Wiki Writing: The Good, the Bad, and the Obscene
Upon reading the text of the second paragraph of a photographed Wikipedia article I was surprised and alarmed by the unanticipated obscene material embedded within factual information about thermodynamics. The screenshot depicts a version of the wiki article prior to Carra Leah Hood’s editing. By coincidence, Hood came across the obscene material only an hour and eight minutes after it was posted and was able to quickly remove it and further edit the article. This capability is the keystone of Wikipedia’s functionality.
Because collaborative writing pieces like Wikipedia entries have several authors who are unknown, unpredictable and come from potentially diverse cultural and educational backgrounds, they have the potential (and sometimes likelihood) of deteriorating during the writing process. Because of this, Wikipedia entries are often dubbed unreliable. But integrating information from multiple cultural and educational viewpoints also has clear benefits. The goal is to create a shared understanding. It is up to the editors to be conscious of this and sensitive to this.
Wikipedia places inherent value on the writing process over the written product. Wikipedia is revolutionary in the sense that no article will ever be finished, but will instead act as an “always and forever a public conversation” (Hood). I think this is the greatest strength of a web-based, collaborative encyclopedia. Students have been conditioned to think that writing serves its functions only as a finalized product. I think it would be helpful and beneficial for students to view their own written work as constantly evolving products. That is becoming easier now that a majority of writing is conducted on the web and can be easily adjusted even after it is published. The effects of not only placing value on process over product, but creating a medium that only functions as process, are numerous and worth investigating.
These collaborative aspects of Wikipedia raise the question of whether Wikipedia serves to further or inhibit the writing process (individually and collaboratively), or to both further and inhibit it in distinctive modes.
Hey, I thought that first! Examining Plagiarism
To whom and under what circumstances can words, images, ideas and other art forms be said to belong to someone?
In “Rhetorical Velocity and Copyright: A Case Study on Strategies of Rhetorical Delivery” Jim Ridolfo and Martine Courant Rife examine a situation in which Michigan State University used and remixed an image of student Maggie Ryan without permission for four sequential years. Ridolfo and Rife explain that the university procured a digital image of Maggie without her permission. Technically it is just an image of a human body, and digital images derived from a human body elude ownership in the traditional sense. This raises the question: does the right of using the image lie in the hands of the subject or of the photographer?
In “Plagiarism and Promiscuity, Authors and Plagiarisms,” Russel Wiebe explores the components, intricacies, and ideologies regarding plagiarism. Wiebe extends his anecdotal explanation to include the problems with plagiarism under the realm of photography. He notes that a wall in his office displays a simple photograph taken by his wife and claims “the ‘badness’ of my wife’s photo … cannot be separated or understood except in terms of its associations, which are not simply the intentions of the photographer or the viewer, but the unspeakable threshold upon which they meet.” This profound realization underlies how we treat the plagiarism problem.
Plagiarism tends to only be considered within the specific context it occurs and a lot of forces are at play when we conclude whether or not something is plagiarized. For instance, the accusation of plagiarism is frequently the product of hierarchical relationships. Wiebe uses observations by Brian Martin to arrive at this claim. “When a student borrows a paper to turn in for a class, that’s plagiarism. When an academic borrows another teacher’s materials to produce a class lecture without citation, that’s scholarship. When a supervisor takes credit for an underling’s work, that’s business.” Designating plagiarism is not solely based on whether someone presents someone else’s text as his own. It is rooted in where the plagiarist resides in a power structure.
Wiebe’s overarching solution to the problem of plagiarism is to stop viewing it as strictly a problem. His insight and incorporation of Lethem’s promiscuous materials, Levine’s re-photographs, and Robillard and Fortune’s examination of forgery help readers participate in the question of what plagiarism is and what circumstances classify it as such without seeing plagiarism as only a crime to be punished. Wiebe calls for everyone, especially teachers, to be able to do this. As a result, rather than teaching plagiarism as an impermissible crime that can be prevented through computer programming like TurnItIn, teachers can “embrace a discourse which includes an awareness of plagiarism as a foundation or a beginning” in their lesson plans.
