Improving Articles

The goal of a Wikipedia article is to create a comprehensive and neutrally written summary of existing mainstream knowledge about a topic. Wikipedia does not publish original research, it is an encyclopedia. It is a tertiary source that provides a survey of information already published in the wider world. The information must be verifiable through reliable external sources. Ideally, all information should refer to reliable outside sources, using citations. When adding content and creating new articles, an encyclopedic style with a formal tone is important. Wikipedia articles should have a straightforward, just-the-facts style.^[1]

Harvard Film Archive, Harvard University

Resources

Start Up Guides

Getting Started

How to Find Citations to Edit

Improving Citations is an accessible way to improve the quality of Wikipedia Articles. Here are some resources to help you locate articles with unsourced statements:

How to Edit Content

Choose between two methods to edit content:
- classic editing through Wiki Markup (wikitext)
- a newer system, VisualEditor (VE)
You can practice making edits in the Sandbox.
Use Show Preview to preview your changes. This lets you see what the page will look like after your edit.

How to Find Articles to Edit/Write

If you are looking for incomplete articles to contribute to, Wikipedia has some resources:

Requested Articles
Stub Articles
Find a WikiProject on a topic that fit your knowledge base. Some possible WikiProjects to start with are:
- WikiProject: Women's History
- WikiProject: Women in Red
- WikiProject: Women in Green
Library and Information Science stubs
- Real-world object stub article

Add Harvard Library Collections

The following is a sampling of suggested articles to edit or create based off Harvard Library Collections. These people and organizations are all represented in Harvard Library's holdings. Biographical information can be found in the finding aid biography, as well as in secondary sources listed elsewhere in this page under "Resources."

Add links to Harvard Finding Aids

Anne Pappenheimer Forbes

People

Ruth Turner - Use Harvard Library's Ruth Turner Research Guide to Improve her article
William H. Ferris
Leslie Pinckney Hill
Eva B. Dykes

Link to People identified in Collections that you want to feature - or specific aspects that you want entered.

Organizations

Link to Organizational Collections that you want to feature - or specific aspects that you want entered.

Special Collections

Link to Special Collections that you want to feature - or specific aspects that you want entered.