Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Columbia University/Order and Violence (Spring 2016)
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- Course name
- Order and Violence
- Institution
- Columbia University
- Instructor
- Christopher Blattman
- Wikipedia Expert
- Adam (Wiki Ed)
- Subject
- Comparative politics, Political economy, International development
- Course dates
- 2016-01-25 – 2016-05-18
- Approximate number of student editors
- 15
This is a course about why some societies are political unstable and violent, how order comes about, and what you, international organizations, and domestic reformers can do about it (if anything).
Course information
- We meet Mondays 10:10am to 12pm in IAB 711 (420 W 118th St.)
-
You can always reach me at <a href="mailto:chrisblattman
columbia.edu">chrisblattman
columbia.edu</a>
- My office is IAB 819 and you can sign up for an office hours appointment <a href="http://www.meetme.so/ChrisBlattman">online</a>
Course goals
In terms of the subject matter, my goals are for you to:
- Understand the demand for order and the multiple forms it takes
- Understand the causes of violence
- Understand the origins of states, formal institutions (e.g. the rule of law), and informal institutions (e.g. social norms)
- Think critically about interventions and policy reforms designed to build states, improve the quality of institutions, or keep peace
The course is also designed to help you (and me) build some broader skill sets:
- Learn to read, write, and discuss academic ideas critically
- Learn to write encyclopedically: a neutral, balanced, well-sourced article
- Think critically about information online, sourcing, and social and collaborative media
- Get Wiki-savvy
Structure of the Class and Grading
There are three main components to the class:
- Critically reading the assigned readings before class
- Discussing the assigned readings in class
- Wikipedia-based assignments, designed to help you learn while also improving the quality of social science in Wikipedia
Your grade will be based on: 35% quality of in-class participation and critical discussion of readings; 15% various small assignments to get you familiar with Wikipedia and started on your article; 10% peer review; 30% your final (live!) Wikipedia article; and 10% for a short critical essay that contains original thoughts, critiques and ideas on your topic that are not appropriate for the Wikipedia article.
Look under the <a href="http://dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Columbia_University/Order_and_Violence_%28Spring_2016%29/timeline">Timeline tab</a> for weekly readings, assignments, and (at bottom) more detail about the grading.
Reading and in-class discussion
Each week I will assign 2-4 articles or a book, or book sections. There will be up to about 100 pages of reading a week. This reading is required, since it's really the main way you are going to learn the material.
Each week I will also note some suggested readings. these are there for your convenience, in case you are interested in the subject or want to consider them as raw materials for your Wikipedia assignments.
Look under the <a href="http://dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Columbia_University/Order_and_Violence_%28Spring_2016%29/timeline">Timeline tab</a> for readings. In general I will either:
- Provide a link directly to the article, typically accessible if you are on the University network or a proxy server
- For chapters and excerpts not online, I will scan and place a copy in Columbia's CourseWorks
- Or, in the cases where I want you to read most or all of a book, I will provide an Amazon.com link, since new and used versions will typically be cheapest there (with used versions cheaper than the university bookstore in my experience). I will also put a copy of the book on reserve in the social science library in IAB.
Wikipedia-based assignments
All of your assignments are going to be Wikipedia based. I've never done this before. This is an experiment. We're going to do it in collaboration with the <a href="https://wikiedu.org/">Wiki Education Foundation</a>, which is a non-profit spin-off of Wikipedia that aims to improve education while also improving the quality, quantity, and diversity of knowledge available for free to all.
I like the idea that the class contributes to some public good. We're going to be putting more and better quality social science into the public domain, the Wikipedia way. Ultimately you're going to write a new Wikipedia article or dramatically improve an existing one. Plus some other stuff.
Fortunately we will have our hands held by a Wiki Edu representative. Learning the norms and practices of encyclopedia writing, especially an online collaborative tool, will be a learning experience for us all.
I think you'll be motivated to do well, and feel pressure to work hard, but also feel a sense of accomplishment.
