Revising Citations in Wikipedia

If you haven't created an account and/or registered on our dashboard, it's the first two steps listed in the How to Participate heading under the main tab. This is an optional step, but it will help you keep track of your changes. You do not need to use your real name!

Instructions

Select an entry to edit from the list of available articles on the Program Dashboard (must login with your Wikipedia account to view). You can also locate one using the Assessment stats table or Other Ways to Locate Articles, below.
Once you have selected an entry to edit, read through the article, paying close attention to inline citations. They will be in superscript like the inline citation attached to this sentence.^[1] Are there statements or facts that lack a citation? Are there citations that reference unreliable sources? Update it using information from one of many National Library of Medicine resources!
Click on the Edit source tab on the right side of the page (located in between "Read" and "View history"). It will take you to an editor.
You can scroll down to find the text or use Ctrl + F to find text. Click the cursor so it is blinking on the immediate right of the period.
In the editor toolbar, there should be a Cite tool. If you click on it, a set of tools will appear directly in the row before. The first tool is a dropdown menu that says "Templates." If you click on it, it will give you a number of citation options: cite web, cite news, cite book, and cite journal. Since we're are updating this entry with information from online NLM resources, you will click on cite web.
Fill out the Title, URL, Access date, Website name, and Publisher. Also, fill out the Ref name with a unique identifying name of your choice. This will allow the reference to be reusable.
Before you Publish changes, it's good practice to add a brief description in the Edit summary section just below the text editor. Be sure to add the #citeNLM hashtag.
Add your name to the list of Spring 2019 participants (click the Participants tab)

Tips

Many articles are ranked by quality and importance. You can find this ranking by clicking on the "Talk" tab.
A reference to a certain resource may already exist. You can add an in-line citation using an existing resource if it has been given a ref name. You can also add a ref name to an existing source, which may be an easier task with more complex citations.
There are many ways to locate articles to edit. Wikipedia has a quality scale. C-class, Start-class, and Stub-class articles will probably the easiest to revise. You can find descriptions of all the different classes here. Below is a tabulation of all Medicine articles by quality and importance. It may be helpful in finding a topic to edit.

Assessment stats

Medicine articles by quality and importance
Quality	Importance
Quality	Top	High	Mid	Low	NA	???	Total
FA	7	14	20	23			64
FL		2	4	9			15
FM					74		74
GA	30	47	113	183		1	374
B	57	432	1,335	1,751		34	3,609
C	5	417	3,173	7,679		186	11,460
Start		133	4,574	17,880	1	429	23,017
Stub			1,603	9,954		510	12,067
List		23	270	580		17	890
Category					11,210		11,210
Disambig					173		173
File					479		479
Portal					540		540
Project					168		168
Redirect			455	838	5,917		7,210
Template					1,688		1,688
NA					13		13
Draft				4	293		297
Assessed	99	1,068	11,547	38,901	20,556	1,177	73,348
Unassessed			1	1		90	92
Total	99	1,068	11,548	38,902	20,556	1,267	73,440
WikiWork factors (?)		ω = 244,908			Ω = 4.84

Editing Resources

Basics

Adding Citations

Other Resources

For Educators

Overview

If you are looking to use this event or these resources to encourage your students to participate, the nonprofit Wiki Education offers these tips:^[2]

Never grade student work based on what sticks on Wikipedia - Sometimes student work is reverted. This may happen for a number of reasons, but remember, nothing is ever lost on Wikipedia. You can always find their work in their contribution history.
Quality is far more important than quantity - What a student contributes to an article will depend on the sources available and Wikipedia’s existing coverage of the subject at hand. A 300 word contribution may be as critical to a subject as a 1000 word entry.
Creating a new entry is not more work than contributing to an existing article - The vast majority of our students work on existing entries on Wikipedia.
Finally, there are multiple paths to improving Wikipedia - Students can improve articles in a variety of ways, from adding new content to updating sources to restructuring an article.

For adding/updating references in particular, their sample rubric suggests the following dimensions:

Citations: Is it clear how this source relates to the statement?
Sources: Is this the best source available to support the statement?
Completeness: Is the source fully completed?

Using the Dashboard

NNLM is asking all participants to register in a corresponding program on a dashboard tool. Instructors can also use this dashboard to track student participation. Ask your students to let you know what their username is, and you can see what kind of contributions they have made both on Wikipedia (by viewing their User Contributions) as well as on the dashboard (under Editors).

^ "Wikipedia:Inline Citation". Wikipedia. Retrieved 22 March 2018.
^ Blumenthal, Helaine. "Tips for Grading a Wikipedia Assignment". Wiki Education. Retrieved 22 March 2018.

[inline-1] "Wikipedia:Inline Citation". Wikipedia. Retrieved 22 March 2018.

[wikiedu-2] Blumenthal, Helaine. "Tips for Grading a Wikipedia Assignment". Wiki Education. Retrieved 22 March 2018.

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