Fostering Student Academic Literacy through Wikipedia

By Paula Gabriela Ferrari

- Academic Summary -

The purpose of this paper is to summarize the main ideas expressed in the article by Tardy (2010) Writing for the World: Wikipedia as an Introduction to Academic Writing. With the aim of helping second language (L2) writers sharpen their academic writing skills, the author delineates the steps to compose an article for Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org).

According to Tardy (2010), students begin this writing process by examining Wikipedia articles of their interest in order to answer a set of questions aimed at identifying genre-based patterns. Once students are well acquainted with the language, forms and conventions of the encyclopedia, they choose a topic and collect and assemble data about it. In her article, Tardy (2010) highlights the importance of keeping a record of the sources since it lays the groundwork for discussing the reliability of sources.

The next step of the process consists of writing an outline of the article and paraphrasing original text. Afterwards, students write their first drafts, which are next edited by peers, with a focus on organization, content and style. During the next step, sources are formatted according to the encyclopedia standards and decisions are made regarding the need of footnotes. After that, final versions are written and hyperlinks are included so that other related articles of the encyclopedia can be accessed. Finally, students register as Wikipedia users and submit their articles for publication.

Tardy (2010) concludes that this Wikipedia-writing project can be both a challenging and gratifying experience for L2 writers as it ¨introduces students to many skills of academic research writing in a manageable and interesting way¨ (p.18). Because Wikipedia is a global website, this project helps students develop a better understanding of their audience’s expectations and boosts their confidence when expressing themselves in formal, written genres.

References

Tardy, C. M. (2010). Writing for the world: Wikipedia as an introduction to academic writing. English Teaching Forum, 48(1), 12-19

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