Please post any comments to me on my user talk page. Thanks.



This editor won the Million Award for bringing IQ classification to Good Article status.
This editor won the Million Award for bringing English language to Good Article status.
This user is currently working on
Richard Feynman.
This user is currently working on
Psychology.
This user is currently working on
Intelligence quotient.



Source Lists to Share with Other Wikipedians

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I will be continually updating and adding citations lists to reliable sources as subpages of this user page. You are welcome to use these citations lists to edit any Wikipedia article or for your own personal research. You can help our fellow Wikipedians by suggesting additions or corrections for the citations lists on each subpage. I have thousands of articles downloaded and dozens of books in my office to add to the citations lists over time; I'll keep on reading and adding sources continually to these lists for years to come, and your suggestions of reliable, secondary sources are very appreciated.

/IntelligenceCitations (begun in 2010, updated continually since then, full citations to dozens of reliable sources on human intelligence and psychology). Your comments on this citations list are very welcome.

/AnthropologyHumanBiologyRaceCitations (begun in 2010, updated continually since then, a growing citations list on the science of what makes human beings human). I would greatly appreciate many suggestions from other Wikipedians for additions to this list.

/LanguageLinguisticsCitations (begun in 2014, updated from time to time as I work on articles related to languages or linguistics, largely for referencing-checking references found by other Wikipedians).

/ReadingWritingDyslexiaCitations (a long-term interest of mine, to be expanded after the above lists are more complete).

/StatisticsCitations (a subject for which I'd love to hear many suggestions from other Wikipedians).

/MathematicsEducationCitations (my main occupational subject at the moment—I'll transfer in bibliographies I keep off-Wikipedia and meanwhile invite your suggestions of other good sources).

About Me

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File:Pdnbtn.png
Do not bite the newcomers!

What Prompted Me to Become a Wikipedia Editor

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I have enjoyed reading encyclopedias for as long as I have been able to read. I have been reading Wikipedia for years, of course, and was inspired to start editing by John Broughton's book Wikipedia: The Missing Manual and the book How Wikipedia Works by Phoebe Ayers, Charles Matthews, and Ben Yates. After reading the books for a while, I registered a Wikipedia user name and began editing here and there. Later the same year I read the book The Wikipedia Revolution and became further acquainted with the culture of the Wikipedia community. In that book, which I finished reading early in August 2010, I found out that I have in common with Jimbo Wales that I read much of the World Book Encyclopedia in my youth. When I see a place where I can copy edit, I copy edit. When I know of a good published source from my own professional research, I add it to an article, rewriting if need be for neutral point of view that reflects verifiable sources. My approach to editing Wikipedia gradually developed during the first two years I was here.

I've enjoyed seeing how Wikipedia has slowly improved over the years through the efforts of thousands of volunteers, and I want to be part of that. Wikipedia attempts to be a natural outgrowth of a culture long established on Usenet and other online discussion forums of sharing information freely in exchange for other free information. To answer a question that has come up from some other Wikipedians, I never edited any Wikimedia project until registering here in April 2010. I use this user name solely on Wikimedia projects, through global registration. I considered myself very much a newbie for the first year that I was here, and I still try all the time to learn from other Wikipedians who share tips on how to edit better.

I was formerly a Wikipedian in residence for the Rutgers University Libraries GLAM Project. The articles developed for the project "Cultures, Diversity, and Inequality—Local and Global" as part of a broad Wikimedia Foundation program to strengthen links between academic librarians and Wikipedia will be on my watchlist indefinitely far into the future.

As 2013 turned to 2014, I became aware of the importance of improving high-page-view articles, so within my general fields of subject-matter interest, including psychology and linguistics, I attempt to expand and improve articles that are identified as core articles or articles that are consistently frequently viewed by readers of Wikipedia. My goal is creating and maintaining well-written and reasonable articles that guide readers to the best professionally written practitioners' handbooks and scholarly reference books, the kind of books found in a good academic library.

Schooling Background

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My higher education includes undergraduate study of Chinese, Russian, German, Greek, and Hebrew, with courses in linguistics, teaching English as a second language, library science, and research methods in Sinology. I also have a law degree. I was one of the editors of the law review published at my law school. An interesting elective class I took there was on law and social science, my first formal training in human cognitive illusions (in the context of evaluating the reliability of eyewitness testimony).

