Due at the start of class on Tuesday April 17.

For this assignment you should first choose one book from the list on the class web page, or a similar book.  Then, you should write drafts of two articles for Wikipedia, following all the Wikipedia guidelines that you have already analyzed. 

Some notes:  (1) Publishing your Wikipedia articles now is optional.  You may do so, or you may wait until you get feedback from this assignment.
(2) Even short Wikipedia articles tend to have a table of contents and to be divided into very short sections.  You do not need to do this.

(1) (About 300 words.)  Write a biography of the author of the book you have chosen.  The biography should focus on the author's professional life and contributions.  If s/he has been involved in technical controversies, do mention these but aim to be balanced.  For an example of a good short Wikipedia biography see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Venter.

(2) (About 300 words also.)  Write a summary of the book you have chosen.  Note: You do not need to finish reading the book carefully before writing this summary.  You should skim through the book, and you should look inside the book for where the author summarizes his own arguments; this is often in the introduction or in a concluding chapter.  If you are not sure of the content of whole book, simply write a summary of what you do know is in the book.  Of course, you should not make guesses about what might be in the book!  For an example of a good Wikipedia summary of a book, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Culture_%28book%29.