Writing clearly and in a balanced way is a useful skill. You will use writing in every aspect of your professional and personal life. And this style of encyclopedic writing has much in common with academic writing, journalism, policy memos, briefings to your boss or client, and so forth.
My one hesitation is that Wikipedia does not allow you to write critically or creatively. I usually design my courses to develop these critical thinking and writing skills. This course will not accomplish that nearly as well. Nonetheless, I hope to foster critical reading and thinking in class discussions of the weekly readings.
You can read more about the specific timeline, assignments, and Wikipedia work under the Timeline tab.
Academic integrity
As you work in Wikipedia, you will learn its codes of conduct and guidelines for integrity.
But of course you will also be held to a similar high standard by Columbia University. This is a reminder that all Columbia College students now make the following pledge:
We, the undergraduate students of Columbia University, hereby pledge to value the integrity of our ideas and the ideas of others by honestly presenting our work, respecting authorship, and striving not simply for answers but for understanding in the pursuit of our common scholastic goals. In this way, we seek to build an academic community governed by our collective efforts, diligence, and Code of Honor.
In addition, all Columbia College students are committed to the following honor code:
I affirm that I will not plagiarize, use unauthorized materials, or give or receive illegitimate help on assignments, papers, or examinations. I will also uphold equity and honesty in the evaluation of my work and the work of others. I do so to sustain a community built around this Code of Honor.
I will assume you are familiar with these codes and how to faithfully abide by them. You can read more <a href="https://www.college.columbia.edu/academics/academicintegrity">here</a>.
Timeline
Week 1
- Course meetings
-
- Monday, 25 January 2016
- In class - This week's readings
- Nature abhors a vacuum of order
- Henry Farrell. “Dark Leviathan: The Silk Road might have started as a libertarian experiment, but it was doomed to end as a fiefdom run by pirate kings.” Aeon. 20 February, 2015.
- David Skarbek on Prison Gangs and the Social Order of the Underworld. EconTalk podcast. March 2015. (If you prefer, you can read the article below)
- Olson, Mancur. 1993. "Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development." American Political Science Review 87(3): 567-576.
Further reading:
- Skarbek, David. "Governance and prison gangs." American Political Science Review 105.04 (2011): 702-716.
- Introduction and Chapter 1 of Gambetta, D. (1996). The Sicilian Mafia: the business of private protection. Harvard University Press. (Dropbox)
- Chapter 2 of David J. Samuels (2012). Comparative Politics. Pearson Higher Education. (Dropbox)
- Barry Weingast on the Violence Trap. August 2013. EconTalk.
- Ostrom, Elinor. "Collective Action and the Evolution of Social Norms." The Journal of Economic Perspectives 14.3 (2000): 137-158.
- In class - Wikipedia essentials
- Overview of the course
- Why and how Wikipedia will be used in the course
- Walk through the anatomy of Wikipedia with a few examples
- Peacekeeping
- Check out usage statistics
- Review content
- State-building
- Lengthy but flagged for need of clean-up and experts
- There are huge topic areas not covered: influential historical accounts, major theories, examples
- Possibly could benefit from linking to and developing key sub-articles, and better listing and organizing these links
- The Better Angels of Our Nature
- Fairly lengthy book review with moderate amount on talk page
- Note part of abooks project, where it is labeled Start class, so in need of more development
- The Civilizing Process
- Relatively little coverage, despite being a longtime influential book and backbone of the Peter Singer book
- Peacekeeping
- Options:
- Re-organizing and adding to a major page like State-building or Rebellion
- Creating/adding key articles that feed into these big topics and linking to them (such as theories of rebellion, or the academic literature on peacekeeping)
- Adding or improving a book summary and integrating it into relevant topic articles
- The class could even work collaboratively on different pieces of a larger concept, such as State-building
Handout: Editing Wikipedia
- Assignment - In-class discussion (every week)
- This "assignment" covers my expectations for every week of the course until the end.
- Every week you'll be expected to arrive to class have read the assigned book or articles.
