World-wide Writing

World-wide Writing

In “Writing for the world: Wikipedia as an introduction to academic writing”, Christine M. Tardy (2010) gives an account on how students can start developing academic writing skills through the use of a project based on Wikipedia-writing.

            The article is divided into different sections. In the introduction, the author points out the need to instruct students in classrooms to write formal academic texts. After this, she gives a brief definition of Wikipedia and its usefulness as a site of reference. She also makes reference to the importance of evaluating chosen sources to give credibility to students’ writing. For this, learners must resort to footnotes and references, which implies them “to engage in correct citation practices” (Tardy, 2010, para. 10).

            The project presents eight steps to be followed when writing academically for Wikipedia. In the first step, the author advises writers to get acquainted with the website conventions and guidelines. Once learners have become familiar with Wikipedia, they must select a topic and start looking sources up. The next stage requires outlining and paraphrasing.  When creating outlines, students “should paraphrase any text that they have kept from the original source” (Tardy, 2010, para. 24). Drafting is the following stage. In it, students must have the necessary information and a plan to organize it. In addition, they should continue including parenthetical references to the employed sources using, for instance, lettered tags. Next, revising is a must, and it can be done by a peer, for example. In step 6, students must be ready to cite sources considering conventions, and then they have to polish what it will be their final version. The last stage involves publishing the writing on Wikipedia for its global audience.

            In conclusion, in her article, Tardy develops a Wikipedia-based project that students can employ following several steps. Through it, learners will be able to develop not only academic writing skills but also skills of academic research.

Reference

Tardy, C.M.(2010).Writing for the world: Wikipedia as an introduction to Academic Writing. English Teaching Forum,1, pp.12-19,27.