Revise

One of the first things that people new to wikis do to get used to the practice is to review existing pages and fix typos, remove dead links, correct inaccuracies, rephrase awkward sentences, etc.

1. Find a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page article on a topic you are knowledgeable about (e.g. your favorite hobby), review it carefully, and then edit and improve it.

1. Revisit the page a few days later. Were your modifications all preserved? If not, see if you can figure out why.

Link As You Think

Wikis make linking easy, which is a key reason why their pages are often densely interconnected. You don't even have to ensure that the pages you are linking to have actually been created.

1. Start a new page in Wikipedia. (You will need to register). At this point, Wikipedia covers a lot of ground, so try to think of something/someone/someplace pretty obscure you are knowledgeable about, or explore the Requested articles page to find one.

1. As you write your new entry, turn any relevant names, etc. into links by enclosing them in [[square brackets]].

1. Revisit the page a few days later. Check the revision history. Did anyone else contribute to your new page?

1. (Optional: make an intentional typo when you start the page, to see if someone will fix it)

Refactor

The term refactoring comes from the field of computer programming, where it means to improve the structure or readability of a program without changing its behaviour.

In a wiki, it typically means taking the content already within one page or a set of pages and rewriting, reorganizing and cross-linking it so as to improve its navigability, readability or accessibility.

Because of the free process by which wikis grow, it is often the case that there is redundant or overlapping information across and merging them would be beneficial. Refactoring is usually required to get a well-formed result.

1. Choose a pair of pages in Wikipedia that need to be merged. The Proposed Mergers and Articles to be merged pages list a number of them.

1. Perform the merge, following the instructions here. (Step 5 is the refactoring part)

Discuss and Refactor

(Assuming students have some kind of assigment to write in teams, and a class wiki to work in)

Discussions between wiki users most often contain interesting arguments and information; refactoring these into a compact text is a valuable contribution for future readers.

1. Start a page for your team assignment in the class wiki. Make sure everyone on the team knows where it is.

1. Put a first draft up. It doesn't matter, and is actually better, if it's incomplete.

1. Let team members comment and discuss the draft at the bottom of the page.

1. Refactor comments into the draft text (you can opt to leave the original discussion on the page)

For the next assignment, eliminate the discussion - have people directly edit the text. Which method did you find to work better?