- You should read these readings "critically", meaning you think about the research question, the hypothesis, whether the evidence or argument is convincing and complete, strengths, weaknesses, and why the idea is important. You may want to take notes and make summaries.
- You may also want to look at whether and how the material is covered in Wikipedia.
- Every week, at least half to three quarters of the class time will be spent discussing these articles: the ideas in them, strengths and weaknesses, and how they further our learning goals in the course. I as your instructor will lead the discussion and pose questions, but you should also feel free to pose questions or topics for discussion.
- Your critical discussion and contributions, including demonstration that you read and understood the readings, will be approximately a third of your course grade.
- Assignment - Practicing the basics
- Create an account and join this course page.
- Complete the introductory training modules. During this training, you will make edits in a sandbox and learn the basic rules of Wikipedia.
- Create a User page.
- To practice editing and communicating on Wikipedia, introduce yourself to another student on their user talk page.
- Explore topics related to your topic area to get a feel for how Wikipedia is organized. What areas seem to be missing? As you explore, make a mental note of articles that seem like good candidates for improvement.
Week 2
- Course meetings
-
- Monday, 1 February 2016
- In class - This week's readings
- Violence
- Amos Sawyer (2004). "Violent conflicts and governance challenges in West Africa:
the case of the Mano River basin area." The Journal of Modern African Studies 42(03). - James Fearon (1995). “Rationalist Explanations for War,” International Organization 49(3), p379-414.
- Tilly, Charles (1985). “War making and state making as organized crime,” in Bringing the State Back In, eds P.B. Evans, D. Rueschemeyer, & T. Skocpol. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
- Robert Kaplan. "The Coming Anarchy," The Atlantic, February 1994.
Further reading
- Blattman, Christopher, and Edward Miguel. "Civil War." Journal of Economic Literature 48.1 (2010): 3-57.
- de la Sierra, Raúl Sánchez. 2015. “On the Origin of States: Stationary Bandits and Taxation in Eastern Congo.” Working paper.
- Collier, Paul, and Anke Hoeffler. "Greed and grievance in civil war." Oxford economic papers 56.4 (2004): 563-595.
- In class - Editing basics
- Understanding Wikipedia as a community, we'll discuss its expectations and etiquette.
- Basics of editing
- Anatomy of Wikipedia articles, what makes a good article, how to distinguish between good and bad articles
- Collaborating and engaging with the Wiki editing community
- Tips on finding the best articles to work on for class assignments
Handouts: Using Talk Pages, Evaluating Wikipedia
- Assignment - Copyedit an article
- Choose one article, identify ways in which you can improve and correct its language and grammar, and make the appropriate changes. You can also highlight statements in need of citation, or more reliable sourcing. Note: You do not need to alter the article's substantive content or add sources; we will be doing this in a couple of weeks. Just copyedit.
- Assignment - Exploring the topic area
- In a couple of weeks you'll need to formally suggest a term project to work on, so this is a chance to look around informally and get some guidance in class.
- Look around Wikipedia in the topic area of the course. Don't just look at main pages, but also at smaller and more specialized sub-pages and specialized articles. Are major academic theories or ideas weakly covered? Are there major books with no summary (or a poor one)? Do articles use and reference modern social science?
- In the next class, be prepared to talk about some of your observations about
Wikipedia articles in your topic area that are missing or could use
improvement. - This assignment is formally ungraded, but your contributions next week will be reflected in your broader class participation/discussion grade.
- Milestones
All students have Wikipedia user accounts and are listed on the course page.
Week 3
- Course meetings
-
- Monday, 8 February 2016
- In class - This week's readings
- The State
- Pages 1-24 of Timothy Besley and Suresh Naidu (2015). “Chapter 21: Political Economy,” core-econ.org (Dropbox)
- Herbst, Jeffrey. "War and the State in Africa." International Security (1990): 117-139.
