Course:FNH200/Wikipedia Project

Welcome to our Wikipedia team project timeline for FNH200. The objectives of the team project are to enable students to delve deeper into a specific area of interest and to relate it to the topics explored in this course. Students will also gain experience working in an interdisciplinary team and examine the same topic from different perspectives. Each team will select a traditional food commodity and a related aspect of food science and technology that is of interest to the team.

This page will guide you through our Wikipedia project for the course. This page breaks down writing a Wikipedia article into a series of steps, or milestones.

July 5: Intro to Wikipedia Editing

To Do

Create a Wikipedia account
Add a sentence to your user page

Readings

Please review the following resources:

July 8: Form Teams

To Do

By the end of this week, everyone should have their teams formed.
This week, everyone should have a Wikipedia account and have sent me a link to their user page.

July 10: Submit Team Contract

To Do

By this week, submit your team contract

July 12: In-Class Citation Edit-a-thon

To do

"Standardized foods" in Canada are described by the Food and Drug Regulations of The Food and Drugs Act of Canada or the Regulations under the Canada Agricultural Product Acts.

For this project, working with your team, you will review the Canadian legal standards of some foods and, if that information is missing from the food's corresponding Wikipedia article, you will add a short description and citation to the Wikipedia article.

Please work with a minimum of three different foods and contribute roughly 200 to 300 words on Wikipedia. Submissions will be evaluated on:

Completion of the ‘translation’ of three different foods from ‘legal description’ to ‘everyday, simple’ English
Citing sources
Hyperlinking, linking your contribution to other Wikipedia articles, external sites, and/or adding links to your contribution from other Wikipedia articles

Instead of three different foods, you may choose to look into the regulations from three different countries (one must be Canada) of one single food.

The Edit-a-thon will take place on July 12, after the mid-term and the Final Completion deadline is by July 15, at 3:59 pm.

Readings

Adding Citations

July 15: Explore Topics & Create Sandbox

A 'good' topic for this FNH 200 project should have minimal coverage on Wikipedia. Foods that have been explored in details may not be a good topic for this 2nd-year food science course.

For examples: Maple syrup is a good topic as it represents Canada. However, it has been covered quite extensively (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maple_syrup) and there may not be much left for you as students with only introductory level background in food science.

Soju, a Korean beverage, may be a good candidate for this project. Though there is quite a bit of info on soju on Wikipedia, the information are limited to history and consumption pattern of soju. Little information on processing is available. As students in FNH 200, you may want to expand on fermentation techniques, processing requirements, packaging needs, and Canadian regulations (if any) of soju on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soju

To Do

Keep exploring! It may take a while and some negotiations with your teammates before narrowing down to a couple topics. Consider this exploration part of the learning
Select one group member whose Sandbox space you'll all share to draft your article. Each person should link to that shared Sandbox from their own Sandbox page. A sandbox is like any other page on Wikipedia, and anyone can edit it.
Submit the link to your group's sandbox page to me.

Readings

July 17: Finalize your topic & Begin to Research and Write

To Do

In your team's sandbox, write a few sentences about what you plan to contribute to the selected article. What can you add? Post some of your ideas to the article's talk page, too.
Compile a list of relevant, reliable books, journal articles, or other sources. Post that bibliography to the talk page of the article you'll be working on, and in your sandbox. Make sure to check in on the Talk page to see if anyone has advice on your bibliography.
Identify what's missing from the current form of the article. Make notes for improvement in your team sandbox.
Keep reading and researching sources, too, as you prepare to write the body of the article.
Once you have determined that there are sufficient, reliable resources for your project topic, you should draft a potential outline and list your associated resources.
Post your outline with headings and subheadings on your team sandbox
Three to six subheadings should be about right at this stage; you can certainly dismiss some ideas and/or expands others as you research more
Provide relevant resources for each sub-topics you like to explore

Readings

July 31: Ask for Feedback & Refine Your Article

By now, you should have a mostly complete draft of your proposed edits.

To Do

Post an introduction of your team project to the talk page of the Wikipedia article with a link to your sandbox. Ask for comments or feedback from the Wikipedia community.
Mentally prepare for feedback and potential criticisms from fellow Wikipedians
Politely thank them for their suggestions and sincerely consider their suggestions
When necessary, explain why the topics (and sub-topics) you are choosing are notable and how the resources you will be using are reliable
If comments are rude and aggressive, please notify me immediately
Do additional research and writing to make further improvements to your article, based on suggestions and your own critique.
Create links from your article to others, and from other articles to your own. Try to link to 3–5 articles, and link to your article from 2–3 other articles.
Consider adding an image to your article. Wikipedia has strict rules about what media can be added, so make sure to take the 'Contributing Images and Media Files' training before you upload an image.

Readings

August 6: Move Your Work From Your Sandbox to the Article

It's time to move your work to Wikipedia proper - the "mainspace." NEVER copy and paste your draft of an article over the entire article. Instead, edit small sections at a time.

To Do

Copy your edits into the article. Make many small edits, saving each time, and leaving an edit summary. Never replace more than one to two sentences without saving!
Be sure to copy text from your sandbox while the sandbox page is in 'Edit' or 'Edit source' mode. This ensures that the formatting is transferred correctly.

August 10: Polish Your Work

To Do

Continue to expand and improve your work, and format your article to match Wikipedia's tone and standards.
Everyone should have finished all of the work they'll do on Wikipedia, and be ready for grading.