Wikipedia & Wikispaces
Another option for your digital writing and publishing portfolio is a contribution to Wikipedia or the creation of a Wikispaces site. In either case, you can choose to work with whatever topic you’d like. As with the Infographic assignment, this may require you to conduct a bit of outside research.
Wikipedia V. Wikispaces
You are likely familiar with Wikipedia but perhaps you have never contributed to the site. This could be a fun experiment for you. However, some topics will be more fitting for a Wikipedia entry than others. You could create a new page for a topic that doesn’t currently exist in Wikipedia and/or you could make short contributions to one or more pages already in existence. Content on Wikipedia should be balanced and impartial and is often supported by external sources (that are cited), so it is not a space for your personal opinions. If you feel like you don’t have something new to contribute to Wikipedia, you could opt to create a Wikispaces page. Wikispaces pages are somewhat more private but are meant to be collaborative spaces for building content. I expect you to create a few pages within your Wikispaces site and to get some content started that you could then share with others and they could eventually offer their own contributions.
Evaluative Criteria
I’m not requiring a certain length or number of pages/contributions. However, my hope is that you meaningfully contribute at least 200 words of content, even if that is spread among multiple pages on Wikipedia or in Wikispaces.
Your writing for Wikipedia should indicate your rhetorical awareness of purpose, audience, context, and genre. I will use the following criteria to evaluate your writing.
Many of the above expectations are also true for Wikispaces, except there aren’t strict rules governing the site. While I expect your writing to be clear and for you to cite your sources, for instance, you do not necessarily need to present balanced and impartial views. You have more freedom (and thus my expectations are higher) for how you can organize information and create different pages.
Tips & Links to Good Help Pages on Wikipedia
Go here for help on formatting titles, headings, etc., and for help with layout.
Go here for help with how to format citations within your entry.
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