In Wikipedia We Trust

In Wikipedia We Trust

In "Lessons of Wikipedia", Zittrain introduces the theory that when humans are in situations that are heavily regulated, our behavior adjusts to actions based on reward and punishment by an arbitrary external authority, rather than an intrinsic motivation to maintain a better world that we help to construct. When rules and regulations are lessened, basic order can be achieved because people decide to respect limits and other people with the absence of enforced rules. His ideas describe Wikipedia—when individuals see themselves as part of a greater whole, each feels responsible for maintaining order; they are a connected community under a common goal.

The Internet, since its creation, has functioned as an encyclopedia in and of itself. Expert and amateur writers and bloggers are free to make public whatever information they want, and when someone does a search on a particular topic, a wide variety of information may come up. Search engines function as an encyclopedia written by many authors, not just one or a few, and this gives searchers the privilege to pick what they want to read. Wikipedia's foundation is based on verkeersbordvrij (the idea that unsafe is safe, or more simply put, less rules and regulations lead to a public mass effort to maintain order and high standards), dialogue between readers, writers, and editors where alterations can be explained, and a team of core editors that serve as the overseers.

In "Editing Out Obscenity: Wikipedia and Writing Pedagogy", Hood portrays Wikipedia as a "collaborative writing endeavor" that has great potential as a compromise of knowledge and opinions of many people. Because Wikipedia articles are constantly being edited and monitored for vandalism, over time the only result is that their quality would improve. Wikipedia, unlike other encyclopedias, places value on the process of writing and editing, not on the final product. Wikipedia is all about achieving harmony and solidarity when working in concordance with others readers and writers to fully inform the public on a topic and to give them the best information possible.

In "Integrating the American Mind" by Gates, he explains that there is a problem with he American teaching curriculum, that students do not learn about other cultures and their histories because high schools and colleges are focused on European and American societies, with America as the perfect example of how a society should be since the Greeks, in a similar way to how Christians looks to Jesus as an example. "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). Wikipedia offers students and individuals alike to do so because it covers such an immense, broad array of subject matter and international history down to the most obscure, rarely known cultures.

Wikipedia is an amazing resource for many reasons but most of all because it functions as a group effort that is maintained by readers and writers who want to see the overall education of Wiki users by offering them the most accurate information possible. It's a resource that trusts its contributors who want nothing more than to contribute to the spread of knowledge.

SA #4: Integrity, Intertextuality, and Exigence of Wikipedia Articles

S.A. #4: Integrity, Intertextuality, and Exigence of Wikipedia Articles 

 

The sources for the Wikipedia page "John Bauer (Illustrator)", are credible, published books, some of which are exclusively about Bauer. This is especially advantageous for readers wishing to gleam knowledge from this article because the information comes from published works. None of the sources are unreliable, they are all respected. A few of them are even textbooks. Because of this there is no uncertainty as far as the integrity of the sources.

There is a spelling error in the first sentence of the section on "Courtship and marriage". Bauer's name was spelled "Baer". It is unknown whether this error occurred because of a simple editing oversight, or if the writer of that particular section was not knowledgeable on the subject to spell his name correctly. Other than that, upon further investigation other facts proved true including that Bauer met his wife, Ester Ellqvist, while at school at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts, that the Bauer's and their son, Bengt, died by drowning in a mass causality boat accident on Lake Vattern, that historic painter, Gustaf Cederstrom was one of his teachers, and that his famous painting The Fairy Princess was inspired by his wife.

The information in this article is very reliable, albeit the minor spelling error here and there, but not every writer has the patience to re-read their work. The sources are what make this article reliable. Because the article is not ridden with extraneous details readers might find it more in accordance with the true facts of Bauer's life. 

The article functions similarly to Porter's theory of intertextuality in that it has elements of iterability and presupposition. The article uses references, quotes from Bauer's art professors, and traditions of culture while making the assumptions about the reader that he or she is knowledgeable of certain types of art such as frescos and cultures within Sweden without giving explanation on these topics.

After reading the Wikipedia article in its entirety, it became obvious that the writer (or writers) included information that was especially valuable that piqued interest in the reader. This is similar to what Killingsworth writes on when he explains concepts of human interest and news value when considering how an audience will interpret information. "For a story to be considered "news," it must tell readers something they don't already know, something they haven't already heard or become accustomed to" (Killingsworth 134). There were obviously details of Bauer's life that were not newsworthy enough to include, but the writers focused on facts that were unique and personal that readers might not have known.

Read the Wikipedia article here: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bauer_%28illustrator%29#CITEREFCorin2013

The Importance Of Time To Rhetoric

The Importance Of Time To Rhetoric

Killingsworth and Handa’s argument definitely have strong similarities. Both texts explain the ways in which rhetoric is used today, the analytical and technical skills needed to present it successfully, and the best ways to appeal to the audience at the perfect time.

