A Subtle Introduction to Academic Writing

Academic Summary: " Providing a Real Purpose to Learn"

      “Writing For the World: Wikipedia as an Introduction to Academic Writing” is an educational article, which aims to show how novel academic writers “gain a real sense of audience and enjoy the satisfaction of seeing their work published on a high-traffic global website” (p. 18). In order to have the article published, students will have to fulfil the necessary academic requirements of the task by means of focusing on the following eight steps.

      This project provides students with easy scope steps to guide them and help them to fulfil the academic requirements of the already mentioned assignment. The first step within the composing process consists on examining Wikipedia while searching for different articles as examples. Then, “after students have gained some familiarity with Wikipedia and its conventional forms, they can begin to identify potential topics for their own articles” (Tardy, 2010, p. 5).

      The upcoming stage involves outlining and paraphrasing. Tardy (2010) reflects upon the idea that producing specific outlines will foster an easier move to the subsequent drafting stage. Drafting implies making a coherent text respecting the Wikipedia style for writing the article. The previously mentioned draft should be revised considering content, organization and style. In the following formatting stage, students are expected to deal with citations accordingly to what Wikipedia's demands. At this instance, students have to polish their productions and do a final proofreading.

      Then,“After registering as Wikipedia users, students can publish their articles in just a few steps. While articles are published immediately, some are quickly flagged for problems (such as missing references or insufficient content) and authors are asked by Wikipedia editors to make further revisions” (Tardy, 2010, p.18).

      To sum up, and in the light of Tardy's words:

The Wikipedia-writing project described here introduces students to many skills of academic research writing in a manageable and interesting way. While the assignment may be best suited to undergraduate or graduate-level writing, even secondary students could engage with stages of the assignment, perhaps contributing to existing Wikipedia articles rather than producing their own original articles (2010, p.18).

      Rounding up, this article aims to depict how students can be purposefully and practically introduced to the academic writing world. In order to have their articles published, students managed to fulfil the academic requirements of the task taking into account Tardy’s step-by-step guide.

References

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

http://exchanges.state.gov/englishteaching/forum/archives/docs/10-48-1-c.pdf