Throughout my schooling, from elementary school through law school, I've really thought of myself as responsible for my own learning, which I pursue through independent reading. I maintain an affiliation with my alma mater's library so that I can have access to scholarly monographs, print journals, and online databases.

One of the most influential activities I participated in during school years was formal interscholastic debate and discussion. I attended a summer program on debate (the kind that today is known as policy debate) at my state's flagship research university while I was still in high school, and was a varsity participant in debate and discussion events during high school. Formal debate is excellent training in gathering and evaluating evidence and considering sources in their context. I still judge a debate tournament each year for the high school in which my oldest son participated in Lincoln–Douglas debate.

My formal schooling has been extended through community activities after receiving my second postsecondary degree as I have participated in online discussion groups, especially internal research discussion groups among parents with children in the Davidson Young Scholars program. One online community led to an invitation to participate in the graduate seminar ("journal club") at my alma mater on human behavior genetics, where some of the world's leading researchers on that topic meet with their graduate students weekly during the school year to discuss current peer-reviewed journal articles. Those discussions are always thought-provoking, and a help in looking up new sources to add to the source lists I share here on Wikipedia. Sometimes Wikipedia too guides my further reading in the topics of my professional research.

Occupational Background

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After high school I judged interscholastic debates and assisted in coaching a high school debate team for several years while pursuing my undergraduate degree. During my undergraduate education, I was a student assistant for a computerized database project cataloging serials held by all libraries in two states. Those bibliographic records are now part of the WorldCat database. I have visited a few other countries in North America or east Asia, living in one of them for two three-year stays. While living overseas between my two degrees, I was a teacher of English as a foreign language and translator, an editor of periodicals for two different organizations, and an interpreter. I first learned what was, in essence, a markup language by using WordStar on an MP/M multi-user computer system for word processing while working as a manuscript and copy editor overseas.

After returning from my first overseas stay, I was an interpreter on contract for the United States federal government and private clients. I have been to all fifty states of the United States, to the District of Columbia many times, and to the federal territory of Guam. I extended my experience with collaborative editing and reference-checking and learned another mark-up language while editing the law review published by my law school. After law school I was a judicial clerk for a state supreme court and a lawyer in private practice.

Current Activities

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For the last two decades, my occupation has included research on education policy, psychology, gifted education, mathematics, and mathematics pedagogy. Through a nonprofit organization, I teach mathematics lessons to advanced learners beyond the school curriculum. I am also a staff member of a summer program for mathematically precocious youth, directing a workshop program for parents on gifted education. Occasionally I judge high school interscholastic debates or teach Chinese to speakers of English.

I attempt to maintain a Mandarin and English bilingual household as I now live in Minnesota, and keep up using some other languages for reading and research. I am a homeschooling parent and active volunteer in parent organizations. A particular pleasure to me has been the many friendships I have made with other parents all over the United States and around the world through email lists for parents of highly gifted children. I have been or now am on the board of directors of three different statewide education-related nonprofit organizations in Minnesota. I present workshops at National Association for Gifted Children-affiliated state organization meetings, at occasional meetings of Mensa, and at meetings of other nonprofit organizations on the topics of mathematics education, organizing support networks for parents, and IQ testing. I attend other professional conferences as I am able. I attended the 2010 International Society for Intelligence Research conference in DC and enjoyed renewing acquaintance and making new acquaintance with researchers on high-IQ youth there.

The other Minnesota Wikipedians I have met at the 20 November 2010 meetup and subsequent meetups are very friendly, and it was interesting to hear from them about articles they work on. I look forward to collaborating with the Minnesota Historical Center (the sponsor of the meetup) and the various local Wikipedians to improve articles about Minnesota topics in English and in other languages. For Wikipedia's tenth anniversary on 15 January 2011, I was able to meet up with other editors in Minnesota and discuss how the project has developed over the last decade. The other Minnesota Wikipedia meet-ups and Edit-a-Thons I have attended have also been very worthwhile. Certainly much more needs to be done in developing a group culture of checking sources and making sure that statements in articles are verifiable. I've enjoyed learning from other Wikipedians here about how to check sources and promote a thoughtful atmosphere on article talk pages.