Composing Decisions for Wikipedia
Though every Wikipedia article is obligated to meet distinct guidelines, not all articles are created equal. Writers and contributors all come from different backgrounds and have different skill sets, and not all topics are treated with equal care and consideration. Wikipedia strives to achieve uniformity in articles by promoting standards for formatting and style, so it is interesting to note the differences between articles, especially those of similar categories.
The stark differences between the Wikipedia article for communication philosopher, Marshal McLuhan, versus the Wikipedia article for multimedia artist, scholar and author, Michelle Citron, for instance, portray the inconsistencies in article writing despite Wikipedia’s specific guidelines.
Structurally, the articles are outlined in a similar manner, but McLuhan’s article contains numerous subsections that add extensive detail whereas Citron’s article contains zero subsections and therefore adds no detail to the already sparse information shared. The McLuhan article goes into great detail about his early life, career, ideologies, works, concepts, and disposition. While the article expounds on McLuhan’s life, the Citron article’s “Early Life” section is comprised of four sentences and only divulges information related to Citron’s career.
The McLuhan article contains links to other sources for just about every topic mentioned. The article is embedded with a myriad of links offering more information on a subject. The Citron article contains about three links, all of which are for universities. The McLuhan article contains a few images, such as a headshot and a chart outlining one of his concepts. The Citron article does not include a single image. As a reader, the lack of a headshot in a biographical article effects my perception of the individual. It conveys his or her lack of importance and lack of accessibility.
Besides the drastic difference in the amount of information disclosed in each article, the most striking difference between the two articles is the tone of writing. The McLuhan article is thorough and gives of the impression of being invested in McLuhan’s life without losing its objectivity. The Citron article is minimalistic and has a very dull, almost uninterested tone. The article is truthful and relays the message but due to the way it is written, the reader does not get a feel of who Citron is as a person and does not get the message that Citron’s work is powerful, noteworthy or influential. Overall the McLuhan article paints a nice picture of who McLuhan was as a person; it humanizes him. While maintaining its objectivity, the writing is filled with quotes and anecdotes that give the reader an in-depth look at his life. Theo McLuhan article is written about him as a person whereas the Citron article is written about her career.
One explanation for the minimal information offered in the article about Citron, or just something to note, is that Michelle Citron is still alive. Many times a person’s influence is seen in retrospect. Also, at 41 years old, Citron still has a lot more to accomplish. A change in the writing’s tone would certainly make a difference in a reader’s perception of Citron but the lack of information can possibly be explained.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy begins its piece on Henry Sidgwick with: “Henry Sidgwick was one of the most influential ethical philosophers of the Victorian era, and his work continues to exert a powerful influence on Anglo-American ethical and political theory.” According to the Wikipedia’s Manual of Style/Words to watch page, the first sentence of the Stanford biography would be inappropriate due to puffery. Words such as “most influential” and “powerful influence” introduce bias. Instead, a Wikipedia article would use sources and examples to portray that Sidgwick was influential and powerful, which is exactly what the Wikipedia article on Henry Sidgwick does. The Wikipedia article uses a quite bland tone to give a detailed and somewhat anecdotal biography on philosopher and economist, Henry Sidgwick. The Stanford Encyclopedia outlines its article in a more comprehensive manner than the Wikipedia, as if to give a more rounded out overview of Sidgwick’s life and work. The Wikipedia article is organized a bit more haphazardly, but still includes important information regarding his life and works. The Stanford Encyclopedia, however, delves into a lot more detail, expounding on his theories and describing his religious beliefs. The Wikipedia article includes several links to outside sources and embeds links throughout the text. The Stanford Encyclopedia has an extensive bibliography, but only includes a few outside Internet sources. Overall, the Stanford Encyclopedia article presents Henry Sidgwick in a detailed and comprehensive way, with a clear bias. The Wikipedia article is unsurprisingly more reserved, both in content and in tone.
