This page contains links to free resources to help you to improve science content on Wikipedia. If you know of other useful materials, please let us know on the talk page or add them yourself.

Beginning in February, each month throughout the Year of Science will highlight a particular field of science. Each of them has its own subpage, linked below, with subject-specific resources. The subpages are also used for a monthly virtual edit-a-thon to improve of women in that field. If you would like to add links to high-quality open resources or the names of women in the field whose articles either need improvement or do not yet exist, please add to the subpages.

February - Zoology

March - Chemistry

April - Environmental science

May - Psychology

June - Astronomy

July - Plant biology

August - Sociology

September - Linguistics

October - Computer science, technology, and math

November - Medicine

December - Physics

Here are some ideas for articles you could work on.

General resources

• Article Finder: Find articles in a category (and optionally, in its subcategories) that are highly viewed but not very well developed
• Wikipedia:Requested articles:Categorized list of articles people have requested
• Wikipedia:Most wanted articles: Lists the most commonly linked to pages that don't exist
• Category:Stub categories: Categorized list of short articles that need expansion
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles: Subjects covered in other encyclopedias, but not on Wikipedia

Women scientists

• Each month throughout the Year of Science, WikiProject Women in Red, WikiProject Women scientists, and the Wiki Education Foundation are teaming up to run virtual edit-a-thons to improve articles about women in science, emphasizing one field each month. Each of these edit-a-thons will have focused lists of articles to work on.
  • In February the theme is Zoology.
• For other lists of women in science to write about, see the WikiProject Women scientists worklist.

• Find a specific source
• Find a nearby research library
• Ask at the Reference Desk
• Request a source at the Resource Exchange

If you want to improve science coverage on Wikipedia and would like some research help, .

All subjects

• Directory of Open Access Journals
• Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resources
• Open Access Directory
• Google Scholar (includes both free and paywalled content)
• Open Library
• Digital Commons
• OpenGrey
• BASE
• paperity

Science-specific

• Public Library of Science
• PubAg (Agriculture)
• Encyclopedia of Life
• Chemistry Central
• Medline Plus
• PubMed Central
• BioMed Central
• Centers for Disease Control
• arXiv.org
• Science.gov
• National Academies Press
• Hindawi Publishing

• http://visualsonline.cancer.gov/ : Electron microscopy and histological images. Includes general biomedical and science-related images, cancer-specific scientific and patient care-related images, and portraits of directors and staff of the National Cancer Institute.
• United States Antarctica Program photo library
• US government resources for science images and video
• USGS videos

It would be great if all high quality sources were open access, but sometimes the content you really need is behind a paywall. For such cases, Wikipedians have some options to gain free access.

• The Wikipedia Visiting Scholars program connects experienced editors with university libraries. Editors are given access to library research materials, including databases and ebooks, and use them to improve a topic area of mutual interest.

• The Wikipedia Library partners with databases and publishers to get free accounts for Wikipedians. Examples include:
  • EBSCO
  • JSTOR
  • MIT Press Journals
  • Taylor & Francis
  • British Medical Journal
  • The Cochrane Library
  • DynaMed
  • American Association for the Advancement of Science
  • Elsevier ScienceDirect
  • Royal Society journals
  • (several more)

Publications about science content on Wikipedia. The latest stories will be added to the News & Events page.

Scholarly/studies

• Wilson, Adam M.; Likens, Gene E. (14 August 2015). "Content Volatility of Scientific Topics in Wikipedia: A Cautionary Tale". PLOS ONE. 10 (8): e0134454. Bibcode:2015PLoSO..1034454W. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0134454. PMID 26275058.
• Teplitskiy, Misha; Lu, Grace; Duede, Eamon (2015). "Amplifying the Impact of Open Access: Wikipedia and the Diffusion of Science". Forthcoming in: Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. arXiv:1506.07608v1.

Newspapers/magazines

• Romero, Juan David (16 February 2016). "Edit-a-Thon Seeks to Fix Wikipedia's Gaps in Science". AAAS.
• Lewontin, Max (16 February 2016). "Term papers? These science students write Wikipedia pages instead". Christian Science Monitor.
• Bastian, Hilda (13 February 2016). "Wikipedia activism and diversity in science". PLOS blogs.
• Neal, Meghan (11 February 2016). "Science Students Are Writing Wikipedia Articles Instead of Term Papers". Motherboard.
• Ghose, Tia (24 August 2015). "Is Wikipedia trustworthy when it comes to science?". Washington Post.
• Bateman, Alex (29 March 2012). "Alex Bateman: Why scientists should be publishing on Wikipedia". Wired.

Blogs/web

• Timmer, John (22 January 2016). "Wiki Education says 2016 is the Wikipedia Year of Science". Ars Technica.
• Newmark, Craig (14 January 2016). "Wikipedia and the Year of Science". Craigconnects.
• Timmer, John (29 December 2015). "Editorial: Wikipedia fails as an encyclopedia, to science's detriment". Ars Technica.
• Szalinski, Christina (13 December 2015). "Adding 85.9K Characters of Better Cell Biology to Wikipedia at ASCB 2015 Edit-a-Thon". American Society for Cell Biology.
• Williams, Tate (27 August 2015). "Setting Wikipedia Straight: A New Role for Philanthropy?". Inside Philanthropy.