SA #6: We, the Wikipedians
Preliminary Notes
What I've learned from the Wikipedia Editing Tutorial: if you edit a page, provide information on why you made the additions or alterations in the "Edit summary" box below the edit window. The explanation can be as short or long as you desire. Afterwards, in the sandbox page, select the "Edit" option again and write "Testing" in the summary box. Secondly, I learned that the "Show preview" tool is a great resource. It allows writers and editors to view the page before they save it, allowing them to make sure it's formatted the right way.
What I learned from the Wikipedia "Help: Editing" page: We can all be proud that we are Wikipedians! No matter how minor our alterations are, we helped make Wikipedia the renowned Encyclopedia that it is today. Paragraphs are begun with a leading space and they are separated with a blank space. References are a very important aspect of adding information to a page. Otherwise, they might be removed.
I chose to review and edit the article "Bulgarians in Albania" for two reasons. One because I found the topic interesting, and two because I'm more comfortable editing for errors in spelling, grammar, and sentence fluidity than I am adding new information; this article in particular requires copy editing because of poor translation.
Analysis
This editing task has helped me understand that there are many aspects that contribute to the creation of a Wikipedia article. Members of the community are not expected to complete an article all on there own; each person can contribute by providing their own slice of knowledge, and for some that's as simple as fixing spelling errors or adding commas where needed. For others, that's adding information on a topic, and if the information is riddled with errors that's okay, because there are members of the community that will help. What I'm trying to say is that I've learned that as a Wikipedian I am not alone.
The theory behind Porter's "Intertextuality and the Discourse Community" is that there is no original work, and just like Wikipedia articles, each piece of writing has intertextuality, meaning it contains fragments of information from the past. "Examining texts 'intertextuality' means looking for 'traces,' the bits and pieces of Text which writers or speakers borrow and sew together to create new discourse" (Porter 34).
On Wikipedia, all writing derives from the same network of contributors, a discourse community dedicated to the spread of knowledge. Two aspects of Porter's theory of intertextuality exist on Wikipedia. On each page is iterabilitity, the tracing and utilization of references, quotations, allusions, traditions and phrases, and presupposition, the assumptions an article makes about its reader. Wikipedians use these influences to include the types of information they believe their audience wants to know. According to Porter, the true nature of writing is about being able to recognize yourself within the constraints of a text. These constraints are similar to Grant-Davie's in that they exist with each other in their own discourse communities, forming boundaries and guiding writers.
Wikipedia articles are platforms for a discourse community, not just a single author; a place where many works influence and work together to create a new product that is essentially a reflection of society.
SA #5
Part 1: Notes
The first difference noticed between Michelle Citron's and Marshall McLuhan's biographies is the structure of the background information on each respective person. Citron has a short sentence under her name detailing what she does as a career, and then a separate section, "Early life" on her education. McLuhan's biography is more aesthetically pleasing. Instead of a meager sentence about what he does, the information under his name is a concise overview of his life's work, basically what he would be known for. Another paragraph, "Life and career", is a combination of his background information and road to success in his field. He has a more robust description, in part because a few topics that could have been split up into different sections were combined into one. Citron's "Early life" and "Career" are both short paragraphs that could have been combined.
Citron's page has very few links, one of which is to another biography of her life, a few others to the schools she attended and taught at. McLuhan's page has a plethora of links to other pages, in fact, nearly every paragraph has hyperlinked words, even if it's just the name of a city. This large difference in detail makes Citron's page seem more like a stub that needs to be completed. Additionally, the tone of Citron's biography is much more impersonal than that of McLuhan's. McLuhan's work is not presented in a list like Citron's is, it's described in paragraphs of text.
It's quite obvious that Sidgwick's biography on Wikipedia is very different than his Stanford Encyclopedia biography. Stanford's text is extremely detailed with quotes and in text citations. It takes on the tone of a scholarly report that includes a ton of information. The wikipedia biography is concise, to the point, and includes only general information. The types of information linked in the Wikipedia article are primarily locations, social groups or organizations, and key concepts. There is no linked information in the Stanford biography. Stanford's references are made up of mostly citations from published works on Ethics, whereas the Wikipedia article's references are medical journals and published works on the supernatural. The Stanford article has no illustrations to accompany the text, but Wikipedia does, and it's extremely helpful in putting a face with the name when imagining who this individual was. Sidgwick's Wikipedia page consists of a bibliography of his published works, Stanford does not. Overall, the structure of the Wikipedia biography is much more organized than that of the Stanford biography, which is written more like an academic essay on Sidgwick.
Part 2: Featured Article
One of Wikipedia's featured articles is titled "Acra (fortress)", on the history of a fortified compound in Jerusalem constructed by Antiochus Epiphanes after his destruction of the city in 168 BCE.
