Academic Summary About the Use of Wikipedia to Develop Literacy Skills

          The process of learning to write academically may pose certain challenges to Second Language students. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the educational article "Writing for the World: Wikipedia as an Introduction to Academic Writing",  written by Tardy (2010). The article consists of an introductory explanation of the topic, followed by a detailed definition of Wikipedia and a thorough description of the assignment implemented in the project under analysis. Next, the eight steps of the project are deeply explored, supported by three Figures containing samples of an outline, a first draft, and a near-final draft with footnotes and wiki links, respectively. After the Conclusions Section, the References Section, and a brief description of the author’s professional experience, two Appendixes have been included.

          Throughout the project, the nature of Wikipedia as a collaborative global encyclopedia is explored in detail, and students are introduced to the fact that “Wikipedia summarizes existing knowledge while Academic Writing aims to create knowledge” (Tardy, 2010, p. 15).  The students are given instructions as regards how to avoid plagiarism, select topics, organize facts, and paraphrase as well as acknowledge sources correctly. In addition, they are guided in the process of drafting, summarizing, revising, formatting, polishing and publishing their work, taking into consideration their English-language readers (pp. 14-18).

          The Wiki-writing project presented in Tardy’s (2010) article poses many challenges to Second Language students during the process of acquiring academic literacy skills. She asserts that it can be implemented in different contexts, ranging from undergraduate or graduate level to secondary school students (p. 18). In short, the academic use of Wikipedia contributes to the achievement of a real sense of audience, and it also provides the invaluable experience of students seeing their productions publicly acknowledged “on  a high-traffic global website” (Tardy, 2010, p. 18).

References

Tardy, C. M. (2010). Writing for the world: Wikipedia as an introduction to academic writing. English Teaching Forum, 1, pp. 12-19, 27. Retrieved October 2012, from  http://exchanges.state.gov/englishteaching/forum/archives/docs/10-48-1-c.pdf