Course Grading and Final Project Wiki Essay Instructions
Professor Martin Irvine's Seminars
2010-2011

The grading for the course will follow the normal traditions of graduate seminars--individual participation in class discussions, a small group or individual presentations, and a final project that allows a student to apply what has been learned and/or expand on materials and sources studied in an extended essay--but with the new context of the Web and the course collaborative Wiki site. Final grade will be based on seminar participation and weekly collaborative Wiki contributions (40%) and the final project in the form a Wiki article / essay (60%).

The Final Wiki Essay

The final individual essay will enable seminar members to use the advantages of Wiki architecture and Web "rich media" content. The point is to use the Wiki and Web environment as a space to think with and through. Your Wiki essay must have a discursive argument and your own interpretive framework, but you can also use link to other sources and a "bibliography" of references to supporting materials in any medium (text, image, video, sound/music).

Using the approaches, theories, and methods in the seminar, develop a topic for an extended essay (a Wiki "article" in Wikispeak) with examples or cases to interpret or apply your ideas. Your essay should be about the equivalent of about 15 pages of traditional writing, and with a fully developed set of references and links to relevant sources. Be as creative as possible with the Web environment of the Wiki essay.

Include a "Works Cited and Consulted" bibliography at the end of the paper. Use the documentation format of either the humanties or social sciences. Refer to the following online guide for a quick summary of citation styles, and choose either the MLA or APA formats: see Diana Hacker's Bedford-St. Martins Guide to article citation styles.

For the structure of your argument in a professional research essay (in any format), refer to my Writing to be Read: A Rhetoric For Writing in the Post-Digital Era.

Format of the Essay

• Introduction (establishing your topic and approach, your sources and methodology)
• Main body of the essay (explanation and interpretation, development of the main argument)
• List of Web sources and links
• Bibliography or Works Cited/Consulted (all the relevant materials you have considered or want to reference to support your essay)

The Wiki Space for Your Essay

Select your "individual essay" Wiki space from the Home Page of our Georgetown Wiki site. The article pages are linked to your first inital and last name.

Earlier student essay projects are archihved in the Metapedia Wiki. You can read examples of final project essays from prior seminars for models of how to organize and format your writing.