Wikipedia:WikiProject United States Public Policy/Courses/Seminar in Intervention

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IR 393, Seminar In Intervention, Fall 2010

Course Objective

It has always been common for (usually stronger) states to intervene, by both military and non-military means, in the politics and economics of other (usually weaker) states. In the United Nations era, international legal norms favoring sovereignty have discouraged this practice, although unevenly--the Security Council has power to authorize multilateral interventions and has used it. More recently, the sovereignty norm has been weakened somewhat by the concept of “humanitarian intervention” and emerging supporting legal doctrines such as the “responsibility to protect.” Thus the overall practical impact on the number and scale of interventions is not clear. Since 1945, by far the most frequent intervener—measured either by potential interventions debated or by actual interventions has been the United States. This can be expected to continue for at least the medium-term future, making intervention a prime foreign policy concern for Americans.

This course explores how and why states (and collectivities of states) intervene and what factors influence the success of interventions. Although we will begin by surveying the motives and means that might prompt intervention, we will concentrate most of our effort on two types—counterinsurgency and humanitarian intervention—which have been the most frequent and serious concern for the U.S. and arguably for the world as a whole.

The goals of this course are two provide you with analytic frameworks for understanding both causes of interventions and determinants of success and failure; familiarity with a portion of the recent record, including deeper expertise in one case that you will select; and to help you improve presentation skills

Course Outline: I. Insurgency and Counterinsurgency; II. Humanitarian Intervention; III. Legal, Ethical, and Domestic Political Considerations; IV. Presentation and criticism of Student Work

Prerequisites

IR 10. One or more intermediate-level core courses is desirable.

Requirements

This course has seven requirements:

All students are expected to be fully prepared for each seminar session. As our progress may not match the schedule exactly students are responsible for keeping track of our progress in order to be prepared at all times.
There will be approximately 20 sessions with assigned reading, averaging about 75 pages per session although they will vary widely from day to day. There will be a few sessions for which the main assignment will be a film which you will watch on your own time in the Fairchild Media Center. The last two sessions will likely be devoted to a simulation.

Contact me at any time—during office hours, by appointment, via e-mail, after class, etc.—about any matter of concern.
Since this course is designed as a seminar, your active contribution is part of your responsibility to educate not only yourself but also your colleagues and me. I will not lecture except occasionally for a few minutes at a time when some concept or piece of data seems essential to our progress.
Cell phone use, including texting, is not permitted in class.
A research tools assignment following on our session with Social Sciences Librarian Roseann Bowerman on September 21. Due to me September 28.
A policy-relevant research paper on an intervention case, maximum length 20 pages, produced in five stages over the course of the semester. A separate document under ‘Assignments’ describes this project. Due dates:
Case selection: September 16.

The 1st stage of the paper is be a 2-page proposal due to our TRAC Fellow, A.P. Orbeleke, on September 16; submit the revised version to me on September 30.

The 2nd–the first ‘substantive’ component—will be a survey of the relevant actors, events, and structural conditions. Due to A.P. on October 7; revision to me October 19.

The 3rd will be the evaluative component, due to me November 4.

The 4th will be a complete draft submitted to A.P. November 19; revision to your colleagues and me December 2.

The last will consist of revisions based on feedback that you received on the 5th. plus additional research, due to me December 22
A short presentation criticizing the initial complete draft of one of your colleagues. Once we have the initial complete drafts, we will divide into two groups of 6-7 each of which will meet early in exam period (full instructions will be provided).
You will read approximately 5-6 of your colleagues’ papers; present, criticize verbally, and provide written comments on 1 of these; and offer verbally what help you can on the others. As an author your only role will be to benefit from the experience; you will simply provide clarification as requested--and, likely, will request clarification of some of the critical remarks by others.
You will create or edit a Wikipedia page on your case. This is not intended as an additional research project. Rather, you will make use of your gains from your research project to improve the content and presentation compared with what you find. I am currently in negotiation with the Wikipedia administrator in charge of their university outreach project to try to determine how much technical support we can get.
Each class member will edit or create a Wikipedia page on an intervention that you have selected.

Resources

Public Policy Initiative

Public Policy Initiative page

Public Policy Initiative FAQ

There is also a Wikipedia project page that is used to coordinate Wikipedia users interested in U.S. public policy; implications for us uncertain as yet.

Wikipedia has also initiated a project to evaluate the quality of public policy articles on Wikipedia. This project is run by Amy Roth. Implications for us uncertain as yet.

This is a recommended syllabus (for me to worry about).

Resources for new contributors

The main ‘Welcome to Wikipedia’ page for new contributors.

It is long. Start reading it at your leisure and play around with the various tasks that it invites you to try. See also these videos: Instructional Videos.

See Help:Wiki markup on formatting tricks.

