Resources for Using & Editing Wikipedia

This guide is designed to introduce new Wikipedians to the basics of contributing to one of the largest open educational resources in the world. It provides a brief overview of editing existing entries and creating new entries.

This very basic introduction to editing can be supplemented with this helpful pdf brochure from Wikipedia.

You can also learn more through this free e-book by Phoebe Ayers, Charles Matthews, and Ben Yates (No Starch Press, 2008) for a more in-depth look at How Wikipedia Works, And How You Can Be a Part of It.

All of the content below is sourced from the Wikipedia help documentation and Adeline Koh and Roopika Risam's Rewriting Wikipedia Project.

For more on editing, including links to video tutorials, refer to Wikimedia Foundation's Wikipedia Training Modules visit or the Art+Feminism tutorials.

More advanced editors will also find resources to learn more about the Wikipedia Education Program and the Gallery, Libraries, Archives, Museums (GLAM) program initiated by Wikimedia Foundation.

In the Literature About Wikipedia section, we've compiled literature on controversial issues around Wikipedia. 

This guide was originally authored by Science Librarian Ye Li, David Malicke, and Chris Leederm. It borrows language from Meghan Sitar, and is currently being maintained by staff in ScholarSpace. 

Wikipedia is the largest, freely available, and most accessed general reference source on the Internet. [1] It is collaboratively edited by volunteers, though maintained and supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. [1]

The University of Michigan Library offers various levels of assistance to faculty and graduate students teaching with Wikipedia, and students interested in editing it. We periodically host Wikipedia edit-a-thons, offer workshops on editing Wikipedia, and provide research help to improve Wikipedia articles. 

Support for Wikipedia editing is primarily offered through Digital Scholarship. If you have questions or would like to schedule a consultation, contact our staff at library-ds@umich.edu or use the information in the Library Contact box to the left.