As a holder of a Bachelors Degree and teacher of the Social Sciences I have come to realize that many of my students take the contents of Wikipedia at face value without verifying its material through extended research despite my repeated warnings to do so. As a result have decided that my goal as a educator should not be to try and prevent my students from using Wikipedia as a source, but instead to work to make Wikipedia a reliable source for my students.
Due to my duties as an educator and a father I must admit that at best Wikipedia is a hobby and by no means a mission or a job that I have dedicated my efforts to. Regardless of this fact I am in search of like minded users to aid me in proofing, expanding, and revising Wikipedia articles to insure their reliablity as source material for students.
I have avoided creating a Wiki Project due to the fact that my goal is to tackle the most neglected stubs or unmentioned aspects of history, proof established articles, and offer unbiased advice on disputed articles throughout the realm of the field of the Social Sciences. I plan to use this user page as a "command center" for gathering members to this cause, coordinating the creation of Wikipedia articles, and debating and reviewing established Wikipedia Articles. Most importantly, although I believe that my historical research abilities are up to snuff I am positive that my wordsmithing, grammar, punctuation, and spelling are subpar and hope if nothing else to acquire a few proofreaders to double check my work and make it a readable contribution to Wikipedia.
I welcome your input and knowledge in completing this goal,
--Epignosis (talk) 09:04, 25 July 2009 (UTC)Epignosis
Why Epignosis? edit
- In Greek Epignosis stands for exact knowledge, but I am in no way arrogant or ignorant enough to suggest that anything I contribute to Wikipedia is actually exact knowledge. I have chosen this user name to show my true intention to supply as exact and unbiased of knowledge as possible to viewers of Wikipedia articles. Above and beyond my own admission that my wordsmithing, grammar, punctuation, and spelling are subpar I, as all students of the Social Sciences are susceptible to bias, no matter how hard we try to avoid it, and as a result I am seeking my own "School of Athens" or panel of educated, dedicated, and like-minded users to aid me in my above stated task of proofing, reviewing, and expanding upon Wikipedia articles.
Calls for Assistance edit
A Call for Assistance on George Washington's Farewell Address Article, edit
In need of an editor/writer to complete this article.
As I have said before while I am confident and willing to defend my historical research on and summary of this document I am afraid my skills as a writer and editor are severely inadequate. Despite the excellent peer review I fear that any effort that I would make to try improve this article further based upon the suggestions included within it would result in only a different rendition of a poorly written and edited article. As a result I would like to ask for a user who possesses these skills to provide a final editing and wordsmithing of this article and then submit it for a final rating.
I have provided all the information I can and as a result I am going to step aside on this article, except of course if someone would like to discuss its content or the content of this message, and allow users who are more skilled in this area to make this article as professional as possible.
Just as Washington did, I would ask that you please take these final suggestions into consideration when editing and finalizing this article.
- 1 - I believe that all the information included within the article is important for understanding the message of Washington's letter although it may not be presented in the correct format.
- 2 - I believe it is important to avoid overgeneralizing this article per my previous posts have shown that this sometimes leads to confusion of the message portrayed in the document.
- 3 - I believe it is important to provide a summary of the entire letter, despite the fact that readers could simply reference the original, since the vocabulary and wording of the original is extensive and of an older tradition of writing that can also lead to confusion and the inclusion of bias when the text is not fully understood.
- 4 - I am ready to defend my summary of the article as it is written if you are unable or unwilling to do so please do not distort the summary as included in this article.
I hope you will take up the challenge and help raise this article to the "featured article" status that it deserves since it was and is to this day considered to be one of the most important documents in United States History by politicians and historians alike.
Thank you and I look forward to your questions, concerns, and contributions, --Epignosis (talk) 01:28, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
A Call for Assistance on The Treaty of Alliance (1778) Article, edit
My overhaul of this article.
While I am confident and willing to defend my historical research on and summary of this document I am afraid my skills as a writer and editor are severely inadequate. Despite any peer review that may be submitted, I am almost postive that any effort that I would make to try and improve this article further, based upon the suggestions included within them, would only result in only a slightly different rendition of a poorly written and edited article. As a result I would like to ask for a user who possesses these skills to provide a final editing and wordsmithing of this article and then submit it for a final rating.
I have provided all the information I can and as a result I am going to step aside on this article, except of course if someone would like to discuss its content or the content of this message, and allow users who are more skilled in this area to make this article as professional as possible.
As I step aside I would like to ask that you briefly review my own parting advice and suggestions on the best direction for this article.
- 1 - As always I stand completely and 100% behind all of my historical research and assertions that I have made in this article, and furthermore am completely willing to defend these contributions in an open debate if necessary, if you do not share this same conviction please do not modify this article.
- 2 - I believe that it is important to maintain the treaty summary I have contributed in this article due to the old style vocabulary and prose of the treaty that make the original treaty text difficult and confusing for the average wikipedia user to understand, and am furthermore willing to defend this summary in an open debate.
- 3 - I firmly believe that all of the information I have included within this article is important for understanding the referenced document, although it may not be in the correct format, and as a result I would appreciate correspondance on any deletion of the material I have contributed to this article.
Thank you for you consideration and future contributions to this article, --Epignosis (talk) 05:17, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
Upcoming Projects In Need Of Volunteers edit
Future Projects to Create Wikipedia Articles edit
1 - The creation of an article discussing the political concept of Republican Liberty
2 - The creation of an article on the concept of trade links
3 - The creation of an article on the concept of a provisional army
4 - The creation of an article on the concept of political doctrine
5 - The creation of an article on the Secret Committees of Correspondence formed by Benjamin Franklin while serving with as ambassador to France for the Second Continental Congress.
6 - The creation of an article on the concept of Republican Simplicity
Future editing Projects edit
1 - The editing of theTreaty of Amity and Commerce with France
2 - The editing of theFranco-American Alliance
3 - The editing of theCitizen Genet Affair
4 - The editing of the Treaty of Mortefontaine