Mentors

As of now we have promises of support from Sage Ross and Annie Lin, two of the directors of the ‘outreach’ section of the Wikipedia Public Policy project (usernames: User:alin (Public Policy) and User:Sross (Public Policy). Lin has promised to intervene for us with ‘online ambassadors’ (experienced users who provide technical help online) to make sure that we get what we need.

Here is the list of “online ambassadors”. All of the online ambassadors listed under "Available Mentors" have volunteered to take on some of us as mentors, including User:Bejinhan, User:Sadads, User:Smallman12q, User:Protonk, and User:GorillaWarfare.

You can find out about these mentors by reading their profiles here. Feel free to contact any of them at their talk pages shown in their profiles to discuss any questions you have about Wikipedia.

Possibly more help available here: Wikipedia:WikiProject_United_States_Public_Policy/Participants. I will investigate.

The list of ongoing Public Policy Initiative outreach courses are found at Wikipedia:WikiProject_United_States_Public_Policy/Courses.

Course page and instructor

Our course page (this page). From this point (9/14) on we will do as much as possible of our W-related work here. We will use the associated talk page as our main discussion forum.

My Wikipedia talk page Contains an introductory guide. Use also to send me comments and concerns of possible interest to the whole class; or, for purely individual concerns, regular e-mail still works.

My outreach talk page. This is where I initially asked you to post notice of completion of the first assignment. (We probably will not use this page again after this.)

Students

Add your name in ===A THIRD LEVEL HEADER=== alphabetically in the list below. On the second line use the user template ({{user|YOURUSERNAME}}) to add your user account info, your case and the username of your mentor. Later we will ask you to identify the page you expect to work on. Your entry will look like the sample below:

===First Last===
{{user|sample user}}
Case:
Mentor:
Wikipedia article to be worked on:
[Identify the practice edit you have made]

Hello, students. If you read our comments about each other's edits below, you will find some information that is generally applicable to new users. -- Ssilvers (talk) 05:11, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Stephanie Andrica

IR393ANDRICA (talk · contribs)

Case: Kurdish Rebellion 1983

Made minor edits to Peshmerga page

You can view your edit here. Good work on copyediting! Bejinhan talks 03:06, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mentor: GorillaWarfare (talk · contribs)

Footnote: Al-Anfal Campaign, footnote #10

Good! Perhaps consider using WP:Citation templates, or even better, enabling RefTools in your preferences and using that. — GorillaWarfare ^talk 06:41, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Iraqi Kurdistan

For my final page I plan on taking a subsection of this article, Iran Iraq War and Anfal Campaign, and elaborate on it into its own page. This section is exceptionally short and lacking a wide variety of elements of the conflict. Thus I believe it is important to create a page that goes into further detail and explicitly explains all of the actors involved and the different conflictual events that occurred at this time. Some of the larger elements of this conflict do have their own pages that decently explain what had happened, I think it is important that the page I plan on creating brings all of these different pages together and creates uniformity for others who are interested in learning more about the history and issues of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Chris Cassidy

IR393.cfc211 (talk · contribs)

Case: Korean Conflict

Ashley Chase

IR393.awc211 (talk · contribs)

Case: Vietnamese intervention in Cambodia

I made a small adjustment to the Cambodian-Vietnamese War.

Mentor: Sadads

You can see your change here (you can find the chronological list of all edits under the "View History" tab at the top of any article). Your edit was successful, and you gave a good description of your edit under the edit summary, which is good practice. Well done! Just a general tip for more advanced editing in the future: I suggest making edits to an article's introduction last - start out with the body of the article, and see if you can improve it, especially by adding citations to high-quality reliable sources to support the statements made. See also our guideline on verification. Then, when you are satisfied with the body, come back to the introduction. -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:22, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ashley add a source to the article, and the edit can be found here.

Ashley, the citation looks alright however, as with any other citation, the title of a work needs to be in Italics. Remember that two apostrophes before and after text creates italics so the code would look like ''TITLE'', Sadads (talk) 23:46, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject US Public Policy

My assessment of a B-rated article can be found at the bottom of the Talk:Sabanes-Oxley Act.

Lauren Collins

IR393ldc211 (talk · contribs)

Case: NATO intervention in Bosnia

Made a minor edit to NATO intervention in Bosnia

You can take a look at your edit here. Just for you information, number delimitation for four digit numbers is optional in our Manuel of Style (See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Delimiting (grouping of digits), Sadads (talk) 01:49, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mentor: Sadads

Footnote: Added a footnote to Bosnian War. Note number 60.

