Hmorg11

Wikipedia is not for unsupervised homework

Unless your homework assignment is being supervised by an experienced Wikipedia editor, there is a reasonable probability that your contributions will be removed the moment that your class ends. Here are some tips:

• Do not overwrite mature articles. Make incremental changes or post suggestions on Talk pages.
• Rely on WP:SECONDARY and WP:TERTIARY sources. Please not insert primary references. They will likely be removed.
• Remember that Wikipedia is not a textbook, we present knowledge, we dont explain it. WP:NOTTEXTBOOK.

Pass on this advice to your fellow students and your instructor. --Smokefoot (talk) 01:22, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. Your homework may well be removed when the class ends. Good luck getting a good grade.--Smokefoot (talk) 03:17, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

• Thanks for your quick response! Are there any specific notes you could offer on how to improve my page? This is a project that has already been edited by my classmates and I thought it was a worthy contribution. I would really greatly appreciate any constructive feedback you have to offer on how I can improve my article and hopefully make it into something that can remain on Wikipedia.

Hmorg11 (talk) 04:52, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Hi Hmorg1. Some specific improvements your article could use

• You need to create a lead section. The lead section should begin with something like "[Article title is..." and succinctly explain the topic in a sentence or two. The rest of the article should then summarize all the major points of the article. The lead shouldn't include any information that isn't in the body of the article. See pages 7-9 of the Editing Wikipedia brochure for more information on layout.
• You need to make sure that you're working from sources that are specifically about the topic, and that you aren't relying too heavily on primary research articles. Individual research articles are very poor starting points for Wikipedia articles. To use a primary research article appropriately, you need to evaluate it in the context of the entire body of literature that exists about the topic. Individual research studies are only meaningful in the broader context of the field of research. If you're an expert on the subject, you might be able to decide which articles are important and which ones are outliers or oddities. Even if you are an expert, there's no way for the reader of a Wikipedia article to determine whether you're an expert or not. So instead of relying on your own judgment of the quality and validity of research articles, you should rely on review articles - secondary sources, in which people try to put the literature in context.
• You need to avoid synthesis. If you're writing about the environmental impacts of silver nanoparticles, you need to work from literature about the environmental impacts of silver nanoparticles.

  For example, you're using a source entitled In vitro reactivity of carboxylic acid-CoA thioesters with glutathione. Even without reading the source, this raises a lot of red flags - it isn't about silver nanoparticles, and it's an in vitro study, which means that you shouldn't extrapolate it to what goes on in the environment (where interactions are far more complex).

• You need to focus on a single, well-defined topic. Is the material you're adding to the article absolutely essential, and does it not exist elsewhere? Is it specific to this topic? Don't duplicate information that exists elsewhere - link to it.
• Don't launch into lengthy explanations of things. Describe what sources say about the topic and move on. Wikipedia uses a spare style - start your section with the most important facts, and follow up with additional details and information. Don't engage in explanations - you aren't trying to teach a topic, you're just presenting the facts. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:52, 3 December 2017 (UTC)