Academic Writing and Wikipedia: A Writing Project - Summary

Writing academic texts may be a challenging task for learners of English as a foreign language. In her article “Writing for the World: Wikipedia as an Introduction to Academic Writing”, Tardy, C. (2010) claims that students can develop writing skills by means of writing an article for Wikipedia, a web-based, freely editable encyclopedia. (www.wikipedia.org)

To begin with, Tardy introduces the benefits of the project: Wikipedia helps students to conduct research, evaluate sources and avoid plagiarism. She also highlights the challenges of academic writing like knowledge on genre repertoires. Then, she describes and emphasizes the characteristics of Wikipedia which she deems important for the project. Its main objective is producing an original article in English.

The author describes the necessary steps to write an article complying with Wikipedia's standards and regulations. The first stage is analyzing the website, discussing advantages and disadvantages of using this encyclopedia. Students are asked to read articles and answer questions as guidance in this phase. For the second step, they choose a topic to write about and start looking for information “maintaining a record of the sources of information” (Tardy, 2010, p. 16). When students have collected enough information, they are supposed to begin writing their articles using outlines and paraphrasing. After this, a first draft should be produced and later revised by a classmate. Once the article is close to publication, students should use the accepted format for Wikipedia articles. Careful attention must be paid to citation and sources. The final stages consist of polishing the articles, i.e. checking vocabulary, grammar, and punctuation as well as hyperlinking to other articles in the website. Publishing the article will be the last step of the project.

Tardy (2010) concludes students may develop research and writing academic skills in an interesting way. She also mentions it may be possible to introduce some variables to the project so as to make it fit different stages in the learning process. She also highlights the importance of supervising the evolution of the article as it is modified by other users. Moreover, this project provides students with a non-conventional way of introducing the different aspects of academic and collaborative writing. Tardy’s idea gains particular relevance for students who struggle to be acquitted with the features of academic English.

References

Tardy, C. M. (2010). Writing for the World: Wikipedia as an Introduction to Academic Writing. English Teaching Forum, 48(1), 12-19.