……………………………………………………………………………………………….....................................................................................................
A typical Wikipedia featured article displays professional standards of writing, presentation and sourcing, and makes use of media. It is well written, comprehensive, well researched, neutral, appropriately structured, consistent in its citations, and an appropriate length.
The Wikipedia article for The Entombment, a painting by Dieric Bouts that depicts the entombment of Jesus Crist, is classified as a featured article. This article excels in research, neutrality, media, and appropriate length. The lead is very comprehensive, informative, and (although lengthy) relevant. The article offers a thorough and representative review of The Entombment. The claims are verifiable and are supported by inline citations. It presents views fairly and without bias, which is unsurprising given that it describes an uncontroversial subject. It also displays a wonderful use of media through images with succinct captions. This is critically important to an article describing an image. It is well written, comprehensive and relates the piece to the time period as a whole and to the painter. The weakest aspect of the article is its structural organization. The structure sways the article’s information and focus away from the painting itself. The “Provenance and attribution” section, one of the main headings, is not even about the painting but rather about the painter and his other works. Additionally, the article tends to assume the reader knows enough about the topic to understand some of the content. For instance, the word “vista”, found in Section 1.1, should include a hyperlink since its meaning is not very clear.
In The Lessons in Wikipedia, Zittrain mentions that “standards can work better than rules in unexpected contexts” (Zittrain 128) In Wikipedia’s case, the promotion of certain standards has led to featured articles. And although Wikipedia can remove content based on specific guidelines, the web-based encyclopedia tends to stray away from the word “rules.” This gives authors a sense of freedom. In turn, I think standards, rather than rules, promote a feeling of camaraderie among authors as opposed to a sense of competition. In “Editing Out Obscenity: Wikipedia and Writing Pedagogy,” Hood claims that Wikipedia delivers pedagogy that is familiar to writers and educators, and that the encyclopedia places value on the process not the product; a negotiation of words. This furthers the concept of authors working together to expand an article. I think our class should compose our article with the understanding and hope that others may contribute, and design our article in a way that invites that to happen.
Our class has taken on the task of composing a Wikipedia article about Public Sphere Writing. Analyzing the articles mentioned above has generated some interesting insight into how I think we should approach this task. My analysis has shown that an article’s structure could make or break its success. Organization, headings and subheadings truly impact an article because they serve as the article’s structural foundation. Our article’s organization will also serve as readers’ mental map of public sphere writing, and in order to provide an accurate portrayal of what public sphere writing encompasses, we need to have an accurate structural foundation.
I also think we need to think about our article a little more broadly and understand just how many connections and contexts this topic promotes. With that in mind, I think we will be able to be thorough, yet focused. While Wikipedia articles do rely on sources for all material mentioned, I think we may be relying a little too heavily on our sources right now. I think our class must realize that we need to draw from our sources to write about public sphere writing and then incorporate them into our text. We need to mold the information into a unique and comprehensive article that explains public sphere writing and its significance in the context of other forms of writing and across cultures.
Although it comes across as a tad cliché in this context, I think the most important thing we need to keep in mind when composing our article is that “[Wikipedia] stands for the idea that people of diverse backgrounds can work together on a common project with, whatever its other weaknesses, a noble aim – bringing such knowledge to the world.” (Zittrain 147)
Playing in the Sandbox
“Wikipedia--- with the cooperation of many Wikipedians---has developed a system of self-governance that has many indicia of the rule of law without heavy reliance on outside authority or boundary” (Zittrain 143). In other words, Wikipedia acts as a democracy. And as Corbett and Everly explain, “In a democracy, rhetoric as the actualizer of potential depends on citizens who are able to imagine themselves as agents of action, rather than just spectators or consumers” (Corbett and Eberly 131). This is the entire backbone of Wikipedia, a community of individuals who operate as producers rather than consumers and who work together to create a more accurate and comprehensive product.
I had the chance to become a member of this community when I took on the task of editing an article titled “Anonymous web browsing.” This article is on Wikipedia’s “watch list” for needing improvement. In The Lessons of Wikipedia, Zittrain states, “Be conservative in what you do; be liberal in what you accept from others” (Zittrain 134). The original author/s of the article on anonymous web browsing definitely took this to heart because the article is nowhere near complete. While I did not feel comfortable adding general content to the article given that I have no knowledge of anonymous web browsing, I did have the opportunity to make edits in nine situations, including but not limited to, fixing punctuation errors, editing word choice, and restructuring sentences.
[Here are two examples of changes I made in order to improve clarity:
Original: Some may fear that no one can ever really be anonymous due to the fact that, if they suspectillegal activity, law enforcement can request logs from the user's Internet provider.
My Edit: Some people may fear that anonymity is impossible, since law enforcement officials can request logs from the user's Internet provider if the officials suspect illegal activity.
Original: HTTP cookies are strings of text that are saved on a computer by browsing different web pages.
My Edit: HTTP cookies are strings of text that are saved on a computer when a user browses different web pages.]
While I was able to easily alter whatever I deemed necessary in the Wikipedia article, the “encyclopedia’s usefulness follows directly from its popularity and from the seriousness with which those who administer the site oversee and vet individual entries and provide guidance” (Hood Revision in Thinking). In other words, if I decided to include inappropriate of incorrect information in the article, Wikipedia’s popularity and the sheer mass of users in addition to the scrutiny of website’s administrators, would ensure that the content be removed. This is why Wikipedia is a useful and principal source.
I did not, however, include inappropriate content. Instead, I did my best to improve the overall clarity and credibility of the article. Although my edits were minor, as I saw the changes I made immediately become public, I could not help but wonder about the piece’s rhetorical velocity, “a strategic concept of delivery in which a rhetor theorizes the possibilities for the recomposition of a text based on how s/he anticipates how the text might later be used” (Ridolfo and Rife 229).
“Because it is visible, public, and ongoing, Wikipedia demystifies writing process, bringing it out of writers’ private spaces, but at the same time, renders the final product obsolete and irrelevant, a trace of previous generations’ cycles of production and exchange.” (Hood Explanation in Process) Although I furthered the article toward what one can only think of as completion, Wikipedia’s ongoing and infinite nature invalidates the notion of a final draft and begs for more writers to add, “mix, mash and merge” (Ridolfo and Rife 229). The essence of Wikipedia is intertextual, a concept Porter explains as including “the bits and pieces of Text which writers or speakers borrow and sew together to create new discourse" (Porter 34). I feel accomplished and confident about contributing to an article’s success, but I am a very small donor to the both figurative and literal “web of meaning.”
Raising Questions about the “Unquestional” Topics in Higher Education
(pdf available by clicking title)
Does the purpose of higher education today lie solely in graduates securing a job? And if so, when did that happen?
An artificial conversation constructed between Noam Chomsky, based on “America's Universities Destroyed?” and Michael Berube, based on “The Humanities Declining? Not According to the Numbers” prompts an analysis of the editorial debate regarding the purpose and function of higher education. Using concepts from Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s "Integrating the American Mind" can aid in understanding concepts from Chomsky and Berube. In fact, Gates’ particular critique about how we teach history actually equips us to rethink the debate about the history of education from a new perspective.
In "Integrating the American Mind", Henry Louis Gates, Jr. claims that the education system is flawed, asserting that our teaching is too Americanized and does not offer an appropriate global perspective. Gates essentially makes the claim that we harm our collective by not teaching a curriculum that spans the entirety of human history.
According to Gates, "We need to reform our entire notion of core curricula to account for the comparable eloquence of the African, the Asian, the Latin American, and the Middle Eastern traditions, to prepare our students for their roles in the twenty-first century as citizens of a world culture, educated through a truly human notion of the humanities" (Gates 346). Progress and equality cannot occur if our institutions of higher education continue to teach from only one perspective.
In “The Humanities Declining? Not According to the Numbers,” Berube identifies the misuse of data in representing the number of enrollments in undergraduate humanities courses (Berube 1). Berube’s argument clearly calls for understanding the complexities of the issue. He aims to debunk the belief that a degree in humanities will leave a graduate unemployable. Berube manipulated the numbers in widely misunderstood statistics to prove that there has only been a one tenth of a percent difference in the number of students enrolled in humanities courses since 1991 (Berube 5). He urges his audience to recognize that there is more to the general assumption that humanities are dead and to consider the factors that promote such an inconsistency.
In “America's Universities Destroyed?” Chomsky looks at the higher education system as a corporate business model. Chomsky would claim that the notion of not getting a job in humanities could be attributed to the corporatizing structure of the system. Chomsky states that the corporate business model is being imposed on the higher education system intentionally because workers who are insecure in their job title or position do not ask for as many bonuses, benefits, or time off. (Chomsky para. 2) Generally, if a person feels insecure in their job, they will accept whatever is given. Chomsky’s accusation upholds that a precarious worker will do whatever they are told. Imposing this business model has resulted in the higher education system merely “filling a leaky vessel” instead of truly educating students. (Chomsky “On the purpose of education” para. 1)
Both pieces find their foundation in a compelling question: what is the purpose of education? Both Chomsky and Berube place inherent value on education and each calls for higher education to be valued despite the politics that govern it. Although Chomsky constructs his argument using a macro perspective and Berube using micro one, both authors place blame on faculty members for perpetuating problems within the higher education system. Berube discloses that faculty members are to blame for the incorrect notion concerning the value of humanities, as they too succumb to the false ideology. Chomsky acknowledges that faculty members succumb to the corporate business mindset (Chomsky “On ‘shared governance’ and worker control”). In each situation, faculty members are self-fulfilling victims of circumstance. Gates helps us understand that by analyzing the micro and macro perspectives, it is clear that the politics and individuals who influence the system continue to operate from only one perspective, thus preventing progress and equality to occur within the system.
Both pieces focus on employment, and at some point, each author alludes to the reality that many graduates are unable to attain a desired job with their chosen degree. According to Chomsky, this phenomenon is an intentional result of the corporate structure of higher education systems. According to Berube, it is a result of the preconceived notion that securing a job with a humanities degree is unlikely. Berube maintains that this is perpetuated not only by outside influences, such as hiring businesses, but also by the university system itself, which continues to advance the idea that humanities is a dying degree and not valuable (2). According to Berube, despite what is realistically occurring in universities (which is the adaptation of humanities to include racial, gendered, and social issues and religion, politics, liberalism, and feminism), the higher education system perpetuates the stigma of a humanities degree. Instead of embracing the fact that humanities as a subject is evolving and adapting to student interests, the system, and even faculty, uphold the viewpoint that has been constructed under false pretenses.
At its start, the impetus for education was enlightenment, debate, ideas, and added discourse. Maintaining those values, Chomsky believes the purpose of education is for students to truly learn, not to simply fill a leaky vessel (Chomsky “On the purpose of education”). The corporate business model foisted on the higher education system is responsible for the construed idea that the point of an education is to acquire suitable employment.
Current higher education policy comes from having to redefine education. The Legislature or the Board of Trustees for a university are not striving to redefine education in the same way that Chomsky and Berube are; rather, they are looking to promote profit and preserve the corporate business model of higher education systems. For example, the legislature decided that a student enrolled at a university for longer than four years must pay more for each additional class taken, creating a financial disincentive for further education. The current education policy is centered on profit; it does not have anything to do with learning. That is one way education is being redefined. The monetary value of education promotes the mindset that education is a trade off a person makes in order to become employable.
Chomsky uses the term neoliberal ideology to describe the mindset and strategies of corporate structures (Chomsky “On ‘shared governance’ and worker control”). He claims that such an ideology is the guiding force of corporatizing, or imposing a business model, on universities. This neoliberal ideology is used for constraint and control. While Chomsky claims that the corporate business model keeps people insecure, Berube asserts that humanities students are smarter than the corporate business model and are getting what they want and what they need from their educational pursuits by catering coursework to their unique interests. Berube endorses the idea that students know what they want to study, how they want to learn, and the ways in which they want to engage (Berube 3).
Berube asserts that despite what numbers prove, people still believe that the value of humanities is declining (Berube 3). Based on Chomsky’s discussion of the implications of the relationship between the administration, faculty and students, Chomsky would support the notion that if an administrator were introduced to the idea that the humanities are in decline, there is no amount of reason, data, induction, or deduction that could convince him otherwise.
The central controversy that Gates, Chomsky, and Berube all address is that the education system is flawed. Understanding Gates’ call for change and the problems he addresses highlights the flaws discussed in Chomsky and Berube’s arguments. Such faults take the form of conflicts and thus can be categorized into several conflict levels, based on “A Plan for Teaching the Development of Original Policy Arguments” by David Kaufer. Berube’s specific issue with the misinterpretation of data falls under a level 3 conflict. This means that the flaw rests in the fact that interpreters give decisive weight to different evidence (Kaufer 59). While some interpret the data to indicate that enrollment in humanities is declining, Berube interprets the data with overall enrollment in mind and finds that there is no significant difference in humanities enrollment relative to total enrollment numbers. The disagreement stems from the evidentiary weight each party is placing on certain statistics. One solution is to change people’s minds about how they think about education and inspire an informed interpretation of the system. Another solution is to reengineer the way we teach people to learn, starting in kindergarten. Chomsky’s overarching claim falls under a level 5 conflict, a matter of conflicting values. While Chomsky values education for education’s sake, the corporate business model of the higher education system values profit and control. The conflict transcends the specific topic and is based instead on a much more general and abstract incongruity in ethics and principle.
Chomsky promotes the belief that the formal education system should be teaching students to discover rather than to memorize (Chomsky “On the purpose of education). He predicts that nothing will ever change if we do not take the time to question what is being taught. Berube suggests that students in humanities are in fact thinking in a new way and learning to discover, going beyond the original conventions of humanities and instead finding new applications (Berube 3). Berube supports the idea that humanities students are taking Chomsky’s advice and breaking the mold of the corporate aspects of the higher education system. They are progressing the field in innovative ways instead of conforming to the agenda of broad and popular majors. This correlates to the foundation of Gates’ argument, calling for progress and diversity instead of a reliance on the most popular ways of doing things. That is where the value of education lies.
Berube and Chomsky values reflect Gates’ desires for American integrative education. Chomsky and Berube’s arguments support the claim that students of higher education should be striving to perfect a craft of their choice. Their catered education should be a result of their unique inspiration, not the result of what society deems suitable for making a paycheck. Education is not intended singularly for future employment, but rather for the illumination of the world and oneself.
Higher Education: Negotiating Expertise
Exploring the higher education sphere mainly involved analyzing the concept of plagiarism and the components of Wikipedia. When truly taking the time to define plagiarism in the public sphere, one has to call into question the idea of ownership. In “Plagiarism and Promiscuity,” Russel Wiebe questions that “It is perhaps the case that authors never compose original material free of any influence” (32). As a result of studying this concept, I left with a less clear understanding of plagiarism. I feel as though that is significant and relevant, however, because I understand that plagiarism is sometimes impossible to define and is often left to the discretion of an individual or society’s moral code. Writing for Wikipedia required me to understand and apply notions of ethical behavior, fallibility, reciprocity, and rhetorical velocity. The act of writing as a group also stressed striving for coherence and cohesion, making careful claims, and using purposeful examples.
Studying both plagiarism and Wikipedia writing called for my understanding of ethics and fallibility, which has been rounded out by Gates, Hood, and Zittrain. I have come to understand ethics as moral principles or a code of conduct that is recognized and respected by the people who follow it. Fallibility is the likelihood or possibility of error and acknowledging the possibility of being wrong. In Wiebe’s “Plagiarism and Promiscuity” he claims that plagiarism has to do with a violation of community values, and thus involves ethics. These concerns come into play in the Wikipedia community in a unique way, which I discuss in “Playing in the Sandbox” and “We Wrote a Wikipedia Article.”
Working in this sphere also led to my discovery that rhythm and grace significantly impact a work and therefore that writers need to be conscious of the moves they are making that affect rhythm and grace. This holds true even for Wikipedia articles, which I never previously thought about being well-written but now understand that, particularly those which are featured, function as a result of applying rhythm and grace to the writing and organization of the piece. I have applied this to my own writing as well and feel as though it has a significant impact on audience reaction.
Working in the Higher Education sphere involved a great deal of study about Wikipedia and its constituents. The lessons I learned are expanded upon throughout my writing in this sphere. In “Editing Out Obscenity: Wikipedia and Writing Pedagogy” Hood claims that Wikipedia has pedagogical value due to its emphasis on the writing process, not to the exclusion of product, but as a “respectable, long period of negotiation with words.” Hood also explains that the traditional writing process encourages students to view writing as a recursive habit with their texts as revisable drafts. In this pedagogy, the final product represents the end of process and of teachable writing skills. But according to Zittrain Wikipedia allows people to add, edit, and remove text. “Each change prompts others to make more changes and explain and justify their changes”, and “anyone disagreeing and changing something back can explain as well”. (Zittrain 134) In this situation, the audience becomes active participants in the writing process and more information and ideas are shared, which has pedagogical value to students. Understanding these qualities of Wikipedia has prompted my reevaluation of the education system and how students are taught to think about writing. In the digital age we are living, I expect a shift to occur and concrete final drafts of writing to all become more modal. I discuss this below in my post “Wiki Writing: The Good, the Bad, and the Obscene.”
Wikipedia Project
My classmates and I worked together to write a Wikipedia article titled "Public Sphere Writing." Here is the link to the unpublished version of the article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tgraban/Public_Sphere_Writing
We Wrote a Wikipedia Article
During the last few weeks, my fellow students and I worked together as a class to write a Wikipedia article about Public Sphere Writing. This project involved the study of ethics, fallibility, and understanding the politics and etiquette of creating an article in an online environment. This presented the challenge of collaborative editing and representing our concept as thoroughly as possible.
The foundational principles of Zittrain’s “The Lessons in Wikipedia” and Lazere’s “Viewpoint, Bias, and Fairness: From Cocksure Ignorance to Thoughtful Uncertainty.” had the biggest influence on my work for this project. My group of three was designated to write the section titled Communities and Networks. We broke that section down into Citizen Criticism, Citizen Activism, Citizen Journalist, and Public Deliberation. I worked on the Citizen journalism section and based the information I included on the text “Thinking about Citizen Journalism: Perspectives on Participatory News Production at Community Newspapers” by Lewis, Kaufhold, and Lasorsa and Chapter 4 of Rettburg’s Blogging. I read through my sources, considered the overarching theme of each piece, and made sure I understood it in relation to Public Sphere Writing. I also pulled out key excerpts directly discussing citizen journalism and made a point to include them in our article. I summarized and synthesized my source texts to create a kind of conversation and then made sure to remove any bias or fallacious statements. Pulling apart these texts in order to clearly, concisely, and correctly define citizen journalism was difficult, but with the combination of Wikipedia’s strict guidelines and peer review workshops in class, I was able to develop a clear understanding of what was expected of me as a Wikipedia writer and apply those expectations to the best of my ability.
