1. Overview

The proposal should be a typed plan (a minimum of 1500 words, not including references, for single-person proposals and a minimum of 2000 words for partners working together) describing the proposed topic. The proposal should not be a draft of your proposed entry.

The purpose of the proposal is to persuade readers of the merits of your planned changes or new entry and demonstrate how your entry will differ from or improve upon any existing or related entries. To receive full credit for the overall assignment, you must create a substantial amount of new material, regardless of whether you are adding to and revising an existing entry or creating a new one. The proposal, therefore, needs to clearly indicate the work you plan to contribute.

All proposals should cover the concepts necessary to a critical understanding of the issues; related theoretical and policy debates; the analytical plan and section outline intended for the entry; a substantive list of references expected to be applicable or useful for each proposed section of the article; and the links to other entries that you plan to add. The proposal should acknowledge and adhere to the standards required by Wikipedia for creating and updating entries. Be sure to carefully review the previously provided information, such as from the handout Guidelines and Criteria for Wikipedia and information on avoiding plagiarism.

References should include material from outside the syllabus as well as relevant course readings. These will need to be listed following an appropriate documentation format such as Chicago style (including author, year, and page number).

2. Planning Your Proposal: Questions and Suggestions

In planning your proposal, consider the following questions and suggestions:

• Are there essential subtopics that are not discussed in the existing entry?

• Does the existing entry present all of the legitimate, research-backed approaches to a particular issue?

• Alternately, the entry might present unsubstantiated opinion or even conspiracy theory as though it were backed by legitimate scholarly research. Can you identify any parts of the entry that should either be removed or require further support through citations?

• Are all of the parts of the existing entry clearly relevant to the topic?

• Does the existing entry appropriately link to other Wikipedia sites? Are there any links, particularly to sites written by current or former PJHC students that you could add?

• Check relevant WikiProject groups and Talk pages for proposal ideas.

• Identify the relevant subtopics for your proposed contribution and all of the legitimate, research-backed approaches to the topic.

• Narrow the number of subtopics that you will include in your entry. If you have chosen a broad topic, it will be difficult to research and write an entry that covers every aspect of the topic. In such cases, you can use the Talk tab to suggest that others continue the work that you have begun by suggesting subtopics that need further development.

• How will you relate your entry to other existing entries? Note that entries that do not link other entries are more likely to be deleted. Plan now to link other entries. In particular, any relevant site written or revised by a current PJHC student should be linked.

• Would it be useful to add information about your page to other pages? If so, to what pages do you plan to add information about your topic?

3. Writing your proposal

Your proposal should include the following items and use proper grammar, style, and organization:

• Identify your topic.

• Explain why your topic needs to be revised, expanded, or added to Wikipedia.

• Make an argument for the relevance of this effort (Why should we care about this subject? What makes it so interesting?).

• Compare the current article with one or more Wikipedia articles that have been assessed as B class, Good, or Featured and note what would need to be done to bring the article to an improved status.

• Describe the planned work including any section(s) to be included or added (if revising/expanding an article) and, where appropriate, include your responses to the above questions.

• If you are planning to propose a new entry, please provide substantial justification for why this would be better rather than expanding/revising an existing entry, given that new sections added to existing entries tend to receive far more traffic than completely new entries.

• List the references that you think will be useful in writing each section of your proposed new or revised entry.

• If you anticipate any potential difficulties, please describe these.

• Provide a detailed outline of the sections you will be revising/creating for your entry. If you are creating a new entry, this will comprise all the sections of the entry. If you are contributing to an existing entry, include an outline that shows existing sections to be kept or deleted and proposed new sections, clearly distinguishing between the two using the Track Changes feature of Word. Follow the format of the example below.

• If you plan to coordinate work with a classmate on an entry or on related entries, please describe your joint work plan.

• Briefly outline the points you plan to add to the WikiProject Group or Talk pages.

• Conclusion—Reiterate the importance of your new or revised entry and raise any issues or questions you may have.

4. Sample Outline: Microfinance

See attached document for outline image

5. Submit to OWL-Space: Deadline: 9 pm Tuesday, September 24

Submit your completed proposal to the relevant assignment tab on OWL-Space. For full credit, be sure your name appears on your document and the file you submit must be labeled as follows: <LastName> WikiProposal.doc (or .docx)

Be sure to include page numbers and to proofread and double-space all text except the outline, which may be single-spaced. Also, include your name at the top of the document as well as page numbers. Points will be deducted for proposals that do not follow these instructions.