[WikiEN-l] Accessibility of technical articles

[Fred Bauder]

This is typical sophomoric writing, sometimes literally done by 2nd year
students, actual sophomores. It is not limited to math; my particular pet
peeve is our philosophy articles.

A skilled teacher with years of experience teaching at the college level
can often make such subjects much more understandable.

Fred

> There has been some interesting debate on the site about technical
> articles. There has been some (fairly heated) discussion here:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:FAC#Some_thoughts_from_an_FA-newbie
>
> (That discussion is mostly over, so best not to stir it up again).
>
> And more here:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Make_technical_articles_understandable#Guideline_status_restored
>
> And the section immediately below it.
>
> I found it ironic that when I discussed a particular article here:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:CBM#Mathematics_article_I_found_difficult
>
> The edit that was made to make the article more accessible (to me, at
> least), was reverted:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Poincar%C3%A9_conjecture&diff=prev&oldid=414368190
>
> With the edit summary:
>
> "It's a boundary not a surface--but no need to put in the lede, people
> can follow the link)".
>
> Unfortunately, following the link didn't really help me.
>
> "In mathematics, a 3-manifold is a 3-dimensional manifold. The
> topological, piecewise-linear, and smooth categories are all
> equivalent in three dimensions, so little distinction is made in
> whether we are dealing with say, topological 3-manifolds, or smooth
> 3-manifolds."
>
> I found the edit made to the original article much clearer, in that it
> said that the 3-sphere is the "the surface of the [[unit ball]] in
> four-dimensional space." I suppose adding the word "informally" might
> soothe mathematicians who insist on precise language.
>
> Carcharoth
>
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