Good job Lauren. That change can be found here. The Bosnian War article certainly needs a lot more referencing. I would suggest adding a link to either the OCLC entry or Google books so that anyone looking for the book can find it more easily, but not a necessity Sadads (talk) 23:40, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Tim Davis

IR393davis (talk · contribs)

Case: Rwandan Intervention in the Congo

Mentor: Bejinhan

Made a small change on the Second Congo War page

You can see your change here. That was good. Fixing grammar in articles is one of the important aspect of Wikipedia editing. Bejinhan talks 13:56, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mentor:Sadads (talk · contribs)

Footnote: Second Congo War footnote number 12

Great job in adding that footnote! Most of the book information was there so it was pretty good. We have a set of cite templates that we use when adding footnotes. For this case, your footnote will have to use the cite book template. Using this template will enable the info positions(author's name, book title, etc.) to be placed correctly. I altered the footnote a little bit and you can view my change here. You can see how the footnote looks like here. What I did was add the access date, publishing date, and ISBN number. This makes the footnote more complete. Bejinhan talks 02:45, 16 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

First Congo War

I believe that I can make the greatest contribution to the Wikipedia project by expanding the article on the First Congo War. While this does not align perfectly with my case study of Rwandan intervention in the Congo, I do not think an article detailing this intervention can be created when such an important stage in the history of Rwandan intervention in the Congo is lacking a comprehensive article. Furthermore, I do not think that focusing on the First Congo War is much of an abstraction from my topic. Rwanda intervention in the Congo must be understood within the greater framework. There were few if any aspects of the First Congo War that were not influenced by or related to the Rwandan intervention. Therefore, a more complete understanding of the First Congo War would bring about a more complete understanding of Rwandan intervention. I have not chosen to focus on the Second Congo War article because it is much more complete.

The first step to improving this article would be to greatly expand the section explaining the origins of the war. This should involve a discussion of the situation internal to the Congo, a brief overview of the history of violence in Central Africa, and an understanding of the Rwandan genocide. The section on the course of the war can also be expanded and better organized, including a breakdown of each actor and its stakes in the conflict. Finally, a much more extensive discussion of the aftermath of the war is required, including an evaluation of how well each actor achieved its goals and what this meant for the future. Using this very basic outline, I think this article could be greatly expanded and improved.

That's a great article to work on but please be careful on the neutrality and tone of your wording. Such info tend to generate controversy. Keep whatever statements added in an encyclopedic tone and whatever you add in, please, please make sure you have refs. That will help to verify and make sure the info you added is correct. Bejinhan talks 06:25, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Stephen Erbrick

IR393.sae211 (talk · contribs)

Case: Sierra Leone Civil War

I made a very small edit to the Sierra Leone Civil War page.

Good copy editing! You can find the change you made here. As you can imagine, Copy-editing is a very important in large task on Wikipedia, we even have a Guild of Copy Editors who spend much of their time editing articles on Wikipedia, Sadads (talk) 01:24, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My mentor: Ssilvers (talk · contribs)

Footnote: Sierra Leone Civil War Footnote #2 IR393.sae211 (talk) 22:03, 14 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well done, Stephen. You successfully added a footnote to what appears to be a WP:Reliable source. This is great, because it helps readers to verify what the WP article says. I made some changes to the footnote, based on our formatting guideline WP:CITE and to make the footnote more complete (among other reasons, this is so that we can find the source again if the url goes dead). Some of these may be helpful to the other students, so I am summarizing them below:

I put the author's last name first.
I put the url before the title of the paper like this [url "Name of Paper"]. Bracketed this way, the name of the paper will be highlighted in the footnote, and by clicking on the name of the paper, the reader will be taken to the document.
I added the publisher's name and city.
I added the page numbers in the paper where the relevant information is found. This is important for books, but not necessary for, say, a newspaper article. Since this is a fairly long paper, I think the page numbers are helpful for anyone looking for the information. Let me know if the page numbers should be modified.
I added an access date and the ISBN number. -- Ssilvers (talk) 23:02, 14 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sierra Leone Civil War

My initial thoughts: the current page is less than satisfactory and could be improved considerably. The existing article in my opinion does an adequate job detailing the history before and after the conflict, but fails to give enough attention to the main focus of the article -- the events of the Sierra Leone Civil War. The current article is missing important actors and events (possibly for brevity?), but at other times, provides an incredible level of detail concerning rather unimportant actors or minor events. Also, I think the article could be improved by introducing several new sections to make the format easier to follow. The Sierra Leone Civil War was fought in several distinct stages - depending on the entrance and exit of the actors and the signing of several peace accords - and therefore it would help to structure the page in this manner instead of just jumbling the entire ten year conflict under "The RUF" and "The Return of the Civilian Government." Plus, this page could be made more credible by increasing the number of citations from the literature on the Sierra Leone Civil War. These additions would be a start on improving this page. --IR393.sae211 (talk) 22:09, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Have at it! Be cautious in deleting material, though. Better to expand what needs expanding and reference the unreferenced assertions, first. Then you should describe on the talk page what you intend to delete (and why) to get a consensus on that before hacking it out. I'd be happy to review and comment on proposed deletions. I suggest that you look at these guidelines: WP:How to write a great article and WP:Good article criteria. All the best! -- Ssilvers (talk) 06:21, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Drew Golding

