Your final project in this class involves two separate documents: (1) a research paper that you publish in the form of a Wikipedia entry, and (2) a self-assessment of your research that you send directly to me. Both are due no later than Friday, October 16 (fall break).

 

Wikipedia entry

Research one of the approved topics related to our course fieldtrips and create a Wikipedia entry for it. How long it needs to be depends on your specific topic; as you'll see from the list of approved topics, some are substantial enough to require two students to work on the same topic. This assignment will require you do the following:

1. Find at least four research sources. You'll cite these in a concluding References section, following the proper Wikipedia guidelines. To be clear: each student will have to find four sources each, so 2-student entries will need eight sources.
   
2. Adhere to the appropriate Wikipedia narrative format. An encyclopedia entry is not a traditional research essay. Instead, it has a somewhat particular structure: a general opening paragraph that makes clear what kind of "thing" the topic is; a strictly objective tone of writing, with no options from the author; a further organization into sections and sub-sections, listed in a Contents table; the enumeration of constituent elements (the published books of an author, for instance) in numbered lists; and other rules of the genre that you'll learn about.
3. Post at least one photo to accompany your entry. Any of the photos we've shared in this class can be used for your entry. Be sure to assign them the most generous permission of usage, following Wikipedia guidelines. If our photos aren't quite right for your topic, then find something online that you have permission to use on Wikipedia, or go take another original photo.
4. Find at least four other Wikipedia pages to link your entry from. Many and perhaps most Wikipedia pages aren't visited through the search engine; they're found as users click through links on other pages. Think about other pages about topics that are obviously connected to your topic, and modify them to include a link to your entry. You may have to write or reorganize text on those pages!

 

Self-assessment brief

When you're done with your entry, write an approximately 3-page paper explaining your research process, source selection, and other decisions and obstacles that shaped your entry. List all the Wikipedia pages where your original entry is linked to, and indicate where exactly on those pages your links can be found.

Finally, conclude this brief with a few words about how this assignment did or didn't achieve one of our learning objectives: "to become expert in, and be held accountable for, some knowledgeof the Hudson Valley."