Wikipedia Article/Social Media Assignment
Assignment: Expand or create a Wikipedia biography page for a scientist that is a member of an underrepresented group.
- Students will read primary reports (published research studies) and cite accordingly.
- Scientific achievements will be concisely explained and linked to relevant articles elsewhere in Wikipedia.
- Articles will abide by the formatting and content standards set forth by Wikipedia.
Students will help to increase the visibility of scientists from underrepresented groups.
Wikipedia-Steps to completion:
- Identify a researcher whose biography is absent from Wikipedia or lacking in a significant way.
- Get approval from instructor to begin researching this person.
- Familiarize yourself with the standards for content sharing detailed in the Wikipedia Manual of Style https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style
- Determine key contributions to science by this person and become conversant about these fields/topics by reading primary literature as well as reviews/perspectives.
- Format of entry should appear as follows:
One-sentence summary
Early life and education
Research and career
References
Grading:
complete description of education―degrees obtained when and from where (10%)
mentors (10%)
descriptions of scientific achievements and the tools used to make them (50%)
references (20%)
grammar/writing style (10%)
full scores are awarded for complete hyperlinking to places, people, and subjects elsewhere within Wikipedia.
An example of such an article can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mildred_Cohn
This assignment is inspired by the work of Dr. Jess Wade to increase representation of women and URM scientists on Wikipedia (https://blog.wikimedia.org/2018/07/13/jess-wade/).
Relevant story: The 2018 physics Nobel Prize was awarded in October to Donna Strickland for her advances in laser technology. In May of that year, her Wikipedia page was taken down due to her “not being famous enough” (https://qz.com/1410909/wikipedia-had-rejected-nobel-prize-winner-donna-strickland-because-she-wasnt-famous-enough/).
Students will execute this assignment within the WikiEdu. If choosing to write about a woman scientist, abide by these best-practices. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Writing_about_women
