[Wikimedia-l] Academics and accessible writing

[Keegan Peterzell]

On Mon, May 28, 2012 at 11:41 PM, Ms. Anne Frazer <frazera at 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...
>
> 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
diagram<http://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."


-- 
~Keegan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan