Hey folks,
Today I was browsing the many fine articles that have been edited on EN as part of the Wikipedia initiative by the Association for Psychological Science.[1] There is no doubt that the articles which these professors and students have worked are better by any measure of quality.
But I was left with a nagging annoyance: these articles are almost all incomprehensible to someone without a advanced college education and a high degree of proficiency in English. Topics as basic as [[job satisfaction]] or [[social network game]] are written like a literature review or a paper for a journal. When an article about gaming on Facebook is that academic, I think we might have a problem. ;-)
That's not to say the articles written by regular volunteers are always so concise and clear. But I think it's pretty obvious that professors and grad students in particular have trouble adapting to a more general interest audience. This is an issue that could seriously impact how useful Wikipedia is to most of our potential readership around the world.
I think the addition of uncovered topics and much-needed citations balances out the inherent tendency of academics to write unnecessarily complex prose. But maybe there are ways that folks in the General Education Program at the WMF and in volunteer projects can start to be bolder about letting academics know that they direly need to conform to the Wikipedia style of "Writing should be clear and concise. Plain English works best: avoid ambiguity, jargon, and vague or unnecessarily complex wording."
Thoughts? Do people from non-English outreach programs to academics have any similar experiences?
Steven
1. http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/members/aps-wikipedia-initiati...
My main thought is that the statement: "Writing should be clear and concise. Plain English works best: avoid ambiguity, jargon, and vague or unnecessarily complex wording" is somewhat self-contradictory. Jargon exists in order to increase precision and decrease vagueness/ unnecessary wording. That is why academics, or really any community of professionals, tend to develop it. However, if one uses too much of it, the reader begins to feel that he needs a higher level degree to understand what's going on. People who are not good writers tend to poorly handle the balance between needing to use common language and being precise.
Getting people to "conform" to a style of writing that is somewhat contradictory and may require a skilled eye to interpret seems to me a bit of an unnecessarily complex battle. But I agree that maybe more can be done to highlight to people that they aren't really writing in a way that others understand. Or even somehow flagging to other editors who are better at writing that re-styling may be necessary. I'm all for making it easy for people to contribute their knowledge in a way they are comfortable with and then making it easy for others to make that knowledge more accessible. Divide and conquer, so to speak.
On Mon, May 28, 2012 at 6:30 PM, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.comwrote:
Hey folks,
Today I was browsing the many fine articles that have been edited on EN as part of the Wikipedia initiative by the Association for Psychological Science.[1] There is no doubt that the articles which these professors and students have worked are better by any measure of quality.
But I was left with a nagging annoyance: these articles are almost all incomprehensible to someone without a advanced college education and a high degree of proficiency in English. Topics as basic as [[job satisfaction]] or [[social network game]] are written like a literature review or a paper for a journal. When an article about gaming on Facebook is that academic, I think we might have a problem. ;-)
That's not to say the articles written by regular volunteers are always so concise and clear. But I think it's pretty obvious that professors and grad students in particular have trouble adapting to a more general interest audience. This is an issue that could seriously impact how useful Wikipedia is to most of our potential readership around the world.
I think the addition of uncovered topics and much-needed citations balances out the inherent tendency of academics to write unnecessarily complex prose. But maybe there are ways that folks in the General Education Program at the WMF and in volunteer projects can start to be bolder about letting academics know that they direly need to conform to the Wikipedia style of "Writing should be clear and concise. Plain English works best: avoid ambiguity, jargon, and vague or unnecessarily complex wording."
Thoughts? Do people from non-English outreach programs to academics have any similar experiences?
Steven
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/members/aps-wikipedia-initiati... _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
On 5/28/2012 5:08 PM, Anya Shyrokova wrote:
My main thought is that the statement: "Writing should be clear and concise. Plain English works best: avoid ambiguity, jargon, and vague or unnecessarily complex wording" is somewhat self-contradictory. Jargon exists in order to increase precision and decrease vagueness/ unnecessary wording. That is why academics, or really any community of professionals, tend to develop it. However, if one uses too much of it, the reader begins to feel that he needs a higher level degree to understand what's going on. People who are not good writers tend to poorly handle the balance between needing to use common language and being precise.
The great advantage of using a wiki to create an encyclopedia is that it allows a community to collaborate in building it. As Anya's insight indicates, communities tend to develop their own language in order to communicate about issues. These languages invariably specialize to meet community needs, like conveying precise meanings, and become a little challenging for outsiders to understand (our own community jargon illustrates the point quite well).
Well, the great advantage of creating an encyclopedia on the web is that it enables us to use hyperlinks. In this environment, writing that uses a specialized vocabulary should take advantage of hyperlinks in order to explain the language. In theory, that alone would be able to solve most of the problem here.
I agree that academics, among others, may need to improve their writing styles in order to better serve our readers. But I think there are more fundamental cultural issues at work as well, and addressing some of those might produce an encyclopedia in which it's easier for writers to stick with language they find accurate and precise. These issues include: concerns about "overlinking" in article text; hostility to "redlinks" for articles not yet created; work that focuses exclusively on single articles rather than how they fit into the context of the encyclopedia; greater interest in working on new, hot topics than older, established knowledge; and lack of skill being applied to crafting articles about core concepts in many fields. For that matter, a stronger and more effectively utilized Wiktionary would help as well.
--Michael Snow
2012/5/29 Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com:
Thoughts? Do people from non-English outreach programs to academics have any similar experiences?
Depends on the particular project and the people involved.
In a project about Tort law we got several dozens of Hebrew articles about the subject and they were long, detailed, very well-referenced - and barely readable because of the legalese. Which is a shame, because this topic is quite useful for the general public.
In another project about political economy, we got articles about potentially hard-to-understand things like Monetary union and Trade tariffs. They were of comparable quality with regards to referencing and comprehensiveness, but they were very readable, too (at least to me, and I'm not an economist). The lecturer with whom we worked on this project understood that Wikipedia is supposed to be accessible and demanded this in the assignment description.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
On Mon, May 28, 2012 at 6:30 PM, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.comwrote:
Thoughts? Steven
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Time will tell how these outreach articles work, and by time I mean years. We sell the collaborative model that makes everything accessible over time with community editing. If an article particular to any outreach project reaches the cop-yedit of any contributors, that's part of the goal and process. I'm hesitant to solicit widespread review of these projects, because that kind of defeats the exploration of how once an article is written, it is created by others. Articles on math and physics are often times incomprehensible to the lay-person, but time and subjectivity invites cleanup. We're eleven years in and just beginning the experiment.
On Tuesday, May 29, 2012 9:30 AM Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
But I was left with a nagging annoyance: these articles are almost all incomprehensible to someone without a advanced college education and a high degree of proficiency in English. Topics as basic as [[job satisfaction]] or [[social network game]] are written like a literature review or a paper for a journal. When an article about gaming on Facebook is that academic, I think we might have a problem. ;-)
'...articles written by regular volunteers...'
'...adapting to a more general interest audience.'
'to write unnecessarily complex prose.'
'"Writing should be clear and concise. Plain English works best: avoid ambiguity, jargon, and vague or unnecessarily complex wording."'
Hi Steven, In wanting to express thoughts, in the form of writing them, we can stumble when attempting to make a message clear and concise, as do we all from time to time. We are not alone in recognising that the act of writing requires careful editing. I have been selective (above) in picking out just some of the words and phrases you use in your emailed paragraphs; this is a willful act on my part, and more than likely is imbued with unfairness on my part, as to the selection. My selection of your words could be said to be presented 'out of context', and I would agree with that call.
However, when I read your words, the essence of your comments is clear in that part of your message is couched in attacking good prose because it is too difficult to read and understand. I remind myself that you don't mean to engage in a call for the dumbing down of articles in the 'Wikipedia Encyclopedia' when you suggest that they are too difficult to comprehend by 'the man in the street', (my phrase, and a commonly used one) by which I mean the 'ordinary citizen', the 'ordinary person'; it is a much used phrase I sardonically use in tandem with an apology to women. But here I have strayed from the clear and concise message I would like to be able to convey to you; so back on track...
Good writing requires attention to good rules on writing; to a degree this is the rule rather than the exception. The magnificent work-in-progress that is the Wikipedia encyclopedia becomes much-lauded because people from all over the world and from all walks of life will and do contribute to it growth. If we begin to consider lowering the bar of excellence to some point of middle acceptance we are acting exclusively; we are not acting in good faith; we are not acting inclusively.
Another personal comment if I may. It is my experience that those who, metaphorically speaking, 'cry' about having to read too many words are often too used to not wanting to read much and who have developed an ability to concentrate for shorter periods than others. Who is to say without the benefit of hindsight that this is a bad thing; but it seems a less than desirable trend.
Anne Frazer Secretary Wikimedia Australia
----- Original Message ----- From: "Steven Walling" steven.walling@gmail.com To: "Wikimedia Mailing List" wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2012 9:30 AM Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Academics and accessible writing
Hey folks,
Today I was browsing the many fine articles that have been edited on EN as part of the Wikipedia initiative by the Association for Psychological Science.[1] There is no doubt that the articles which these professors and students have worked are better by any measure of quality.
But I was left with a nagging annoyance: these articles are almost all incomprehensible to someone without a advanced college education and a high degree of proficiency in English. Topics as basic as [[job satisfaction]] or [[social network game]] are written like a literature review or a paper for a journal. When an article about gaming on Facebook is that academic, I think we might have a problem. ;-)
That's not to say the articles written by regular volunteers are always so concise and clear. But I think it's pretty obvious that professors and grad students in particular have trouble adapting to a more general interest audience. This is an issue that could seriously impact how useful Wikipedia is to most of our potential readership around the world.
I think the addition of uncovered topics and much-needed citations balances out the inherent tendency of academics to write unnecessarily complex prose. But maybe there are ways that folks in the General Education Program at the WMF and in volunteer projects can start to be bolder about letting academics know that they direly need to conform to the Wikipedia style of "Writing should be clear and concise. Plain English works best: avoid ambiguity, jargon, and vague or unnecessarily complex wording."