Things to Work on on Wikipedia

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Four years after registering an account here, I see I tend to be most active in editing articles that fit subjects for which I have reliable secondary sources at hand near my computer. Most likely I will continue to plunge into new topics by posting links to lists of sources first on article talk pages, and making substantive edits after sharing sources with other editors. I have been a moderator of various online discussion forums since 1993, and I hope that experience also guides my participation in Wikimedia project editing. SuggestBot seems to be a good mind-reader for suggesting what specific articles I should work on.

I am a secondary mathematics teacher by occupation, and I have to write many of my own materials for "prealgebra" mathematics for advanced young learners. Thus the Wikimedia project that drew me into registering as an editor is the Wikiversity Primary School Mathematics project, and its companion Wikibooks Primary Mathematics project. In my role as a teacher and coach I have frequent occasion to do research on the topics of IQ testing and Gifted education. I have recently been president of a statewide association of parents of gifted children, and have attended conferences in several states on gifted education, homeschooling, or education reform. I will be giving public workshop presentations on IQ testing in at least two states during the next year. When I research for my teaching or public talks, I read new sources, digest what they say, and then update Wikipedia articles accordingly.

Another thing I'll work on is adding more IPA pronunciation keys for scientific vocabulary. I was looking up information about arachnid evolution, and I suddenly encountered Wikipedia articles with lots of words that I can't pronounce to my mind's ear (especially words with a Greek-derived "ch" that may not be pronounced /k/ in all cases). I'll refer to various dictionaries in various languages to help add pronunciation keys for words like that.

/PagestoWorkon

/IPApronunciationkeys

/Sandbox

Interesting Wikipedia Articles

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* Founding principles of Wikimedia Foundation projects
* Wikipedia:Five pillars
* Ten things you may not know about Wikipedia
* WikiProject Spam
* Template messages for user talk pages
* Disruptive editing
* External links content guideline
* Editing policy
* Consensus policy
* Neutral point of view policy
* Fringe theories content guideline
* Requests for arbitration enforcement
* NPOV dispute how-to guide essay
* NPOV tutorial essay
* Tendentious editing essay
* Advocacy essay
* Coatrack essay
* Verifiability policy
* Identifying reliable sources content guideline
* Complete diff and link guide how-to guide
* Citation overkill essay
* No original research policy
* Citing sources content guideline
* Using WebCite how-to guide
* Jimbo Wales statement of principles
* The perfect article (part of the article creation series)
* Banning policy
* Blocking policy
* Edit summary legend
* Arguments to avoid in adminship discussions essay
* Wikipedia Manual of Style
* Template messages
* Citation templates how-to guide
* Template messages about article cleanup
* IPA for English help page
* Category:Wikipedia articles with nonstandard pronunciation
* List of mathematical symbols
* Template:Main
* Manual of Style: Words to watch guideline
* Civility policy
* Talk page guidelines behavioral guideline
* Welcome templates table
* Pending changes information page
* Personal user awards
* Wikipedia Community portal (includes lists of articles to fix and other general notices)
* Integrate essay (about merging articles)
* Size comparisons ("This article compares the size of Wikipedia with other encyclopedias and information collections.")
* Essays in a nutshell (summarizes the gist of user written essays on Wikipedia)
* [User:Antandrus/observations_on_Wikipedia_behavior | Observations on Wikipedia behavior user essay]]
* How to improve your writing (part of a series of user essays on improving the writing of Wikipedia articles)
* Editing scientific articles (an essay that in an earlier version failed to be adopted as a guideline)
* Tendentious editing essay (see also the Disruptive editing behavioral guideline)
* Here to build an encyclopedia information page
* Astronomer vs Amateur humorous essay (Is the moon made of green cheese?)
* How to write a psychology article
* Professionalism user essay by Kirill Lokshin

External Sites I Find Interesting or Helpful for Research

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Wikipedia Templates and User Page Metadata

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  The Guidance Barnstar
For supplying good sources on the contentious articles related to Race and Intelligence. Thanks! Anthon.Eff (talk) 01:52, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
  The Exceptional Newcomer Award
Thank you, your very presence on these pages is heartening. Lo, i am real 03:05, 27 July 2010 (UTC)


 
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