Assignment: Writing a Good Wikipedia Article (Peer editing guidelines)

Name of Reviewer: ______________________________

Reviewing articles is an important responsibility and service in the Wikipedia community, perhaps equal in importance to writing articles. You will edit your assignments in groups of two. Take a couple of minutes to identify each other. We will help form groups if necessary. Write your name on this review sheet, answer the questions, and give it to your partner. Also write your name on your partner's draft, as you will be making direct edits to it. Your partner will hand in both the draft and the review sheet with their final draft.

First impression and mechanics. Read your classmate's paper once through without making any comments. Then, write down briefly your first impressions:

• Do mechanical spelling and grammar errors get in the way of reading it?

• Are style and formatting internally consistent?

• Does the article avoid jargon or vague wording, and instead read as consise and clear?

• Does the article define acronyms and abbreviations at their first occurence?

• Does the article make proper use of italics and bold text for emphasis?

Read it again, more carefully, answering the questions below on this sheet, as well as making comments in the margin of the paper as necessary. making more detailed comments in the margins of the paper and an. Focus your comments on the organization and content; don't spend much time proofreading for spelling or grammatical errors (which the author should have cleaned up already). Instead, focus on the below set of questions

Structure

• Does the lead section establish context, summarize the most important points, explain why the subject is interesting or notable, and briefly describe its notable controversies, if there are any?

• Are the title and section headings appropriate?

• Is the overall organization of the article easy to follow?

• Is the article broad in its coverage, in that it addresses the main aspects of the topic without going into unnecessary detail?

• Does the article keep a global and neutral point of view?

• Does the article avoid the use of editorial language such as "notably, interestingly, of course," and so on ?

• Is the tone of the article encyclopedic, rather than editorial?

• Does the article avoid the presence of any original research?

• Does the article avoid unsupported attributions?

• Does the article reference reliable sources?

• Does it provide citations for direct quotations, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged?