Learning Goals
- Familiarize yourself with how information gets onto sources like Wikipedia.
- Familiarize yourself with Wikipedia’s Core Content Policies
- Build a Wiki Page For an Underrepresented Academic Author
Activity
How does information get into Wikipedia and AcademicTree? Users like you. Or not. Look for information about scholars of color and Jews of color on https://academictree.org or on wikipedia. Is anyone you’d expect to see missing? If so, this isn’t completely surprising, as even though Wikipedia is commonly used as a source both by students and general users, it is rife with systemic bias.
Today we are going to start chipping away at that issue either by
- Making sure a scholar of color whose work you admire is represented in academictree. If she isn’t, sign in and add her. As part of this process you will want to search https://www.proquest.com/libraries/academic/dissertations-theses/pqdtglobal.html Enter your person’s name and filter by Dissertation & Thesis. Sort by oldest first. Depending on the age of the person, it may indicate who the director was. You will also be able to find who have been the person’s thesis students. Keep track of what you find and the citations for it as you will want it for your Wikipedia entry. Create a link to her tree from your blog.
AND/OR
2. Adding your either the scholar or a biography of a Jew of color to Wikipedia. You can either enhance a stub (great for first time users!), or create something from scratch (helps to have worked on wikipedia before). For example, for a scholar who isn’t on wikipedia but you feel should be, you can creating an entry for one of her books or articles. For a Jew of color whose life or work hasn’t be recognized by wikipedia, add a biography.
Unsure who to add? Here is a list of individuals that people in the field nominated for being added.
A. Familiarize yourself with Wikipedia’s core content policies (neutral point of view, verifiability, no original research) and content guidelines (particularly notability and reliable sources).
B. Do your research. All items in Wikipedia need sources. Keep track of these as you do your research!
- Education
- When and where did she receive her degrees?
- Career
- Where does the person work? Has she ever worked elsewhere?
- Work
- What is this person known for?
- Awards & Honors
- If you can find the person’s CV on line it will help
- Selected publications
- Make a list of her key publications (again do a search for her name and CV. Or you can use Worldcat
- References
- External Links
- Categories: Living people | ? Alumni |? Alumni | ? Faculty
- Before your continue place this information on google drive page for safe keeping and create a link to it from your blog
C. Create a page
- Read the Tutorial
- Create an account
- You may want to use the Template for Biography or Click Edit on the entry for Saidiya Hartman and copy it into your Sandbox. Now update it so it is about the correct person and has the correct categories.
- Place your text in your Draft Space or Sandbox and edit the formatting of your entry
- Done? Click publish and submit draft.