[WikiEN-l] Accessibility of technical articles

[Carcharoth]

Actually, I think the point of the mathematics articles, is that many
of them (especially the more advanced ones) are written and used by
practising mathematicians. See the comment here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk%253AWikiProject_Mathematics&action=historysubmit&diff=408581050&oldid=408567259

So some might object to your use of the term sophomore, but the rest I
agree with. You need people who have experience explaining things to
make things like that accessible, but I would suggest technical
writers and those who are good at popularising and explaining science
and maths topics.

Carcharoth

On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 1:57 PM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at fairpoint.net> wrote:
> 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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