Thoughts? Do people from non-English outreach programs to academics have any similar experiences?
Steven
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/members/aps-wikipedia-initiati... _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
On Mon, May 28, 2012 at 11:41 PM, Ms. Anne Frazer frazera@bigpond.comwrote:
However, when I read your words, the essence of your comments is clear in that part of your message is couched in attacking good prose because it is too difficult to read and understand. I remind myself that you don't mean to engage in a call for the dumbing down of articles in the 'Wikipedia Encyclopedia' when you suggest that they are too difficult to comprehend by 'the man in the street', (my phrase, and a commonly used one) by which I mean the 'ordinary citizen', the 'ordinary person'; it is a much used phrase I sardonically use in tandem with an apology to women. But here I have strayed from the clear and concise message I would like to be able to convey to you; so back on track...
Good writing requires attention to good rules on writing; to a degree this is the rule rather than the exception. The magnificent work-in-progress that is the Wikipedia encyclopedia becomes much-lauded because people from all over the world and from all walks of life will and do contribute to it growth. If we begin to consider lowering the bar of excellence to some point of middle acceptance we are acting exclusively; we are not acting in good faith; we are not acting inclusively.]
The issue is not with the high standard of prose, the issue is with reader comprehension. I'm a fairly bright person at this, and I cannot make heads or tails of the theoretical properties of the Higgs boson[1], much less what the caption of the second image means[2] without about twenty minutes of reading. For a reference work, that's a bit iffy. It's supposed to be a jumping point to grasp the subject.
Really, it's not about style. It's about understanding, because without out that you cannot teach.
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_Boson#Theoretical_properties 2. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:One-loop-diagram.svg "A one-loop Feynman diagramhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feynman_diagram of the first-order correction to the Higgs mass. The Higgs boson couples strongly to the top quark http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_quark so it might decay into top–anti-top quark pairs if it were heavy enough."
On 29 May 2012 05:41, Ms. Anne Frazer frazera@bigpond.com wrote:
However, when I read your words, the essence of your comments is clear in that part of your message is couched in attacking good prose because it is too difficult to read and understand. I remind myself that you don't mean to engage in a call for the dumbing down of articles in the 'Wikipedia Encyclopedia' when you suggest that they are too difficult to comprehend by 'the man in the street', (my phrase, and a commonly used one) by which I mean the 'ordinary citizen', the 'ordinary person'; it is a much used phrase I sardonically use in tandem with an apology to women. But here I have strayed from the clear and concise message I would like to be able to convey to you; so back on track...
No, I think it's incorrect to assume "readable" is a euphemism for "dumbed down". Frankly, many academics are terrible writers. Because most people are terrible writers. Being in the Internet era helps (because everyone writes all the time), but a lot of academics are in fact much less comprehensible than they think they are. Popular science writing is *hard*.
Steven - one idea that occurs to me is to give them a target audience: e.g. an extremely smart twelve-year-old. "A kid who is very smart and who is really interested, but knows *nothing*. Can you inform them? Use all the wikilink cross-references they would need." This will be easy to visualise because smart adults tend to previously have been smart kids.
- d.
2012/5/29 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
No, I think it's incorrect to assume "readable" is a euphemism for "dumbed down". Frankly, many academics are terrible writers. Because most people are terrible writers.
Indeed. As Wikipedia is a general reference work I think that readability is part of the quality. A text that is not understood by the supposed readers is a bad text. In the Wikipedia lessons at Stuttgart School for the Media, which I accompany, I try to stress out how important this quality element is.
Frequently I don't understand Wikipedia articles which deal with technical and (natural) science subjects. We historians have the reputation to be some of the best writers among scientists, but sometimes I wonder whether my articles are as comprehensible as I believe they are. I would like to see more feedback from readers, but am afraid that the Article Feedback Tool is still not a good solution.
I am afraid that most of those Wikipedians who could need readability lessons are not aware of the problems they cause to readers.
Kind regards Ziko
On 29 May 2012 00:30, Steven Walling steven.walling@gmail.com wrote:
I think the addition of uncovered topics and much-needed citations balances out the inherent tendency of academics to write unnecessarily complex prose. But maybe there are ways that folks in the General Education Program at the WMF and in volunteer projects can start to be bolder about letting academics know that they direly need to conform to the Wikipedia style of "Writing should be clear and concise. Plain English works best: avoid ambiguity, jargon, and vague or unnecessarily complex wording." Thoughts? Do people from non-English outreach programs to academics have any similar experiences?
In general, it's much easier to find good contributors of facts than it is to find good contributors of facts who are also good writers. Hence the flat dull grey Wikipedia house style - it's what happens when people who aren't good writers write. And why any idiosyncrasy is ruthlessly stamped out.
Although it's a problem, I'd suggest you completely leave it - having the content is an improvement on not having it. YMMV of course.
There's always judicious addition of {{technical}} at the top ... but the trouble is when it's actually quite a precise and technical topic.
- d.
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