preserve your original version and have a record of it, post your Wikipedia entry on your blog as well.1.Assignment adapted from and influenced by the following sources:"Assigning Wikipedia in a US History Survey" by Jeremy Boggshttp://clioweb.org/2009/04/05/assigning-wikipedia-in-a-us-history-survey/"Strange Facts in the History Classroom: Or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the

Wiki(pedia)"