IR393DrewGolding (talk · contribs)

Case: Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia

Mentor: GorillaWarfare

I edited Guilford High School's page and put myself under the "notable alumni" section

Yeah, about this edit. I would suggest reading WP:COI and WP:Verifiability. I don't think any publication anywhere will say that you are notable. We college students just ain't very important out of principle. Someone else undid your edit in under a minute (see time stamps at the top of this page Sadads (talk) 04:47, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am glad that you made this edit, and I hope everyone takes a look. This is an excellent example of how our editing policies work so well. People may make a change that contradicts one or more of the Wikipedia guidelines, but it is easily reversed. As long as the edit is in good faith, no harm! On the flip side of that coin is that editors must assume that the edits of others are made in good faith (unless there are multiple similar edits after a warning). So: What makes someone or something "notable"? See WP:NOTE. A good rule of thumb is: has it received a lot of press in major media? If The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post have all done an article about him, her or it, it is probably notable! If the only google hit is someone's blog or a school newspaper, it is almost certainly not notable. All the best, -- Ssilvers (talk) 05:08, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia

I decided that I will be editing the page "Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia" for the final assignment. I may be tempted to also edit the page on the Prague Spring, as my research has/will have given me a pretty good understanding of that topic as well, and, as the purpose of this project is to better public knowledge, I suppose it might be for the public good to do this as well.

Good! I look forward to seeing your edits. Please feel free to ask me any questions on my talk page if you need any assistance. — GorillaWarfare ^talk 06:39, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Anjan Gupta

IR393Anjan (talk · contribs)

Case: First Kashmir War (Indo-Pakistan War of 1947)

Added a source to the page of Former Pakistani President Ayub Khan. View the change here: http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Ayub_Khan&diff=prev&oldid=384969062

Hi Anjan! You will only need to add the source after a statement. For example, The Indo-Pakistan War happened in 1947.<ref>{{source goes here}}</ref> But for starters, it's good to see you using the cite template. Bejinhan talks 12:40, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To piggy back on what Bejinhan is saying, we use Inline Citations so that each and every statement is WP:Verifiable. However, Bibliographies at the end of the articles are useful if their aren't inline citations on the page yet, Sadads (talk) 14:02, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Bejinhan is my mentor. IR393Anjan (talk) 14:29, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Added a footnote to the page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashmir_conflict#Indian_view at the time it was footnote #53 and my edit can be viewed over here: http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Kashmir_conflict&oldid=390763683 IR393Anjan (talk) 21:38, 14 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I'm glad to see you editing! Per what Ssilvers said on your talk page, it'll be helpful to add more info about the journal. We have a cite journal template that you might find useful. Just add the required info to the relevant parameters. The examples shown here might help you.

Another note, you can view your page revision by:-

Click the View history tab in the drop-down list.
Click on the top most (prev) of your edits.
Copy and paste the link.

Bejinhan talks 10:22, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

For the United States Public Policy Assessment I rated this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadband_Internet_access which currently has a B rating on Wikipidea, however the individual criteria in the rubicon were not filled in. I filled them in based on the guidelines provided but my final ratings would not qualify the article for a "B" rating. You can view my change/ratings over here: http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Talk:Broadband_Internet_access&diff=394370099&oldid=393778329 - I have not changed the rating of the article from a B

Oh, also, I forgot to mention, the C article I read was: Monetary policy of the United States however I disagree with the rating of '1' on readability - I think according to their criteria it deserves a 2 and this would push the article up to a B. That said, I have not changed either the 'readability' rating or the 'C' rating of the article.

The GA article I read was: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education

I agree with you about Broadband Internet access, and I have changed the rating to C-class. I do not agree about Monetary policy of the United States. Even though it has very good sections, it has totally inadequate sections, and an inadequate WP:LEAD section. It might be able to be improved to B-class fairly easily, but it is, IMO, currently a C-class article. One thing you can see about this assignment, though, is that the ratings are somewhat subjective. Did you read the spirited discussion on the talk page? Often talk page discussions are very helpful in understanding how to improve an article, and what other editors have considered and/or disagreed about. All the best! -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:42, 2 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, per what Ssilvers said, the Monetary policy of the United States is not yet ready for a B-class rating. A quick glance at the article shows a section that requires expansion. If that section is expanded and the lead worked on, a B-class would be workable. Bejinhan talks 11:57, 3 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Harrison Katz

IR393harrisonkatz (talk · contribs)

Mentor:Sadads (talk · contribs)

Case: Russian intervention in Afghanistan (see Soviet war in Afghanistan)

Did minor edit to Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs page

Good edit, you can find what you changed here. Wikipedia articles always need careful readers to make sure that the language in an article is unambiguous, Sadads (talk) 01:20, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Added a footnote to Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan page, footnote number 43.

Seems to be an appropriate footnote, good job. However, I had to fix the spacing after the punctuation in your citation, see my change here. Remember, when you publish on Wikipedia, someone is going to have to repair any small typographical errors/oversights you make, and sometimes that requires a lot of extra time on someones elses part. Because we go live immediately and you are writing for the public, we need to make sure that you fix issues as you go, and review your contributions to make sure it looks good, not just has good factual content. Sadads (talk) 23:04, 24 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan

The article on the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan is quite robust and covers most of the topics I have been researching. I did notice though that there is not much discussion of the deliberate civillian casulties caused by the Soviets in a campaign that some described as genocide because of its scale. I am worried though that this may not be a black and white enough issue for a wikipedia article. Thoughts?

Mike Margherita

IR393TheSituation (talk · contribs)

I will be studying Algeria and made a trivial edit to the Algerian War page simply adding an adjective for emphasis.

Emphasis is great, if you are looking for your edit, you can find it here, Sadads (talk) 01:40, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The footnote I added was on the page for the Organisation de l'armée secrète and is the first footnote on that page.

Hi. Thanks for the cite. When you add a book cite, please always add the page number(s) in the book where the information appears and the publisher information. I moved your cite out of the WP:LEAD section, down to the section where the information is described in more detail. Some people put the cite in both places, but the most important place for the cite is in the body of the article rather than the lead. Please add the page number(s) and name of publisher (it is now footnote 6). Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 03:46, 25 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The part of the Algerian War I will be focusing on is the role of women in the conflict. There is currently no section on the page for the Algerian War that discusses the role of women so I am wondering if I should seek to add a new section to the page under the heading "Role of Women", try to create a new page devoted to this topic or go about this in a different fashion.

You could always start it as a section of the current article, and if it becomes very long with lots of references and images, split it off as its own article, leaving just a summary in the main article. Happy editing! -- Ssilvers (talk) 06:08, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Will Murawski

IR393_will (talk · contribs)

Case: Russian intervention in Georgia, August 2008 (see 2008 South Ossetia war)

Mentor: My76Strat (talk · contribs)

Made minor edit to History of Georgia (country) page.
- Great edit, you can find it here. Sadads (talk) 01:18, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Added a citation to the 2008 South Ossetia war page. Here is the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_South_Ossetia_war#cite_note-368

The footnote looks good, and you included all the bibliographic information, except publisher information. Is this the publisher?: United States Army Combined Arms Center. If so, please add it to the footnote. Please make sure to log in before editing, so we can see easily that you made the edit. Plus, editing while logged in increases your editing permissions over time. Happy editing! -- Ssilvers (talk) 04:09, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

James Mutch

1Ridwan (talk · contribs)

Mentor: user:Bejinhan

I will be studying the Pashtun national identity within the Af-Pak border region. The rift between the people of the FATA and the Af-Pak governments has grown more pronounced since the U.S invasion in 2001. What, if any, are the Pashtun hopes for a national identity/state separation?

My trivial edit was to the page of Nazareth, Pennsylvania, and the last sentence of the Martin Guitar heading.

You can find your edit here. All statements making a claim needs a reference(s). You can read more about references at WP:Reference. Bejinhan talks 14:17, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note that Bejinhan deleted your added information because you did not cite a WP:Reliable source for the information. This will let other readers know where you got the information. See WP:Verifiability, which is one of our most important policies. -- Ssilvers (talk) 15:02, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Christine Sadar

IR393Sadar (talk · contribs) Case: Turkish intervention in Cyprus, 1974- Turkish invasion of Cyprus

Mentor: Smallman12q

I made a very small change on the Turkish invasion of Cyprus page.

You can view your edit here. Your edit is what we usually call a copyedit. Good to see your working on this project. Bejinhan talks 03:34, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I added a footnote to the article "Operation Atilla" which you can see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Atilla. I added the only footnote, number 1. I want to edit the article "Turkish Invasion of Cyprus" but the page says it's locked until October 26 for new/unregistered users, so i guess i need to get permission to do it.

