Welcome! change

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Osiris (talk) 16:47, 16 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Help wanted change

Thanks for the email. I am sure we can look at the pages your students have been working on. Do you have a list of the pages? --Peterdownunder (talk) 01:56, 28 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

I have found the articles. I had a quick look at Sociocultural Theory and made a few minor edits. These are complex topics, and to write about them in Simple English is no easy task. These will make a valuable contribution. I will check the other articles over the weekend to make sure that have correct formatting etc, and I might make some suggestions below. Thankyou for suggesting involvement here as a task, please do it again, and encourage your students to stay and help.--Peterdownunder (talk) 06:59, 28 November 2013 (UTC)Reply

Your class project change

I have a couple of questions about your class project.

The articles that look like they're part of your project are way, way too complex for this wiki. They almost look more like essays, which we don't allow here. Are they going to be simplified and edited for tone?

A note on formatting: several of the articles are using HTML-type formatting instead of the Wiki markup that we use. For example, some articles use <big> tags in headings and <br/> tags. Those should all be removed, as should the places where editors have included their signatures in the articles. If you have a list of the articles, I could run them through some software that converts that kind of formatting to what is needed here -- just let me know. --Auntof6 (talk) 07:22, 6 December 2013 (UTC)Reply

Yes History of Dreams is one of mine (embarrassing). I have been giving students consistent feedback about complexity and tone. Take a look at the two below let me know if the writing is closer to the level of simplicity required. The project is part of the Association for Psychological Science's Wikipedia Initiative. This effort is intended in increase the content on Wikipedia about psychological science and to improve the quality of what exists. Some students are editing articles in en.wikipedia. A few have written new entries there, but more have tried adding content to simple.wikipedia. Unfortunately, few write well. That is disappointing, since most are seniors in college and this is a 400 level course.
The guidelines for simple wikipedia state that "simple does not mean short." I took that at face value.
  • Combat Stress Reaction
  • Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
It is 2:49 am here in New Jersey. I have a lecture tomorrow morning. So I am calling it a night. I will put together a list tomorrow. Mringaterutgers (talk) 07:50, 6 December 2013 (UTC)Reply
I'll take a look at those tomorrow. Your list of titles reminds me of another thing: our titles use lower-case, except for proper nouns and the first word in each title. When I see your list, I can move the articles to the correct capitalization.
Indeed, simple does not have to mean short. Shorter is easier, but it's possible to write longer simple articles. I've found that, when simplifying a longer article, it's easy to get tired of working on it and leave some sections not as simple as they should be.
Also, I've taken the liberty of indenting and formatting your response as per our standard here. It just makes it easier to follow the conversation.
I'll wait to see your list. --Auntof6 (talk) 08:30, 6 December 2013 (UTC)Reply
Thank you for your help.Mringaterutgers (talk) 16:05, 6 December 2013 (UTC)Reply
This is the list that I am aware of:
I am abashed to say that I am not proud of most of this work. It has been a revelation; we are short-changing our students by not requiring much more writing throughout their undergraduate years.Mringaterutgers (talk) 19:40, 6 December 2013 (UTC)Reply
I think I am glad that none of my undergraduate writing survives. But we all start somewhere, and like a fine wine we will improve over the years. And writing in simple English is not a simple task :)--Peterdownunder (talk) 22:42, 6 December 2013 (UTC)Reply
I'm a high school English teacher (in South Jersey), so imagine what it's like for me before they get a few more years of experience on their way to you! Only (talk) 23:28, 6 December 2013 (UTC)Reply