- Chapter 1 of Dipali Mukhopadhyay. 2014. Warlords, strongman governors, and the state in Afghanistan. Cambridge University Press. (Dropbox or the Kindle version of Chapter 1 is available on Amazon for free by clicking on “Send a free sample”)
- Chapter 10 (Conclusions) in James C. Scott. (1998). Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. (Dropbox)
Further reading:
- Introduction to James C. Scott. (1998). Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. (Dropbox)
- Paul Seabright. 1999. “The Aestheticising Vice,” London Review of Books 21(11), p.26-27
- Pritchett, Lant, Michael Woolcock, and Matt Andrews. "Looking like a state: techniques of persistent failure in state capability for implementation." The Journal of Development Studies 49.1 (2013): 1-18.
- Chinese Legalism, BBC4 In Our Times podcast
- James A. Robinson (2002). "States and Power in Africa by Jeffrey I. Herbst: A Review Essay." Journal of Economic Literature 40(2): 510-519.
- Barry Weingast on Law. EconTalk. August 2014.
- Vu, Tuong. "Studying the state through state formation." World politics 62.01 (2010): 148-175.
- Spruyt, Hendrik. "The origins, development, and possible decline of the modern state." Annual Review of Political Science 5.1 (2002): 127-149.
- In class - Exploring the topic area
- Be prepared to discuss in class some of your observations about Wikipedia articles in your topic area that are missing or could use improvement.
Handouts: Choosing an article
- In class - Using sources
- Be prepared to explain close paraphrasing, plagiarism, and copyright violations on Wikipedia.
Handouts: Citing Sources and Avoiding Plagiarism
Supplementary training: [[../../../training/students/sources|Sources and Citations]]
- Assignment - Add to an article
- Choose a source (one of the short readings from this week, a previous week, a future week, or one that you know from another course).
- Choose a Wikipedia article related to the class, where an insight from this source is relevant. Ideally this is an article where the substantive point is not already made, and it is in need of content and sourcing.
- Add the new information to the Wikipedia article, backed up with a citation to your source. It could be as little as a sentence, though, as Wikipedia advises, feel free to "be bold".
Week 4
- Course meetings
-
- Monday, 15 February 2016
- In class - This week's readings
- Insitutions
- Alex Tabarrok. "The Ferguson Kleptocracy," Marginal Revolution (blog post)
- North, Douglass Cecil. Transaction costs, institutions, and economic performance. San Francisco, CA: ICS Press, 1992.
- Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson. (2005). "Institutions as a fundamental cause of long-run growth." Handbook of Economic Growth 1: 385-472.
Further reading:
- Douglass C. North, John J. Wallis & Barry R. Weingast (2009). [muse.jhu.edu:journals:jod:summary:v020:20.1.north.html Violence and the rise of open-access orders]. Journal of Democracy, 20(1), 55-68.
- Rodrik, Dani. "When Ideas Trump Interests: Preferences, Worldviews, and Policy Innovations." The Journal of Economic Perspectives 28.1 (2014): 189-208.
- Glaeser, Edward L., et al. "Do institutions cause growth?" Journal of Economic Growth 9.3 (2004): 271-303.
- Dell, Melissa, Nathan Lane, and Pablo Querubin. "State Capacity, Local Governance, and Economic Development in Vietnam." (2015).
- Akee, Randall, Miriam Jorgensen, and Uwe Sunde. "Critical junctures and economic development–Evidence from the adoption of constitutions among American Indian Nations." Journal of Comparative Economics 43.4 (2015): 844-861.
- Abhijit Banerjee and Lakshmi Iyer, "History, Institutions and Economic Performance: the Legacy of Colonial Land Tenure Systems in India." American Economic Review 95, no. 4 (September 2005): 1190-1213.
- Assignment - Choosing your article
- Research and list 3–5 articles on your Wikipedia user page that you will consider working on as your main project. Look at the talk page for existing topics for a sense of who else is working on it and what they're doing. Describe your choices to your instructor for feedback.
- If you are writing a senior essay or a term paper for another class, do not choose the same topic. Feel free to choose a close or complementary topic, but not an identical one.