Sage has accelerated your permissions, and you should be able to edit Turkish Invasion of Cyprus now. You were just one edit away (10 total) from automatically getting the permission anyhow. :-) Your footnote looks good. Everyone, please put punctuation *before* each footnote. I deleted the stray period that was after the footnote. I also added the maps from Commons. Are they helpful in the article? All the best, and Happy Editing! -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:21, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for giving me permission to edit the page! -- IR393Sadar (talk)

I commented on the DARE article for the article assessment assignment. My comments (which should be signed) are currently the very last section of the talk page. Here is the link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Drug_Abuse_Resistance_Education -- IR393Sadar (talk) 03:10, 26 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Christine: You placed your comment in exactly the right place (the bottom of the talk page), and you also signed it correctly. Students, there are two ways to add a new comment on a talk page. One is by manually putting it at the bottom of the edit screen. The second is by clicking on the "New section" button that appears at the top of all talk pages. Happy editing! -- Ssilvers (talk) 05:19, 26 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Turkish Invasion of Cyprus

I have a few initial thoughts on the page. First, it was considerably longer than I expected and had a lot of background history. However, the sections about the coup and subsequent Turkish intervention are comparatively short, and I think they could use some additional information to give a clearer picture of the case. Some sections might be lengthy enough to make a separate article yet, but I am not yet sure about this. Also, the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot Opinion sections seem really long for the article and contain some opinions that don't really seem pertinent to this article. Because this is still such a contested issue I do not know if I'd actually do anything to these sections as that could just lead to an editing war. Finally, there are a lot of things that still need citations in this article. Some of these statement, I think, should just be removed as they are just statements of blame against one side or the other that are not really backed up. Other things that need citations like population movements would be an easy edit for me. --IR393Sadar (talk) 00:39, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ariel Skalka

IR393aes (talk · contribs)

Case: Somalia, 1990s

Mentor: Bejinhan

I reworded a sentence about the geography of the state of Maryland.

You can view your edits here. Test edits are okay as long as you remove them later(as you did to Chesapeake). Great sentence re-word. Bejinhan talks 04:00, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The final result is good -- the sentence sounds better now. However, test edits like this one are actually not okay in the articlespace. It's good to refrain from making them, even if you do revert them later. If you want to test something, please use the sandbox instead. It seems like you got the idea, though, great job! — GorillaWarfare ^talk 16:44, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just a comment on that, we are actually giving a certain "leeway" for the students in this project as we want them to practice WP:BOLD and make article edits. I've noticed that the students in this project are not making many article edits and I strongly encourage them to do it. However, please undo your edits once you've made it(that is, if it is a test edit). Bejinhan talks 03:07, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Added a footnote [1] to the page on Somalia in the section about the Somali Civil War (reference 67).

Good job in adding a PDF-format ref. I edited your change to the cite web template style and added in the access date. You can view my minor edit here. Bejinhan talks 05:03, 20 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Braden Smith

IR393BradenSmith (talk · contribs)

Case: Panama 1989

Made a change on the United States invasion of Panama page

Good job! You can find your edit here. We always need people to grind and polish the language of articles, a wide variety of writers contribute to pages, and sometimes clarity and style get lost in the mix. Keep it up! Sadads (talk) 00:04, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

MentorGorillaWarfare (talk · contribs)

Deme Yoo

IR393DEME (talk · contribs)

Case: East Timor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehigh_University_Buildings Added a small blurb about the STEPS building. --IR393DEME (talk) 23:33, 14 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

These edits look good, however a source would be great for this information in order to validate the claim. I went ahead and added a reference to http://www3.lehigh.edu/steps/facility/index.html. If you want to take a look, you can see it here Sadads (talk) 01:15, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! --IR393DEME (talk) 01:17, 15 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mentor: Ssilvers (talk · contribs)

Hainsworth, Paul and McCloskey, Stephen (eds.) "The East Timor Question: The Struggle for Independence from Indonesia". New York: I.B. Tauris Publishers, 2000. [I added the ISBN number for you (Ssilvers)] Added this to the bibliography to the Indonesian occupation of East Timor article. Did I do this right?

Hi, Deme. Yes and no. Yes, you added a great book reference to the bibliography, but you did not add a footnote to the text of the article (what we call an "in-line citation"), which I think was the assignment. For an example of a new footnote, see this one by one of your classmates. Now that you have added the Hainsworth book, however, it is very easy to add footnotes referring to it. All you need to do is put this right after the text that is verified by the book, with an appropriate page, or pages noted: <ref>Hainsworth and McCloskey, p. ?</ref> See, generally, WP:CITE. -- Ssilvers (talk) 03:03, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Ssilvers. I think I added a proper footnote, now. Hopefully! IR393DEME (talk) 02:36, 20 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's the ticket! I changed "pp." to simply "p." since you are only referring to a single page. p=page while pp=pages. I also added "and McCloskey", since there are two editors, right? (Here's what I did). But you've got the concept down. Well done! -- Ssilvers (talk) 03:36, 20 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Assignments

September 3, 2010/overdue as of September 14

Please create an account (this is section 4.4 of the welcome page): http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Wikipedia_(Bookshelf)#Create_a_Wikipedia_account Please choose an ID that begins with the characters “IR393.” That way we can easily recognize each other and be recognized by online ambassadors supporting us. If you remain active in Wikipedia after our course, you can change it (I think that it is also possible to have more than one user name). Then please learn to navigate to your user page and talk page (section 4.7): http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Wikipedia_(Bookshelf)#User_page_and_My_talk_page Write something if you wish. Finally, go to my talk page and leave me a note. If you have not done this before 9/14, do it on the course page instead.

