Directing Student Time and Efforts
Student Guidelines
We usually have students find and intervene in two articles to give them a chance to experience how each article has its own unique set of tasks and to reduce the chance that the whole assignment will fall flat. If one of the articles proves intractable, they can learn from it, but they will find the assignment more satisfying if they are able to improve the other. In a longer assignment, this number could be expanded to three (when we have honors students, we usually have them do a third).
We find that, at least in relation to current expectations about editing and writing in the United States, students in a technical or advanced editing class need to be persistently reminded and shown that there is more to be done in facilitating good writing than copyediting. This reminder is particularly important for this assignment, as most students will at first see primarily small errors and edits in their Wikipedia pages. We thus repeatedly direct them to search for big issues and to make bold edits first, whatever that means for their particular pages.
Students will then have a lot of questions about what they should focus on and how much time they should spend on it. The next section will cover the most common major interventions, which will help give students particular things to look for and work on. In addition, we provide the following guidance, which might seem counterintuitive for a Wikipedia assignment, but has remained important for clarifying the purpose of the assignment and directing student efforts:
Limit research and citation work: Many students will get distracted by and want to spend a lot of time researching their topic, usually to add citations. While this is encouraged from Wikipedia's perspective, we find that it often distracts them from seeing the larger editing issues that made the article stall to begin with. Research of this sort can be a rabbit hole that might lead them to take far longer on the project than is warranted.
Our rule: If it takes longer than an hour to research for any given portion, leave it for someone else and think about strategic interventions for clarifying what needs to be done. Research is encouraged if it helps navigate the conceptual, organizational, or other major writing issues.
For instance, in the Sin article discussed in Part 1, one could spend a long time researching whether or not "sin" is appropriate in Buddhism, but this is not required for making the observation that this ambiguity exists and needs to be addressed. In such a case, one should make space for discussion and make the issue clear for current or future content matter experts who find their way to the article.
Limit the addition of new content to strategic additions: Likewise, students will often get distracted by the possibility of writing their own content in the articles. Doing so moves them from the more traditional editor role to writer, which is not the primary purpose of the assignment. Although the analogy is imperfect, this would be like an editor rewriting whole portions of an author's novel. While no one owns the writing on Wikipedia, the point of this particular assignment is to get students thinking about how to push existing writing and writers towards more appropriate content. While they may often take a heavy hand in rewriting content and, in some cases, want to add some content we provide the following guideline:
Our rule: Only add new content strategically but limit the time it takes to do so to about an hour in any instance.
For example, if the article needs a new section but no content exists, it can make a big difference to quickly add some content rather than just leave a blank section. Likewise, if a whole article is struggling to write content in an appropriate way or struggling with kinds of content (such as WP:Fringe content), sometimes adding a few lines of good content can model for other writers more appropriate kinds of content with minimal time and research.
Remember that communication is editing work: Students often need to be reminded that communication is editing. Of course, traditional editing with defined writers often involves commenting on a document, which can't be performed directly on Wikipedia. The key is to emphasize that the same kind of work can still be done here, but strategically within the structure and channels provided. This counts as and is essential for good editing work.
Big edits first, then smaller ones (if there is time): As with most editing, comprehensive edits need to happen first since they make the biggest changes to text. Otherwise, students will be correcting small things in text that they may then radically alter in a reorganization or refocus. Remind students that the project is about pushing these articles forward; we're looking for a bold, diplomatic, and thoughtful intervention, not just a polishing of existing content.
Pace edits to fit the community: Big, bold edits need to happen first, but they also need to be the most diplomatic. Help students to figure out what needs to be done early, but then encourage them to leave space for refinement and potential feedback. They do so primarily through talk page posts. They may want to then use a sandbox to work out their edits and solicit feedback. Either way, they should wait a few days or more to implement bold edits. Bold edits then should be split up rather than done as one giant edit so that other editors can see what was done in the edit summaries.
Note that procrastination just doesn't work in this project. Emphasize this from the beginning and help students pace themselves.