Week 5
- Course meetings
-
- Monday, 22 February 2016
- In class - This week's readings
- Geographic origins of poltical and economic development
- Diamond, Jared (1998). "The evolution of guns and germs." Chapter 3 of Evolution: Society, science, and the universe, edited by A. C. Fabian. (Dropbox)
- Engerman, Stanley L, and Kenneth L Sokoloff. 2005. “Institutional and Non-Institutional Explanations of Economic Differences.” In Handbook of New Institutional Economics, edited by C Menard and M.M. Shirley, 639–65. Amsterdam: Springer.
- Nugent, Jeffrey B., and James A. Robinson. "Are factor endowments fate?." Revista de Historia Economica 28.1 (2010): 45. (Skip the math)
Further reading:
- Mellinger, Andrew D., Jeffrey D. Sachs, and John L. Gallup (1999). “Climate, Water
Navigability, and Economic Development” - Marcella Alsan (2012). “The Effect of the Tse Tse Fly on African Development,” unpublished working paper.
- Nunn, Nathan, and Diego Puga. 2010. “Ruggedness: The Blessing of Bad Geography in Africa.” Review of Economics and Statistics 94 (1): 20–36.
- In class - Discuss the article topics
- Discuss the topics students will be working on, and determine strategies for researching and writing about them.
Supplementary training: [[../../../training/students/sandboxes|Sandboxes and Mainspace]]
- Assignment - Finalize your topic and start researching
- Select an article to work on, removing the rest from your user page. Add your topic on the course page. Remember this should not be the identical topic as one of your other term papers or senior essay.
- Spend some time looking around Wikipedia for articles related to your topic, whether they are broader or have parallels. How is the information organized? How should your article fit in? Are you sure you are editing in the right place, or addressing the topic in the right way?
- Compile a bibliography of relevant, reliable sources and post it to the talk page of the article you are working on. Begin reading the sources. Make sure to check in on the talk page (or watchlist) to see if anyone has advice on your bibliography.
Week 6
- Course meetings
-
- Monday, 29 February 2016
- In class - This week's readings
- Theories of institutional development
- Douglass C. North, John J. Wallis & Barry R. Weingast (2009). [muse.jhu.edu:journals:jod:summary:v020:20.1.north.html Violence and the rise of open-access orders]. Journal of Democracy, 20(1), 55-68.
- Sections 5 to 10: Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson. (2005). "Institutions as a fundamental cause of long-run growth." Handbook of Economic Growth 1: 385-472.
- (Pages 1-6 only) Mahoney, James. 2001. “Path-Dependent Explanations of Regime Change: Central America in Comparative Perspective.” Studies in Comparative International Development 36 (1): 111–41.
Further reading:
- Pierson, Paul. "Increasing returns, path dependence, and the study of politics." American Political Science Review (2000): 251-267.
- In class - Wikipedia culture and etiquette
- Talk about Wikipedia culture and etiquette, and (optionally) revisit the concept of sandboxes and how to use them.
- Q&A session with instructor about interacting on Wikipedia and getting started with writing.
- Assignment - Drafting starter articles
- If you are starting a new article, write a 3–4 paragraph summary version of your article—with citations—in your Wikipedia sandbox. If you are improving an existing article, create a detailed outline reflecting your proposed changes, and post this for community feedback, along with a brief description of your plans, on the article’s talk page. Make sure to check back on the talk page often and engage with any responses.
- Begin working with classmates and other editors to polish your short starter article and fix any major issues.
- Continue research in preparation for expanding your article.
Week 7
- Course meetings
-
- Monday, 7 March 2016
- In class - This week's readings
- Background for your article
You should start reading several articles or other sources relevant to your toipic. Feel free to speak to me about suggestions. We will spend the class looking at your starter articles, spending about 5-10 minutes on each person's article with the rest of the class.
- Milestones
All students have started editing articles or drafts on Wikipedia.
- In class - Building articles
- Share experiences and discuss problems.
Resources: Illustrating Wikipedia and Evaluating Wikipedia
- Assignment - Reading over the break
We will be discussing two big books after the break, by Migdal and Pinker. This will mean an unusual amount of reading. But they are really, really good books. Migdal is one of my favorite books in all of political science. Pinker is one of the most widely-read and influential books on violence written this century.
