A Lesson from our Predecessors

At first glance, it’s easy to see an immediate difference between the Marshall McLuhan and Michelle Citron biographies on Wikipedia. The amount of content featured in the latter biography pales in comparison to the former. There’s a staggering amount of information on Marshall McLuhan, and the sources or notes at the end of his biography is more than ten times that of Michelle Citron’s. This could partially have something to do with the fact that Michelle's article is a living biography. One can hope that she is still making contributions to her field, which will provide more content to add to the article. However, that is not to say that living biographies are short compared to those who have lived out the entirety of their live yet, only that information is still being generated by the subject. Towards the end, the both include the standard “Notes” and “External Links” section, but McLuhan also features a “Further Reading” section, which I think is extremely helpful. Most users of Wikipedia are students who are in need of research. Writing an article for Wikipedia requires writing for a broad, general audience, but those in need of more or specified information are at least point in the right direction in McLuhan’s article. I’d really like to include a similar section in our own article on Multimodality. There are certain things that may not fit into our subheadings, but are still worth a mention for those readers who may be interested in learning more.

The structure of both is similar, though McLuhan has more subheadings in his contents. The both have a life and career section; however, Citron’s is split up between two sections as opposed to McLuhan’s one. I think one of the reasons behind this is to expand the article a bit more. If Citron’s early life and career were condensed into one section, the article would most likely look even shorter than it already it. Another reason could be that McLuhan’s career was a large part of his life and vice versa, so it made more sense to group them together.

Both articles cover major works. With Citron, there are tables of data regarding her filmography and multimedia projects. There’s also another section of authored works or books she’s contributed to. Personally, I would have liked to have seen this formatted like the two sections before that with the tables, just for continuity’s sake. McLuhan’s lacks tables of organization, but his major works have their own headings. Since they probably require more of an explanation, using a table wouldn’t function well given the content. I think this is something that needs to be remembered when composing. What is the best way to display this information? It wouldn’t make sense to try and write paragraphs upon paragraphs on Citron’s films if the gist of them could be summed up succinctly in rows and columns, which made the content easier to read. Though, I am concerned that the information has been rendered too simple. Despite Donald Lazere’s “Avoiding Oversimplification and Recognizing Complexity” addressing these terms in public arguments, I feel like they also apply to writing for Wikipedia. In “Oversimplification” the term is explained as “appealing to the lowest common denominator of critical thinking skills” (245). Although you want to make the content easy to read and comprehend, there’s the risk of making it too simple. With Citron’s tables, it could be taken as a lazy regurgitation of facts. I know that as a reader, I don’t want to be treated like an idiot nor do I want to learn something that I could have just done on my own. I think the drawing point of Wikipedia is their ability to amass varied information in one place on a particular subject. It’s entirely possible that I could have found Citron’s entire filmography on another site, but with more added depth.

Citron’s biography, surprisingly, features absolutely no images or illustrations. As a user of Wikipedia, I expect an image of the subject at the very least. McLuhan’s biography contains three. There is one of him, a diagram that helps illustrate one of his key terms, and a street that’s been co-named after him as a part of the “Legacy” section. I’d like to include photos or illustrations in our article. Perhaps it’s a good way to include examples without having to go into explanations for each one.

With Henry Sidgwick’s biographies, I much preferred the Wikipedia version. Being hit with blocks of text in the encyclopedia entry can be an unpleasant sight to a reader, so by breaking it up and including links via the contents is helpful. I also appreciate the tables used in Wikipedia’s entry because the information is optional. It doesn’t bog down the article buy inserting the information into a paragraph. Rather, it’s easier to access and makes the article less cluttered.

I’m also wary of the tone in the encyclopedia entry. Martha Kolln’s “The Writer’s Voice” says “clearly, it’s the rhetorical situation – the topic, the purpose, the audience – that determines the tone” (108). There’s a chance that I’ve incorrectly identified one of those three and I’m misreading the tone within the article. However, I remember reading a statement that started with “although the last few years have seen an remarkable rehabilitation of ethical hedonism…” To me, this bordered on making a claim and I felt the Wikipedia entry had more of a neutral tone, surprisingly, than the encyclopedia entry.

For a featured article, I’ve chosen the one on Windsor Castle. It’s a rather lengthy article, but I think it’s quite well done. There is a nice balance between photos and images when compared with the text, and all of the images have proper copyright. It appears to be well researched, but I’ve noticed that a lot of the notes are attributed to a lot of the same sources, so I’d have some concern with source bias. Another concern I had was with the lead. In Wikipedia’s Featured Article criteria, it explains that the lead should be concise. The lead in this article seems a little long and includes information that I feel isn’t particularly necessary (e.g. “More than five hundred people live and work in Windsor Castle”). These things, though, are miniscule when compared to the article as a whole. 

Examining these different articles puts organization and display into perspective. During our Skype conversations with Dr. Wadewitz, it's been mentioned that the first test of whether or not a Wikipedia article gets deleted is if it looks like a Wikipedia article. There's a saying that people eat with their eyes first. If a meal doesn't look visually appealing, it may keep an individual from consuming it. The same can be said for text. If the information isn't divided into logical chunks or isn't otherwise organized in a more digestible, readable manner, it's very likely that an individual may opt to look elsewhere to get their information.