September 14, 2010/due ASAP

On our course page under ‘Students,’ create a new subsection for yourself http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Wiki_markup#Sections and list your name, ID, and case you intend to work on. Then check the ‘watch this page’ boxes on both the course page and its associated talk page (aka ‘discussion’ page).

September 14, 2010/due ASAP

View the change history of a Wikipedia page and make a trivial change (naturally, not one that anyone could object to; if necessary, make the change, save it, view the altered page, then change it back). Details of how to do this can be found on the welcome to Wikipedia page; they take up much of section 5. Then report—after your name on our Wikipedia course page—that you have done these things (this time we’ll skip how you provide evidence of your changes, although we’ll need to work that out for future).

September 14, 2010/due September 21

Review Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and the discussion among Sage Ross, Annie Lin, others, and myself on our talk page.

(There is also video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa0Nmv9qsd8, but it is very elementary.)

Then post (at least one) comment on our course's talk page (not here) on an issue raised by what you read or any issue related to Wikipedia standards. Either add to a thread already there or create a new thread (if you start a new thread, create a new subsection).

September 21, 2010/due September 28

Choose a mentor.

If anyone volunteered on your talk page, you can ask them. If not there are six names on our page above at Wikipedia:WikiProject_United_States_Public_Policy/Courses/Seminar_in_Intervention#Mentors; all but the most recent volunteer are the same people who have been adding helpful hints to this page and to our talk page. (If you see that 5 people have chosen the same person, please choose another so that we do not overburden anyone). You can also simply go to the online ambassadors page.

Once you get a reply, edit your section of this page to show your mentor.

Take (or create) an opportunity to ask your mentor a question (to see how rapid and how helpful a response you get).

Don't forget to check the "watch this page" box for this page, the course talk page, and your own talk page (since mentors will probably respond to you there).

Ambassador suggestion: Make a few little edits to Wikipedia each day to gain fluency with the software. A good way to start is by copyediting existing articles. The articles listed here have all requested copyediting/proofreading assistance: Category:All articles needing copy edit. Note that our style guide is here: WP:MOS. Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:24, 23 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Another suggestion: Editing everyday or a couple times a week is a great way to figure out how the software works. The Did You Know articles on the Main page under the Featured Article of the day are all relatively new articles or have been recently expanded to a large degree, so will likely have typos, unclear style and formatting errors. These are good places to start as well, and will likely have not as many major style problems as will the ones that need copy edits. Sadads (talk) 18:52, 23 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

October 1, 2010/due October 14

Choose the article that you will work on and add a footnote to it. See Wikipedia: Citing Sources for instructions on content and formatting of footnotes. The standards are basically the same as Turabian's. It should contain all the normal bibliographical information: Author, title, publisher name/city, publication date, and page number if available. If a web reference, url and retrieval date if retrieved from the internet.

Bejinhan posted these helpful links on footnotes: cite journal template; examples shown here. See also cite web template and cite book template. These templates are optional, and not all editors prefer them. You can use them if you find them helpful.

As you know, our course's standard requires--for web-only sources--an annotation about the owner/publisher/sponsor of any site whose ownership is not common knowledge. Try this and see whether other editors let it stand.

I see also that some of our ambassadors have been adding ISBN information to cites. Apparently this is required for the top article quality rating (GA). Feel free to ignore this.--Ck07 (talk) 13:16, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note, per my discussion with your professor: He is right that ISBN numbers after book cites are optional. However, most GA (Good Article) and FA (Featured Article) reviewers require them, and so an article is unlikely to be promoted to GA or FA without them. It is helpful to add them from the beginning, so that editors won't have to scramble around later when you or they nominate the article for promotion to Good Article or Featured Article class. -- Ssilvers (talk) 23:51, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

October 1, 2010/due October 26

Assess some Wikipedia pages related to public policy: Go to Wikipedia:WikiProject United States Public Policy/Assessment to see the grading scheme and the summary table. Click on cells in the right hand column to choose one each:

Start or C (low quality) article;
B (higher quality) article;
GA or FA article (highest quality).

Post a comment on the talk page of the 'B' article assessing its strengths and weaknesses and a link to your comments in your section of this page.--Ck07 (talk) 16:36, 21 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

October 7, 2010/no due date

Read the 'Concerns of first-time contributors' section of our talk page.

