Our first writing assignment will be very structured, because we’ll be writing new Wikipedia articles for people who don’t already have them. My goals for this assignment are that you will learn:

• a new form of typesetting. Wikipedia has a specific syntax for links, which is similar to Markdown but not quite the same. In this class we’ll using a lot of different technologies, so I want to ease you into that learning process with something (relatively) straightforward.
• quality reference-finding skills. In journalistic writing, you rarely make direct citations to where you got your information, but that doesn’t mean you don’t reference source material. You need every statement to be factual and backed up by proof. Writing Wikipedia articles gives you the experience of explicitly writing out those sources.
• a neutral writing style. Since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, it can’t include opinions in any way. As we progress, we may try writing in more subjective or personal styles, but for now I want you to be very objective.
• some form of versioning. Every time you make an edit in Wikipedia, you need to describe what you did in that edit, to help keep a record about how the article was built up. We will likely be using git and GitHub as the course progresses, which is a more complicated version of the same thing.

Wikipedia has good guidlines for people writing their first article. I would encourage you to read them. Since I have given you a list of ideas of people to write about I think it’s pretty unlikely you will run into a conflict of interest, but if you choose someone yourself please make sure it is not a friend, family member, etc.

In order to get credit for this assignment, you need to:

• author a “full article.” This means filling out as many sections as you can about the person, based on the references you were able to find. The sections may include Work/Career, Personal Life, Awards, Education, or whatever might be relevant. You can look at other Wikipedia pages for inspiration, perhaps especially those listed on the Inspiration sheet of our google doc. Those pages can also help you see what (approximate) length I am looking for. Most are fairly short, but have sections and are full of references.
• link your article at least one other place by editing another Wikipedia page

I’ll be honest and say that it’s pretty unlikely everyone’s article will actually be accepted by Wikipedia, so that’s not a criterion for grading. Instead, I want to see that you have done it. Because I’m not a Wikipedia expert, I want to see two things:

• a screenshot of your finished page. It will say “Draft” or something similar at the top
• a link to that Draft page.