Researching a Controversy Using Wikipedia Talk Pages

Title

Researching a Controversy Using Wikipedia Talk Pages
Description This is an activity to get students to think critically about the sources and information presented in a Wikipedia article. Students are asked to look up an article on their own topic, or a topic related to the course, and examine the content and the “Talk” page to see what issues the article has related to Wikipedia’s 3 guiding principles for content: point of view (objectivity/bias), verifiability (quality of sources cited), and evidence of original research. NOTE: This activity works best for topics (people, events) that are current public debates and/or controversial.
Steps
  1. Ask students what role they see Wikipedia playing as a source for information in their lives (personal, academic)
  2. Introduce students to Wikipedia’s 3 core content policies: 1. Neutral Point of View; 2). Verifiability; & 3). No Original Research
  3. Pass out worksheet (or present discussion questions via a PPT slide) and ask students to take 10 minutes looking at an article on their topic (or if they don’t have topics, on a topic discussed in class). Ask them to look at both the article and the “Talk Page” in order to comment on what they discover about issues in the article related to the 3 core content policies
  4. As a class, discuss: what they find intriguing, or interesting about the controversies surrounding their article’s content; any interesting examples of controversy around unreliable sources of information cited in the Talk page
Tags  Evaluating-sources; Beyond-Google; In-class
Time 25 minutes (5 min. intro; 10 min. review of Wikipedia article; 5-10 min. discussion)
Attachments noun_229116Evaluating Wikipedia