Week 8
- Course meetings
-
- Monday, 21 March 2016
- In class - This week's readings
- Strong societies
- Chapter 1 of Scott, J. C. (2009). The art of not being governed: An anarchist history of upland Southeast Asia, Yale University Press (Dropbox)
- Putnam, Robert D. "What makes democracy work?" National Civic Review 82.2 (1993):
101-107. - Clark, William Roberts, Matt Golder, and Sona N. Golder. "Power and politics: insights from an exit, voice, and loyalty game." Unpublished manuscript, University of Michigan and Pennsylvania State University (2013).
Further reading:
- Preface (p. ix-xxvi) in James C. Scott. (2012). Two Cheers for Anarchism. (Dropbox)
- Introduction (p.1-8) and Chapter 10 (Conclusions) in James C. Scott. (1998). Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. (Dropbox)
- Paul Seabright. 1999. “The Aestheticising Vice,” London Review of Books 21(11), p.26-27
- Ursula Le Guin, The Dispossessed.
- Ostrom, Elinor. "Collective Action and the Evolution of Social Norms." The Journal of Economic Perspectives 14.3 (2000): 137-158.
- Fukuyama, Francis. "Social capital, civil society and development." Third world quarterly 22.1 (2001): 7-20.
- “Paul Robinson on Cooperation, Punishment and the Criminal Justice System,” EconTalk Episode with Russ Robert, August 31, 2015.
- De Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy in America.
- Welzel, Christian, and Ronald Inglehart. "The role of ordinary people in democratization." Journal of Democracy 19.1 (2008): 126-140.
- Leeson, Peter T. "Pirates, prisoners, and preliterates: anarchic context and the private enforcement of law." European Journal of Law and Economics 37.3 (2014):
365-379.
- In class - Moving articles to mainspace
- We'll discuss moving your article out of your sandboxes and into Wikipedia's main space.
- A general reminder: Don't panic if your contribution disappears, and don't try to force it back in.
- Check to see if there is an explanation of the edit on the article's talk page. If not, (politely) ask why it was removed.
- Contact your instructor or Wikipedia Content Expert and let them know.
Handout: Moving out of your Sandbox
- Assignment - Moving articles to mainspace
- Move your sandbox articles into main space.
- If you are expanding an existing article, copy your edit into the article. If you are making many small edits, save after each edit before you make the next one. Do NOT paste over the entire existing article, or large sections of the existing article.
- If you are creating a new article, do NOT copy and paste your text, or there will be no record of your work history. Follow the instructions in the "Moving out of your sandbox" handout.
- If you are expanding an existing article, copy your edit into the article. If you are making many small edits, save after each edit before you make the next one. Do NOT paste over the entire existing article, or large sections of the existing article.
- Begin expanding your article into a comprehensive treatment of the topic.
- Assignment - Move your article proposals to the talk page
- Before the break you provided article summaries to me in your sandboxes, and I gave you feedback
- Based on that feedback, add your planned changes to the Talk page as soon as possible, to see if there is feedback from other Wikipedians.
- Make sure you use the appropriate formatting, sign your suggestions, use the : for replies, etc.
- It seems like the style of talk pages is not to add one big heading with all your proposed changes, but rather to break it up by theme or major type of proposal. You will probably add many headings with comments, each related to a different aspect or part of the article.
- If you are collaborating with someone else in the class, you will often be adding to the same subsections on the talk page, rather than creating duplicate ones. You can reply to one another and put some of your discussion.
Week 9
- Course meetings
-
- Monday, 28 March 2016
- In class - This week's readings
- The Case of Central America
- Central American Crisis, Wikipedia
- Part I (up to end of Chapter 3) of Paige, Jeffery M. 1998. Coffee and Power: Revolution and the Rise of Democracy in Central America. Harvard University Press. (Buy on Amazon or find on library reserve)
- (Remainder of article) Mahoney, James. 2001. “Path-Dependent Explanations of Regime Change: Central America in Comparative Perspective.” Studies in Comparative International Development 36 (1): 111–41.
