The Wikipedia-Writing Project for Developing Academic Literacy Skills

            In her article “Writing for the World: Wikipedia as an Introduction to Academic Writing” Tardy (2010) states that writing academic texts requires the student to conduct research and develop the style and genre of academic discourse.  She suggests that students could compose an article for the web encyclopedia Wikipedia.

            As regards research, students should “evaluate sources in terms of credibility and reliability” (Tardy & Courtney, 2008, as cited in Tardy, 2010). Then, they may need to learn two basic skills such as paraphrasing and summarizing that would enable them to avoid plagiarism. Considering academic style and genre that characterize the discourse community, teachers might help students in developing the genre required to achieve expert level in writing skill.

            She defines the word “wiki” (Tardy 2010, p.13) and accounts for its creation, its significance today and even the criticism it arouses. “Even more importantly, Wikipedia offers an excellent forum for students to begin confronting the challenges of academic writing: research, citation, generic conversations, and style” (Tardy, 2010, p.13). Consequently, students may compose their articles on personal interests and experience. Later, they can upload them to Wikipedia and make them publicly known. The articles should be supported by reliable sources, provided with correct citations and a limited number of words.

            Tardy (2010) considers 8 steps to be carried out for composing the articles properly. First, while examining Wikipedia, students recognize its value as “a collaborative global encyclopedia” and analyze examples of articles guided by a set of questions (Tardy, 2010, p. 14). Second, they might decide on topics for their articles through brainstorming and compile facts. Third, they should start creating an outline for their article. Next, at the drafting stage, they may focus on text composing while using quotations and paraphrasing. After that, peer editing might be advisable, followed by each student dealing with citations of their text. Polishing would be the next step as they tackle the aspects of spelling, vocabulary, grammar and punctuation. Finally, they publish their articles in Wikipedia for a global audience being aware that readers might delete or modify some parts of it.

     In conclusion, composing articles to be published in this worldwide forum may encourage students to grow in the field of academic writing.  In addition to this, students may value the sense of a real audience and their possibility to make their voices be heard by a limitless audience.

References

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