According to Wikipedia, all of their encyclopedic texts should be written with a neutral tone, representing the information fairly, without bias, and accommodating all of the significant views that have been published by credible sources on the subject. The article on Acra does this perfectly. It’s tone is completely unbiased, stating known facts about the history of the fortress and the battles that pertained to it without being biased towards the many Jews that were killed or the Seleucid suppressors. The writers and editors of the article remain incredibly unbiased as early as the second paragraph, refraining from stating their personal opinions on the location of the fortress, they wrote, “The exact location of the Acra, critical to understanding Hellenistic Jerusalem, remains a matter of ongoing discussion. Historians and archaeologists have proposed various sites around Jerusalem, relying mainly on conclusions drawn from literary evidence.” By doing so, trust is established among readers that the information is as accurate as possible, without the blemishes of opinion or personal belief.
Requirements for image use include: always tagging the image with one of the image copyright tags and stating where the image originated. The images should increase the reader's understanding of the text. Because the exact location and remains of the Acra are unknown, the images used in this article are not all that helpful for readers. Besides a map of Jerusalem that identifies the general location of the Acra, the images are unrelated. One is a border along the eastern wall of the Temple Mount, another is a potential remains site of the fortress, and another is Antonio Ciseri's art depicting the persecution of the Jews by Antiochus IV. However, the reason the images are unhelpful is not the fault of the writers and editors, it is simply because the location of the Acra remains an unsolved mystery.
Article titles should be recognizable, neutral, precise, concise, and consistent with the pattern of related articles' titles. The article titles of the piece fit the FA criteria perfectly. They are clear, concise, and leave no uncertainty for the reader about what the ensuing information is about. They are simple, neutral, and chronological, which is especially beneficial for readers because it eliminates issues of confusion and disorganization. For example, under the "History" section of the article, subtitles are presented logically in the order of "Background", "Construction", and "Destruction".
Analysis
In "Lessons of Wikipedia", Zittrain portrays that when humans are involved in situations where rules and regulations are lessened and there is room for individual creativity in collaboration, order is achieved because the members of the group have respect for the limits. The "Acra (fortress)" featured article on Wikipedia is an exemplary example of this. When individuals consider themselves a part of a whole, each feels the weight of responsibility for contributing quality information and revisions. Dozens of writers and editors came together to produce a text that is informative, without bias, and perfectly written.
In "Integrating the American Mind", Gates explains that one of the issues with education in the U.S. is that other cultures are not included in the curriculum. "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). This Wikipedia article in particular helps to solve this issue that exists in American schools by offering readers information largely unknown by students and non-students alike.
Researching the four biographies and examining the article on Acra in relation to Wikipedia's FA requirements, has shed light on the importance of remaining unbiased when providing information to the public on a subject that is unknown to many people. Writers and editors have an obligation to readers to supply information that is clear, concise, and that covers all aspects of a topic or issue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acra_%28fortress%29
Copyright: Good or Evil?
Ridolfo and Rife delve into a case study that questions the ethos of a Michigan State University student’s photo remediation and rhetorical velocity (the strategic concept of delivery where the rhetor speculates the possibilities of the recomposition of a text depending on how he or she thinks the text will be used in the future). Maggie's story entices the audience to confront controversial issues of rhetorical appropriation and copyright in terms of ethics and intellectual property. The implications for using intellectual property are undoubtedly connected to rhetorical theory and the delivery of a text. This text highlights the ways in which copyright is perceived and the ways that perception needs to change. Copyright law is more than just a limiting regulation, it is also a means for rhetorical creativity to exist.
In "Plagiarism and Promiscuity, Authors and Plagiarisms", we learn that issues of plagiarism and appropriation vary depending on power, status, and hierarchy. "As Martin's taxonomy makes clear enough, the designation of plagiarism has at least as much to do with where you reside in a power structure as it does with whether you did or did not present someone else's text as your own” (Wiebe 34). Plagiarism becomes a rhetorical grey area when considering the idea that there is no original thought. Any text, whether it is written or spoken, references other texts or occurrences, cultures, and languages. In this way, plagiarism is basically untraceable, but the substance of texts, and everything that has ever been said, can be considered plagiarism. Most of our thoughts and utterances are secondhand, adopted from another outside source, and conveyed by the plagiarist with assurance that the thought began with them.
No text exists that was not created by a blend of knowledge ascertained by earlier works. This idea relates to Maggie’s controversial issue with MSU using her photo on their website and promotional texts. Her photo influenced and inspired the creators of those later texts, and left a mark on history and creativity that cannot be denied or deemed as plagiarism. Her moment in the snow later served as the focal point in the remix of new thought and creativity that was unavoidably influenced by the past.
https://campus.fsu.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-6800561-dt-content-rid-38256208_2/courses/ENC4404-0001.fa14/ridolfo_courant_rhetorical_velocity.pdf
https://campus.fsu.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-6800560-dt-content-rid-38256207_2/courses/ENC4404-0001.fa14/wiebe_plagiarism_promiscuity.pdf