Further reading:
- Review from Week 5: Nugent, Jeffrey B., and James A. Robinson. "Are factor endowments fate?." Revista de Historia Economica 28.1 (2010): 45. (Skip the math)
- Part 4 of Coffee and Power, especially Chapter 10
Week 10
- Course meetings
-
- Monday, 4 April 2016
- In class - This week's readings
- The origins of weak societies and weak states
- Migdal, Joel S. Strong societies and weak states: state-society relations and state capabilities in the Third World. Princeton University Press, 1988 (Buy on Amazon)
- Assignment - Choose articles to peer review
- I will assign you two classmates’ articles that you will peer review and copyedit. On the table at the bottom of this course page, add your username next to the articles you will peer review. (You don’t need to start reviewing yet.)
Week 11
- Course meetings
-
- Monday, 11 April 2016
- Assignment - Complete first draft
- Expand your article into a complete first, rough draft.
- Your classmates will need this for peer review so be sure to complete it on time (the 18th)
- In class - NO CLASS THIS WEEK
I will be out of town and so you should use this week to read more deeply in your subject and complete your first draft.
Week 12
- Course meetings
-
- Monday, 18 April 2016
- Assignment - Peer review and copyedit
- Peer review two of your classmates’ articles. Leave suggestions on the article talk pages.
- Copy-edit the two reviewed articles.
Supplementary training: [[../../../training/students/peer-review|Peer Review]]
- In class - This week's readings
- Strengthening states and society
- Pritchett, Lant, Michael Woolcock, and Matt Andrews. "Looking like a state: techniques of persistent failure in state capability for implementation." The Journal of Development Studies 49.1 (2013): 1-18.
- Linz, Juan J. "State building and nation building." European Review 1.04 (1993): 355-369.
- Herbst, Jeffrey. "Migration, the politics of protest, and state consolidation in Africa." African Affairs (1990): 183-203.
Further reading
- Rauch, James E., and Peter B. Evans. 2000. “Bureaucratic Structure and Bureaucratic Performance in Less Developed Countries.” Journal of Public Economics 75 (1): 49–71.
- Posen, Barry R. "Nationalism, the mass army, and military power." International Security (1993): 80-124.
- Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson. 2015. “Paths to Inclusive Political Institutions”
- Weber, Eugen. Peasants into Frenchmen: the modernization of rural France, 1870-1914. Stanford University Press, 1976.
- Weber, Max. From Max Weber: essays in sociology. Routledge, 2009.
- Robb, Graham. The discovery of France. Pan Macmillan, 2008.
- In class - Group suggestions
- As a group, we will discuss general suggestions for improving other students' articles, based on your ideas of what makes a solid encyclopedia article.[[../../../training/students/peer-review|
]]
Week 13
- Course meetings
-
- Monday, 25 April 2016
- Milestones
Every student has finished reviewing their assigned articles, making sure that every article has been reviewed.
- In class - This week's readings
- TBD
- In class - Discuss further article improvements
- Continue discussing how the articles can be further improved. Come up with improvement goals for each article for next week.
- Think about what broader articles your article should speak to, and how they could connect
- Assignment - Address peer review suggestions
- Make edits to your article based on peers’ feedback. If you disagree with a suggestion, use talk pages to politely discuss and come to a consensus on your edit.
Week 14
- Course meetings
-
- Monday, 2 May 2016
- In class - This week's readings
- TBD
- In class - Reflections on process
- Before class, you should prepare some reflective notes on your experiences with Wikipedia, what you learned, what you would do differently in future, and how your ideas about online information has been shaped by the experience.
- Assignment - Final article
- Add final touches to your Wikipedia article.
- Are there lists, disambiguation entries, or major topic articles where your article should be included?
Handout: Polishing your article
- Milestones
By the end of reading period (May 5) students have finished all their work on Wikipedia that will be considered for grading.