Christine M. Tardy Writing for the World: Wikipedia as an Introduction to Academic Writing s students move from writing avoid plagiarism. The issue of plagia- personal essays to writing for- rism has gained significant attention A mal academic texts in Eng- among L2 writing teachers, who have lish, they face several new challenges. noted its complexity as it relates to Writing tasks in higher education students’ linguistic resources (Keck often require students to draw upon 2006), task demands (Currie 1998), outside sources and to adopt the styles and educational and sociocultural and genres of academic discourse. backgrounds regarding the use and They must conduct research, summa- re-use of words and ideas (Pecorari rize and paraphrase, cite sources, adopt 2003; Pennycook 1996). genre conventions that meet audience Academic settings also place expectations, and select words and demands on students’ genre reper- grammatical patterns that are char- toires. Academic genres may be less acteristic of less personal and more flexible than personal or expressive formal genres of writing. genres. Indeed, academic writing has These academic literacy skills can been described as requiring students pose challenges when first introduced. “to speak as we do, to try on the To conduct research, students must peculiar ways of knowing, selecting, learn to search for and evaluate sourc- evaluating, reporting, concluding, es in terms of credibility and reliabil- and arguing that define the discourse ity, developing skills of informational of our community” (Bartholomae literacy (Tardy and Courtney 2008). 1985, 134). Johns (1997) has argued Once they have located sources, stu- that classrooms can become crucial dents need to learn to paraphrase and sites for helping students develop this summarize—skills that tend to be complex knowledge of genres and more difficult in a second language socioliterate practices. Teachers can (L2). And students must learn to help students to uncover the ways in 12 2 0 1 0 N u m b e r 1 | E n g l i s h T E a c h i n g F o r u m which genre forms are connected to read- can be edited by anyone with access to ers and writers and their socially preferred the Internet…. Anyone is welcome to practices. add information, cross-references, or An additional challenge faced in academic citations, as long as they do so within writing is the issue of expertise. Academic Wikipedia’s editing policies and to writing often requires students to write from an appropriate standard. (Wikipedia an expert position, even when they do not 2009a) consider themselves to be experts on their While the website has over 75,000 active con- topics. Carrying out complicated research in tributors, it also has more than 1,000 Wiki- a second language may exacerbate the issue of pedia administrators who can protect articles expertise if students feel uncertain about their (making them inaccessible to users) and block L2 research skills as well as their L2 writing individual users from editing articles. skills. Encouraging students to draw on their Despite Wikipedia’s popularity with the multiple linguistic resources in such tasks can general public, the site has received a some- position them as multilingual and transna- what negative reputation in certain academ- tional writers who have valuable insight to ic circles, where instructors often criticize share with English-language readers, while students who use Wikipedia as a primary helping them to develop valuable biliteracy research source or even incorporate large skills (Gentil 2005). amounts of Wikipedia text into their own This article describes an approach to intro- writing. Though instructors may bemoan ducing the skills of academic writing for L2 Wikipedia, it is difficult to deny the use- writers through the process of composing an fulness of the site as a general reference. article for the web-based encyclopedia site Even more importantly, Wikipedia offers an Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org). After pro- excellent forum for students to begin con- viding a description of Wikipedia, the article fronting the challenges of academic writing: outlines stages for carrying out a Wikipedia research, citation, generic conventions, and research project. The assignment described style. Acquainting students with Wikipedia here can be easily scaled to a range of con- and its procedures for content creation and texts and levels but may be best suited for editing has the additional benefit of raising undergraduate-level writing students. their awareness about the credibility and reli- ability of information that they may locate as What is Wikipedia? Wikipedia users. The term wiki refers to a collaborative web-based space that can be modified by Writing for Wikipedia any user. One of the most well-known wikis Assignment overview is Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that In the assignment described here, students includes 262 different language editions and compose their own Wikipedia articles with over 12 million articles. Launched in 2001, the goal of publishing them on the website, Wikipedia has become a popular reference making the articles available to a worldwide source for general information on a wide audience. Students living in non-English- range of topics. Articles in Wikipedia range dominant countries have the advantage of in length from one or two sentences to more identifying and publishing on intriguing top- than 10,000 words. The Wikipedia website ics that are not covered in Wikipedia’s English describes the collaborative composing process edition; the assignment therefore allows them as follows: to draw on their personal interests, knowl- Visitors do not need specialized quali- edge, and experiences as they write for an fications to contribute. Wikipedia's audience that may know little about their intent is to have articles that cover chosen topic. My own students have written existing knowledge, not create new on topics such as a South Korean amusement knowledge (original research). This park, a Taiwanese celebrity, a Ukrainian opera means that people of all ages and cul- singer, an American romance novel author, tural and social backgrounds can write and the “spring pancake”—a popular food Wikipedia articles. Most of the articles from Beijing. E n g l i s h T E a c h i n g F o r u m | N u m b e r 1 2 0 1 0 13 To satisfy Wikipedia’s expectation that ing on the “edit this page” tab at the top of information be supported by reliable sources, the page; in the absence of computer access, students must research their topics. In doing a screen-print of a Wikipedia article can also so, they will need to locate print or online highlight this tool. Students are often sur- sources and evaluate the credibility of those prised to see that content in a major website sources. The assignment also allows students can be so easily modified. to draw on their own multilingual skills, as After discussing the basic concept of Wiki- their sources may be written in English or pedia as a collaborative global encyclopedia, other languages. Wikipedia guidelines require students can begin to look at the actual that information in the articles be supported content of the articles. To draw on their own by footnotes and general references, which experiences, ask students to print out two requires students to engage in correct cita- or three articles of interest to them to bring tion practices. The assignment therefore can to the next class session; while at least some function as an effective introduction to many of these articles should be taken from the conventions of research writing. English edition, some could also be published While the length of actual Wikipedia in the students’ other languages. Begin the articles varies greatly, classroom assignments next class by listing the titles of their selected might best be limited to 400 to 1,000 words, articles on the board and then ask students depending on the depth that instructors to group the different topics into catego- would like students to go into. A text of ries—they are likely to note categories such as around 500 words works well for a general people, events, products, objects, geographic introduction to the kinds of topics that stu- locations, and so on. In smaller groups, stu- dents are likely to write about. Publication to dents can then begin to analyze examples of the website can be a required component of articles within one or two of these categories, the assignment, or it could be an optional step using the printed samples brought to class. for extra credit. A sample assignment descrip- For instance, one group of students can ana- tion is provided in Appendix 1. lyze the sample articles that describe people, while another group can analyze articles that Step 1: Examining Wikipedia describe events. Provide a set of questions to Before students write for Wikipedia, they guide student analysis. For example: will need to develop a good understanding of the website itself, including the general • What kind of information is included guidelines for contributing, the range of top- in the article? ics covered, and the kind of information that • What kind of information is excluded? is commonly included in an article. It is useful • Using several sample articles in your to begin by finding out what students cur- category, look for any patterns in the rently know about Wikipedia and how they organization of the articles. What infor- use the site. Students will often share what mation is typically included first? Next? they have heard about Wikipedia from other If there are headings in the articles, teachers—for example, many of my students do you notice any that are commonly had been told by their teachers not to use used? Wikipedia.