The Wikipedia Article Project was a new kind of
challenge compared to other work we’ve done in our Advanced Writing class this
semester. While the “team” aspect was a part of that challenge, in my
perspective, it wasn’t the primary one. During the project I found establishing
our identity and role as writers in the public sphere, as well as determining
what content was relevant for our section were the defining aspects of the
challenge. Writing a Wikipedia article requires thinking about the kind of
information we present and how we present that it. On one level, we serve as
reporters, conveyers of information to the public, yet we maintain a standard
by which we adhere to factual information as close as possible. During our
project, we had to find a role that was a medium between public writing and
scientific writing. Determining what was relevant for our section required
thinking about all possible viewpoints, and incorporating them to give a fuller
description of the section.
Writing any Wikipedia article includes thinking of one’s
role. This is because the role shapes the content in the article. Maybe this
applies to any encyclopedia, but I think this is particularly true with
Wikipedia articles. That’s because of the open-contribution, or as Zittrain
might describe it, “verkeersbordvrij” (127) nature of Wikipedia. Wikipedia
article writers must hold themselves accountable to their audience by referring
to sources at every instance, and keeping text as close to the content of those
sources as possible. I found when writing the article we acted somewhat like
citizen journalists or scientific accommodators, trying to provide as clear a
definition as possible to the readers. But at the same time, we stuck to the
principles of Wikipedia by referencing peer-reviewed sources and factual
information, like scientific writers. A citizen journalist is more dependent on
their own interpretation. Fahnestock says the purpose of accommodators is “to
celebrate rather than validate” (279). As Wikipedians we cannot stray from our
sources. Our purpose is to achieve a well-rounded definition by providing
relevant information, even from different perspectives. In this way our role is
also different from scientific writers who write strictly on their research. We
may incorporate the view of one writer, but other perspectives could also be
relevant to a subject. I’d describe our public sphere role as “dedicated
informers”. We strive to provide the audience with a full-bodied definition comprised
of multiple sides and perspectives, and absent of a singular interpretation.
Judging what sides, perspectives, and viewpoints were necessary
required a new kind of critical thinking. As Wikipedians, we must include relevant,
but well-researched, interpretations of a subject so that the reader may
interpret the information for themselves. This requires weighing rhetorical
quality, the evidence and factual information behind any viewpoint, and then
comparing views or ideas about a subject against one another. Donald Lazere
says when acting as a critical writer one’s aim “should not be to avoid
expressing opinions but to express opinions that will impress your readers as educated,
unprejudiced, and fair” (129). While we aren’t taking one critical stance when
writing our Wikipedia article, it was important to think critically from all
sides of a subject matter. In this way we could provide relevant information
from many different perspectives, not just one. We also had to think about what
a particular concept said about the overarching subject, like how Queer Theory
or Cultural Centrism fit into “Influences” of Public Sphere Writing.
Through all of this, working as a team might not have
been as much of a challenge as it was an advantage. Individually, determining
one’s role and collecting all relevant information would have required much more
effort, thought, and work. But by working together and through the contribution
of every team member, we could more easily determine our collective role when
writing the article and then ascertain what we thought was relevant to our portion
of the article.
Works Cited
Zittrain, Jonathan. “The Lessons of Wikipedia.” The
Future of the Internet and How to Stop It. NewHaven, CT: Yale UP, 2008. 127-48.Print.
Lazere, Donald. “Viewpoint, Bias, and Fairness: From
Cocksure Ignorance to Thoughtful Uncertainty.” In Reading and Writing for Civic
Literacy: The Critical Citizen’s Guide to Argumentative Rhetoric. Boulder, CO: Paradigm
P, 2005. 125-38.Print.
Fahnestock, Jeanne. “Accommodating Science: The
Rhetorical Life of Scientific Facts.” Written Communication3.3 (Jul. 1986): 275-96.
JSTOR.