There is also good stuff on how to insert links and on setting your preferences at the bottom of my talk page (I have requested advice on optimal settings for someone participating in a course like ours).--Ck07 (talk) 13:41, 9 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

October 21, 2010/due November 18

Optional XC assignment worth up to 5% of course grade (A=5, A-=4, etc.).

Add to the U.S. Public Policy article evaluation project by evaluating your target article using the standards mentioned above. (I have confirmed with Annie Lin that we don't need any special permissions and that it is OK that some of your targets are not strictly on U.S. Public Policy.)

The instructions begin just under the summary table on Wikipedia:WikiProject United States Public Policy/Assessment. The technical details are at Wikipedia:WikiProject United States Public Policy/Assessment#Overview and the assessment rubric just below that at . Simply go to the discussion page at Wikipedia:WikiProject United States Public Policy/Assessment#Rubric.

Introduce yourself at the talk page, Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject United States Public Policy/Assessment#Assessment Team Introduction to introduce yourself. You probably don't need to read the whole page, but there is good advice in certain sections. You can also ask questions there (or, perhaps, find that your question has already been asked and answered).--Ck07 (talk) 13:29, 21 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

October 21, 2010/due November 11

Decide, in consultation with your mentor and me, whether you will improve an existing article or create a new one. Create an ====Article to Work On==== subsection in your student section, write your initial thoughts, and alert your mentor and me.

If there is no article squarely on your question, e.g. Stephanie's project on the 1983 Kurdish rebellion, your call will be easy. If there are articles into which your work could possibly fit--e.g., Tim's on the Rwandan role in Congo into the pages on First Congo War and Second Congo War--but you judge that it would be an awkward or distoring fit, or simply that your question is important enough to deserve its own page, go ahead.

If you think your work will fit neatly into an existing page by altering/expanding certain sections or by adding sections, do that.--Ck07 (talk) 13:29, 21 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

October 21, 2010/due November 16

Create your new article as a stub; or begin work on your target existing article. In either case, include at least some new or renamed section headings plus at least some content, with documentation.

If your article is new, you may find it useful to begin in a sandbox. Sandboxes are just holding zones where students can work out things like formatting and get a bit of help from their mentor before moving into Wikipedia proper. See this sandbox tutorial.

If you are expanding an article, you could begin with a sandbox although Sage Ross recommends simply piling in to the article (I think I agree). You could also make a request for a peer reviewer to look at your work; it can take a while to find an interested reviewer, but you can get valuable feedback. Your mentor can help with this.

Sage Ross also recommended getting some exposure for your work through the "Did you know" process, where tidbits from new articles appear on the Wikipedia main page for a short time (not sure I see this as critically important). Mentors can help with this.--Ck07 (talk) 14:23, 29 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Make sure to provide "edit summaries" for your changes in the edit summary box at the bottom (just above the "save page" button) every time you make an edit. The edit summary should describe the rationale for your edit(s). In this assignment you may be providing only a small part of what you ultimately intend, so it will be useful to explain the larger project of which the edit(s) so far are part.

Edit summaries will be equally important in the next assignment, especially for those bringing a 'sandbox' article into Wikipedia proper.--Ck07 (talk) 19:51, 21 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

October 29, 2010/due November 23

Add more content. If you have been working in a sandbox so far, bring your article 'online.'

If yours is a new article, add links that point to yours in articles that should have them (e.g., if Tim does create a new page, he will likely link to it from First Congo War, second Congo War, and from an article about Rwandan foreign policy or Rwandan genocide and the articles of people who are important to the conflict, as well as the articles of people central to the topic).

This may also come up if working on an existing article, as might the need to insert links in your work to other articles.--Ck07 (talk) 14:25, 29 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Not assigned yet

At some point we will need how to learn how to insert non-textual information into a page.

Resources for Instructor

The following is a schedule for another course. I am leaving it here for my own reference. Don't worry about it--it is for a course where editing Wikipedia is the main activity.

9 September (week 1) - Create account, create a user page, and add your name to this page
14 September (week 2) - Request a mentor who will be available to offer advice and assistance as you start editing. List 3-5 articles you will consider working on as your main project.
16 September (week 2) - Review an existing article.
21 September (week 3) - List the article you will work on. Begin compiling a bibliography and studying the sources.
28 September (week 4) - Bibliography draft due.
5 October (week 5) - Outline draft due. Begin writing 3-4 paragraph summary version of your article (with citations).
7 October (week 5) - Seek feedback from mentor on whether your summary article meets Wikipedia's requirements
12 October (week 6) - Move your summary article into main space, compose one-sentence "hook", and nominate it for Did you know.
26 October (week 8) - Initial version of complete article due. Offer feedback and suggestions to classmates, request peer review.
2 November (week 9) - Recommended deadline to nominate articles for Good Article status.
16 November (week 11) - In-class presentations about project.
2 December (week 13) - Final version due.