Wikipedia:Canada Education Program/Courses/The Rhetoric of Digital and Interactive Media Environments (Rhonda McEwen)/Resources
Resources
Background and introductory literature
| Item | Preview | Level | Description | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Welcome to Wikipedia brochure |  |
Beginner | "Welcome to Wikipedia" gives you a basic introduction into contributing to Wikipedia. You will learn how to create a Wikipedia user account, how to start editing, and how to communicate with other contributors. You will also learn how articles evolve on Wikipedia and how to rate the quality of an existing article. The "Welcome to Wikipedia" brochure contains 17 pages and an additional quick reference that helps you to remember the most frequently used wiki markup commands. | |
| Ten Simple Rules for Editing Wikipedia |  |
Beginner | "Ten Simple Rules for Editing Wikipedia" is an editorial published in PLoS Computational Biology that gives advice for scientists (also relevant to other scholars and experts) on how to effectively contribute to Wikipedia. | |
| Evaluating Wikipedia article quality brochure |  |
Beginner | Evaluating Wikipedia article quality is a reference guide with specific steps you can take to get the most out of Wikipedia, as well as a look at how its quality system works. | |
| Introduction to free licenses pamphlet |  |
Beginner | Introduction to free licenses helps you understand the basic concepts of free licenses. It explains the idea of free licenses, as well as terms like "CC-by-SA" and "public domain". |
Editing references, instructions and guides
| Item | Preview | Level | Description | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Editing reference sheet |  |
Beginner | This one-page quick reference helps you to remember the most frequently used wiki markup commands. | |
| How to get help handout |  |
Beginner | This one-page handout explains the recommended way to get help and feedback for classes supported by Wikipedia Ambassadors: by posting on their course talk page and notifying their mentor. It also includes a glossary of additional help resources students might use. | |
| Citing sources handout |  |
Intermediate | This handout explains why references are important, where to place them, and the basics of adding "ref" tags. | |
| Plagiarism handout |  |
Intermediate | This handout explains what plagiarism is on Wikipedia in addition to why and how to avoid it. | |
| Moving out of your sandbox instructions |  |
Intermediate | This handout walks through how to move an article draft from a userpage sandbox into Wikipedia | |
| File licensing tutorial |  |
Beginner | This short handout explains why and how uploaded files (images) should be licensed. | SVG image |
| Referencing: WikiCode Handout |  |
Beginner | This handout explains the basics of "ref" tags and the "name" parameter as well as "citation templates." | |
| Image uploading handout |  |
Intermediate | This handout explains the basics of uploading an image on the English Wikipedia. | |
| Submitting an article to the Did You Know process instructions |  |
Advanced | This handout walks through how to submit a new or newly expanded article to the Did You Know process so that it will appear on the Main Page. | |
| Visual explanation of the user contribution page |  |
Beginner | Visual explanation of the user contribution page | SVG |
Videos
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Account creation tutorial (2 min 35 sec)
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Starting a sandbox article tutorial (2 min 11 sec)
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Basic editing: bold and links (3 min 37 sec)
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Basic editing: citing sources, part 1 (2 min 3 sec)
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Article creation tutorial (7 min 50 sec)
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Copyright licenses involved in uploading files (3 min 28 sec)
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HotCat and categories explanation (5 min 43 sec)
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How to use a watchlist (2 min 10 sec)
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Quick account creation walkthrough -
How to log in
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Quick starting a sandbox walkthrough
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Quick sandbox article test, with a reference
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How to use talk pages
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How to add an image
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Article improvement
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Article assessments (general, not WikiProject United States Public Policy)
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Article evolution
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RefTools (7 min 29 sec)
On-wiki tutorials
- Wikipedia:Tutorial- General introduction to Wikipedia
- Wikipedia:Article wizard - Walkthrough of the requirements for articles, including notability and sources
- Wikipedia:Picture tutorial- Explains how to insert pictures into Wikipedia articles using wikitext
- Wikipedia:Graphics tutorials (advanced) - advice about advanced image editing
Analyzing your contributions
- Wikipedia article traffic statistics – a tool for charting how many hits any given article gets, great for comparing different kinds of articles at different times, e.g., Genetics (in the school year) vs. (in the summer), or YouTube (with weekend spikes) and Simpsons (with spikes when new episodes come out). Students can also use it to see how many people are reading their articles over the course of the class (and beyond).
- Edit counter – a tool for charting how many edits you've made over time, which types of pages you've edited, and which pages you've edited most.