Wikipedia Article-- Reflection of editing process & Circulation
Remember my last topic was "school journalism"...... That was a tough one because although journalism is a big topic, school journalism hasn't been well-developed as an independent branch. Even I then looked into student newspaper and student publication, I was still struggling with finding enough specific sources... Most important, it isn't my true interest. (I was trying to research on "morality & responsibility of journalism during wartime" at first, but after I realized my teacher required it to be relevant to college, I changed it into school journalism. )
And now the good news is, my new topic is "mental health in education"!
As researching in my interest field, it wasn't hard for me to compose the framework and subtopics that I want to research on and add into my Wikipedia article in my head. First, I read through the whole existed page to know which information has already been written by previous editors. The information of the text itself is extremely important in science and medical fields because accuracy and validity determine the reliability. We all want to read true and reliable science knowledge, whereas this might be different for literature. For example, when reading fiction or poem, audiences might expect more on how does the text trigger their feelings and cognitive interaction. The information of text itself is still important, but the atmosphere and moods created by text could be even more important. Moreover, scientific text is usually fact-based. Authors of such text would present and explain everything they know as thoroughly as they can rather than leaving space as beauty in some literature for audiences to free imagine. Therefore, validity, accuracy and reliability are three specific factors I looked at when selecting which sources to use for my text and also when writing on Wikipedia by myself.
I started at American Psychological Association (APA) website and found my first subtopic-- middle school malaise. APA put it noticeably on the homepage under work & school, which indicate it's importantness as the author wants public to read. I went to that page and it was a collective website article. The text is short but informative which included descriptions of the phenomenon, a brief explanation of the cause, and guidance for parents and teachers to help. Unfortunately, APA didn't give out the references of their sources and studies mentioned on that page. It took me a long time to figure out the researches they used and I then went to read the original research articles on their published journals. Here is an imperfect circulation-- references should be contained around the text so the audiences who are interested in middle school malaise and want to know more can be able to follow.
Thus, I carefully cited all my sources in and under my edited text part in the Wikipedia article. But I didn't realize the special rules of Wikipedia until their supervisive editor left a message on my talk page:
I then learned that in Wikipedia circulation (for psychological and medical terms), referring peer-reviewed sources for readers to trace is not good enough. Wikipedia also wants those sources to be secondary or tertiary to avoid bias-- original research author's bias brought into the text--> deliver to readers--> readers learned and tells other people or use in their work.
(This is actually great news for me since I've finally found some reliability in Wikipedia articles. They do have people in higher position check and regulate the text frequently even though the "free access (everyone can edit Wikipedia terms)" of Wikipedia has made me afraid at first.)
I have imagined the audiences of my text. It might be a much greater range if consider about audiences of "mental health in education"-- almost everyone can possibly look at it if he searches on mental health (it has links to each other). But who would be specifically interested in middle school malaise? I guess that parents, teachers, and even children themselves who are struggling with it would google it. I was thinking about what my audiences might want...... Those parents might want to know what to do to help their kids! But as I research on the solution and strategies, another recognition stopped me adding this part into my text on Wikipedia: those guidances might be modified as soon as psychologists find something new. They are not final/solid conclusion or statement but just suggestions. They are not fact, whereas all of the other information in my text is based on fact. With this concern, I didn't include those guidances into my text. Instead, I have mentioned APA website in my text, so those who have strong needs and want to know more can look it up by themselves.
[p.s.] ⏯Compare to other students, I might have my own concern about my sentences' gramma. Because I've seen there are higher editors checking for sources but no people frequently checking the writing (grammar). And I know I have such problems in my essays often. It might affect the audiences' reading experience and even the reliability my text seems to them when they read my text.
A Wikipedia article does present and explain everything has been known as thoroughly as it can, but it isn't fully determined by the audiences of what to contain in the text. Rather, the text is more based on the fact, solid knowledge that has been reviewed overtime without personal bias. In this way, scientific knowledge could be able to circulate while maintaining its reliability.