This assignment also called me to assist other sections in developing content and meeting standards. I was assigned to edit the “Influences” section of our article. The main issues of this section included lack of clarity, lack of information, unclear relations and explanations, and the use of blanket terms. For example one sentence was: “Queer Theory exists within feminist theory.” and included no precursor and no further information. I think a lot of groups struggled with the difficulty of relaying the information in a way that makes sense to an unfamiliar audience since what makes sense to fellow group members in not likely to make as much sense to the average reader. Being explicit enough without oversimplifying concepts was a common challenge.
It was very difficult to edit this article because with so many people working on it there are so many different opinions and writing styles and disagreements about what is appropriate. It was very challenging to create a coherent section between just my group members and I and there were only three of us, so I can imagine the challenge for groups of five or more. One specific instance of this came with editing language and tone, and thus avoiding bias and jargon and aiming for objectivity and neutral point of view.
My individual editing assignment was to edit the language and tone throughout the entire article. This task was definitely a challenge and became frustrating at times because I was torn between changing someone’s words for the sake of consistent tone and not messing with it in case I took away from their intended message. With 25 different writers contributing to this article, consistent tone was a challenge. In my editing, I aimed for each group to use appropriate language and tone at all times rather than completely changing everyone’s work to sound a certain way. It was very hard to write for Wikipedia specifically rather than just the way I think is best. There are certain guidelines everyone must follow but it is still so easy to embed idioms and chatty language without realizing. I tried my best to remove this kind of language and in these situations found it best to just keep the language concise and straightforward. “A large step in the direction of objectivity, then, is learning to avoid applying a double standard toward biases favoring our own side versus those favoring the other” (Lazere 128). Like Zittrain states, “the idea that a “neutral point of view” even exists, and that it can be determined among people who disagree, is an amazingly quaint, perhaps even naïve, notion. Yet is it invoked earnestly and often productively on Wikipedia” (Zittrain 144). Attaining a neutral point of view throughout the article was a challenge and one of the main concerns we faced as a class. Our preparatory work with Wikipedia prior to this assignment, however, proved extremely beneficial to our objectivity. In order to remain neutral and still include a myriad of diverse information, I took Zittrain’s advice regarding Wikipedia writing when he claims that a writer’s goal “should not be to avoid expressing opinions but to express opinions that will impress your readers as educated, unprejudiced, and fair” (129).
The topic we chose gave us the opportunity “participate in the making and remaking of cultural meanings instead of having them foisted upon us” (Zittrain 147). Public Sphere Writing is a relatively new concept, so we had to use our combined knowledge to write one of the first comprehensive articles about it. Since a lot of Public Sphere Writing occurs via the Internet, the fact that this article was written by college-age students who grew up practicing this allowed it to be “made by those closest to the issues” (Zittrain 143). We embedded links to several other wiki articles in our article, thus creating an intertext. I think this is an important distinction in our article that reiterates public-sphere writing and will be acknowledged and appreciated.
“The ultimate stage in development is committed relativism, in which students have learned that, in spite of complexity and uncertainty of many truths, judgments of truth and falsity, right and wrong, and moral commitments still need to be made, on the basis of the most complete, diverse knowledge presently available to us” (Lazere 128). We took on this task and were held accountable for the decisions we made. Keeping this in mind helped me write with an understanding of the severity, implications, and rhetorical velocity (a strategic concept of delivery in which a rhetor theorizes the possibilities for the recomposition of a text based on how s/he anticipates how the text might later be used” (Ridolfo and Rife 229)) my work might have.
Overall, I am extremely proud to be a part of this creation and have the upmost respect and admiration for my peers fearlessly taking on such a challenging task. Our finished article is packed with information and every section worked hard to contribute to the whole.