In "Appeals to Time" from Killingsworth's Appeals in Modern Rhetoric, he explains the ways in which rhetoric exists in society today in comparison to that of the past in order to appeal to the audience in the most ideal way. "The news and advertising industry often use a simple version of the appeal to time, with newness occupying the position of value" (Killingsworth 39). Killingsworth places heavy importance on the kairos and exigence of rhetoric, conveying that they are designed to serve a purpose at a certain time in order to be successful, meaning that authors and rhetoricians alike need to be conscious that their strategies appeal to time in order for it to be presented to the audience at the most ideal moment.

In The Multimediated Rhetoric of the Internet, Handa explains the purpose of remediation on platforms such as the Internet. Handa explains that time, societal culture, and the media function together to form an argument that is especially powerful in terms of affecting the audience. Handa explains that in this day and age, the Internet is very important in terms of portraying an exigence, because its relationship with time is more lucrative than that of many other ways to communicate an idea, such as speeches for example. Handa also writes about the different forms of rhetoric, whether it be conscious or unconscious, spoken or unspoken: "Furthermore, if we ask what might be involved in analyzing a compelling rhetorical performance given digitally, we need to account for a Web site's non-verbal as well as verbal communication and whether or not the total performance foes in fact make an impact on that 'social world in which we live'" (Handa 17).

SA #3: My Editing Experience...

SA #3: My Editing Experience…

The original un-edited text, “Let Us All Bear Witness to the Conversation! How the Media-Political Class Ate the News this Summer” by Mark Leibovich, had major problems with clarity and organization of information. Most of the sentences lacked a professional tone and needed better explanation because they were hard to understand. Many of them included words that can be described as amateur. There was also a lot of information that strayed away from the main ideas of the text, such as interjections about national conversations concerning Presidents Obama, Bush, and Clinton. There was also an issue of organization of the information and there was no solid ending.

There are three general principles that guided me tremendously throughout my editing process. These principles come from Killingsworth's "Rhetoric and Environmental Politics in America", Williams and Bizup’s Style, and Jones's "Finding the Good Argument OR Why Bother With Logic?"

Killingsworth's ideas about information value and the concepts of news and human interest helped me greatly when putting myself in the shoes of the audience and their interpretation of information. Killingsworth writes, "For a story to be considered "news," it must tell readers something they don't already know, something they haven't already heard or become accustomed to" (Killingsworth 134). It was very clear to me that the idea of bearing witness is not one that is often discussed. During the editing process, I came to realize that the writer was arguing about a very relevant issue in society today. This helped me focus in on what the most important elements of the text were.

Williams and Bizup’s Style helped me considerably when addressing the original text’s cohesion and coherence. Style taught me to avoid using passive verbs, which I replaced out for active ones in the text. I implemented the tip “End sentences with information readers cannot predict” (Williams and Bizup 37) in my own way in the text. I included an open-ended question at the end because readers prefer to read the familiar and known first, and then move on to the unknown, and possible unanswerable. I also took into account the tip about coherence. I made sure that all the sentences in the text added to the main argument. I extracted the sentences that did not flow well. I did my best to make sure all the pieces fit to strengthen and illuminate the bigger idea.

Jones's description of inductive reasoning helped me formulate a plan for the reorganization of the text. "Inductive reasoning starts with a particular or local statement and moves to a more general conclusion" (Jones 164). This is exactly what I decided to do when editing the text. I placed the most particular information first, followed by broader statements that flowed into the conclusion.

There are three main changes I made to help the text regain balance. First, I reworded most of the sentences so that the main idea was clear. I omitted words that did not sound professional. I decided to change the title because I felt as though it did not do the text justice. It did nothing to inform the audience what the text was about prior to reading it. Finally, I changed around the order of some of the paragraphs, and even omitted a few of them. I did this in order to give the text a fuller, more symmetrical structure with a strong beginning and ending. I omitted some of the information because I felt as though it did nothing to strengthen the argument. I felt that certain information about the Clinton's and George W. Bush would confuse the audience and took the argument completely off track.

Liberties that I took in order to strengthen the complexity of the argument include changing many of the sentence's structures and words, changing the title so that it is more indicative of the information in the text, omitting certain information, and reorganizing the order of the paragraphs to enhance the clarity and balance of the argument.

There was an overall pattern of unclear language that I constantly had to correct. It was severe to the point that I had to completely restructure the majority of the sentences. I also noticed that most of the word choice was poor. Many of the words and phrases were not the best fit for the argument, and I substituted them out for descriptions that made the information easy to understand.

Short Assignment #3 made me discover that I'm very good at explaining concepts clearly and deciding what kind of information is valuable to an argument and what information is not. I also discovered that I'm fairly good at adding an element of symmetry to texts that I write and edit, for instance designing the ending of a text to mirror the beginning. I found that I'm also very good at organizing information in a clear, logical order. Something that I found was a struggle was not being well informed on the subject of the text I was editing. Perhaps if I had been more knowledgeable on the Ferguson controversy I would have had a little something more to add to the argument to give it some extra flair.