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_health_in_education
https://www.apa.org/helpcenter/middle-school
And now the good news is, my new topic is "mental health in education"!
As researching in my interest field, it wasn't hard for me to compose the framework and subtopics that I want to research on and add into my Wikipedia article in my head. First, I read through the whole existed page to know which information has already been written by previous editors. The information of the text itself is extremely important in science and medical fields because accuracy and validity determine the reliability. We all want to read true and reliable science knowledge, whereas this might be different for literature. For example, when reading fiction or poem, audiences might expect more on how does the text trigger their feelings and cognitive interaction. The information of text itself is still important, but the atmosphere and moods created by text could be even more important. Moreover, scientific text is usually fact-based. Authors of such text would present and explain everything they know as thoroughly as they can rather than leaving space as beauty in some literature for audiences to free imagine. Therefore, validity, accuracy and reliability are three specific factors I looked at when selecting which sources to use for my text and also when writing on Wikipedia by myself.
I started at American Psychological Association (APA) website and found my first subtopic-- middle school malaise. APA put it noticeably on the homepage under work & school, which indicate it's importantness as the author wants public to read. I went to that page and it was a collective website article. The text is short but informative which included descriptions of the phenomenon, a brief explanation of the cause, and guidance for parents and teachers to help. Unfortunately, APA didn't give out the references of their sources and studies mentioned on that page. It took me a long time to figure out the researches they used and I then went to read the original research articles on their published journals. Here is an imperfect circulation-- references should be contained around the text so the audiences who are interested in middle school malaise and want to know more can be able to follow.
Thus, I carefully cited all my sources in and under my edited text part in the Wikipedia article. But I didn't realize the special rules of Wikipedia until their supervisive editor left a message on my talk page:
(the screenshot of her message)
I then learned that in Wikipedia circulation (for psychological and medical terms), referring peer-reviewed sources for readers to trace is not good enough. Wikipedia also wants those sources to be secondary or tertiary to avoid bias-- original research author's bias brought into the text--> deliver to readers--> readers learned and tells other people or use in their work.
(This is actually great news for me since I've finally found some reliability in Wikipedia articles. They do have people in higher position check and regulate the text frequently even though the "free access (everyone can edit Wikipedia terms)" of Wikipedia has made me afraid at first.)
I have imagined the audiences of my text. It might be a much greater range if consider about audiences of "mental health in education"-- almost everyone can possibly look at it if he searches on mental health (it has links to each other). But who would be specifically interested in middle school malaise? I guess that parents, teachers, and even children themselves who are struggling with it would google it. I was thinking about what my audiences might want...... Those parents might want to know what to do to help their kids! But as I research on the solution and strategies, another recognition stopped me adding this part into my text on Wikipedia: those guidances might be modified as soon as psychologists find something new. They are not final/solid conclusion or statement but just suggestions. They are not fact, whereas all of the other information in my text is based on fact. With this concern, I didn't include those guidances into my text. Instead, I have mentioned APA website in my text, so those who have strong needs and want to know more can look it up by themselves.
[p.s.] ⏯Compare to other students, I might have my own concern about my sentences' gramma. Because I've seen there are higher editors checking for sources but no people frequently checking the writing (grammar). And I know I have such problems in my essays often. It might affect the audiences' reading experience and even the reliability my text seems to them when they read my text.
A Wikipedia article does present and explain everything has been known as thoroughly as it can, but it isn't fully determined by the audiences of what to contain in the text. Rather, the text is more based on the fact, solid knowledge that has been reviewed overtime without personal bias. In this way, scientific knowledge could be able to circulate while maintaining its reliability.
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_health_in_education
https://www.apa.org/helpcenter/middle-school
Hi Yulan,
ReplyDeleteThis is Kieran via your account. Grammarly is an app that may be a solid solution to the issue of your grammar issues. Also, as someone who has read multiple articles of yours, I can say they are still clear despite any minor errors.
... I am no better as you can see with my use of issue twice in one sentence, haha.
ReplyDelete