Wikipedia contribution

Most of you by now have chosen your topics and are reading some of your sources. Therefore I'm going to try to forestall panic by talking about your wikipedia contribution. I'm going to start with a grace note, by moving the due date from Monday to Tuesday. (After all, I'm not going to be grading them Tuesday, am I? No, I'm going to be teaching your class on Tuesday. And driving.)

First off, the wiki part of "wikipedia" means not only that wikipedia is changeable, but that it keeps a log of all its changes as it goes, so that it's easy to see and even revert to earlier versions. For those of you who have been asking how I'll grade these, that's the answer: I can verify your contribution as long as you tell me your username by hitting the "history" button on the upper right hand side of your article (try it and check this out). However, it would make my life much easier if you would also print out the article after you've made your contribution (or the section, for very long articles) and highlight the part you edited.

For those of you who are still a little unsure about the guidelines for editing wikipedia, here's a good starting place. Your contribution may well not be a whole article, or even a whole paragraph; it might be a couple of lines and bullet points in various places. That's totally fine.

I have received one early submission that I'm going to share as an example: Friday Fast. The student added the (current) final paragraph on the origins of Catholic fasting. There is a nice balance between information and brevity here: not too much information to flood this article with historical detail, but enough to give a good introduction, and notice the footnote and reference added for readers to consult the book if they wish.

If you have more questions about the how-to of the wikipedia edit project, add them in the comments.