Tag: Wikipedia

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Fiction and nonfiction writing Research tools Writing

Joys and Sorrows of Online Research

Frere Hall, in Karachi, Pakistan, which dates from the British Raj. Source: Wikipedia.

I was writing a story for myself, set in South Asia, and was using online searches to research some locales. It was fun: Finding pictures of remote valleys and small towns on maps, reading about them on Wikipedia and other sites I thought I could trust.

I don’t know if websites about Pakistan are more dangerous than other sites–it would be consistent with the increased dangers of other things, like travel. I was trying to find names for my characters and searched for lists of surnames and first names. Learned some things about Pakistani ethnicities, which are not as simple as I had assumed. Of course Pakistan has been a crossroads for millennia, why wouldn’t family names be complex? Understand that I am not bashing Pakistan. I concluded they are as diverse as we are.

Some of the websites were sketchy, wanted me to create an account, and those I got out of quickly.

Anyway, I eventually found the perfect setting in a “tribal area” of Pakistan, which I am not going to name. I was on Wikipedia and there was a short article with one picture. There were external links to two websites. I clicked on the first link and something came up which had nothing to do with the topic, and I got out of there quick. The second one led me to a site warning me that I had damaged their system by entering it and would have to pay them to fix their computer and thus be able to get my files back. In other words, I was a victim of ransomware.

This all happened really fast as I closed the browser almost instantaneously. But now my computer was frozen. I immediately unplugged the backup drive and tried “control-alt-delete” to close the browser. No response. I was able to get into Windows 10 settings and do a “reset.” It actually was the second reset in two days—the first time was related to a hardware malfunction. By now I’ve gotten pretty good at it.

Fortunately I have my computer backed up in two places, one in the cloud and also an external hard drive. Still, having to go through the reset and reinstall process took the whole day, once again, was tedious and a waste of time. The computer is now operating normally and I didn’t lose any files.

I did contact Wikipedia to report the problem. It was hard to figure out where to send the “malicious content report,” but it did eventually get forwarded to a volunteer editor. The link for reporting is info-en@wikimedia.org, in case anyone else should ever need it. A week later the volunteer sent me back a nice note and said he had removed the links.

My take-homes from this experience:

  • The virtual world has opened up to writers. The admonition to “write about what you know,” can be cautiously ignored, to some degree. What I still know about is people, and I was careful to write characters I could breathe substance into.
  • I do have a lot of generalized background knowledge about the story setting, have been to South Asian cities and villages, and was able to imagine myself there in ways that I think are convincing to the reader.
  • I was careful to only describe scenes I felt were convincing.
  • Be really careful about clicking web links! If I was doing this again, I would probably go to the library and use their computers. But that part of the story is finished. I’m now moving on to Chicago and LA, places I know more about.
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Academic writing Encylopedias Research tools Term papers

Research Tools: Using Wikipedia or Not?

Philip Roth
Novelist Philip Roth who had a problem with his Wikipedia entry.

When I used to list the dos and don’ts for my students writing term papers, I warned them

not to cite Wikipedia as a source. At the same time, I also said it wasn’t a bad idea to consult Wikipedia

in writing your paper. While this may seem contradictory and perhaps hypocritical, I assure you it is not.

The most basic reason for not citing a Wikipedia article is that your professor will almost automatically disallow it and your grade can suffer. The articles also fail to meet one of the most traditional criteria for evaluating a published source.

As I noted in yesterday’s post, Wikipedia articles might be seen as term papers rather than original scholarly research. In fact, the guidelines for contributors specifically state:

“Wikipedia does not publish original research or original thought. This includes unpublished facts, arguments, speculation, and ideas, as well as any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position. This means that Wikipedia is not the place to publish your own opinions, experiences, arguments, or conclusions.”

Given these rules, it is understandable that their entries tend to repeat the standard narrative on any topic.

More important, almost anybody can write or rewrite an article, and the author’s identity is by policy anonymous. So there is no way to tell whether it was written by high school dropout or by a specialist with a PhD. How then, professors will point out, can you evaluate the validity of an article if you are unable to check out the author’s credentials?

But if you’re unfamiliar with a topic, a good Wikipedia article can provide a useful summary of information about it; in addition, its citations, lists of further reading and external links can also give you a quick overview of the literature in the field—which is one the values of a good encyclopedia.

However, Wikipedia articles can at times be wildly inaccurate and misleading, especially in regards to lesser known topics. Scholars who come across one of these erroneous entries may not be inclined to complain or take the time to rewrite it. (Why bother rewriting something only to have some person or persons unknown promptly change it?)

The seeming absurdity of some of Wikipedia’s policies was revealed in 2012, when Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Philip Roth tried to correct a “misstatement” about the inspiration for his novel, The Human Stain. However, his request was rejected because Roth was not considered a credible source of information about himself. However, they did note the corrections when Roth published an open letter to Wikipedia in The New Yorker, since, under their rules, it was a more credible source! For a more nuanced history of this episode, I recommend two pieces published in The Guardian here and here.

— Harvey Deneroff

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Academic writing Opening statements Term papers

Academic Writing: Term Papers vs. Scholarly Papers

The Jazz Singerj
Al Jolson’s appearance in blackface in The Jazz Singer is usually seen as evidence of the film’s racism.

What is the difference between a term paper and a scholarly paper? In the pejorative sense, this may seem like an academic question. However, it is not trivial one for students who are required to write a master’s thesis or doctoral dissertation. It is especially difficult when a student’s previous experience has been limited to writing term papers. So let me list some of the ways.

A term paper is…

  • Not expected to represent original research or ideas.
  • A compilation of what others have written or said.
  • Does not usually question conventional wisdom.

A scholarly paper…

 Questions conventional wisdom.

  • Attempts to provide new insight.
  • Can develop original theories regarding your area of study.
  • Can make new application(s) of theories from other fields to your field of expertise.

 In a sense, a good example of a term paper is Wikipedia article on a well-known historical figure like Albert Einstein. Essentially every statement of fact and opinion does not seem to come from the authors, but instead is cited from a previously published source, which is noted in 194 endnotes. Where it differs from a term paper is that it does not include a List of Works Cited (Bibliography), which many instructors require.

A scholarly paper, such as those presented at academic conferences or published in a peer-reviewed journal, should be a lot more adventurous, so to speak. That is, it needs to include the author’s original ideas and insights. An example of something that challenges conventional wisdom is Charles Musser’s “Why Did Negroes Love Al Jolson and The Jazz Singer?: Melodrama, Blackface and Cosmopolitan Theatrical Culture,” published in Film History. He starts off by stating that,

“Alan Crosland’s The Jazz Singer (Warner Bros., 1927), starring Al Jolson, was the first feature length ‘talkie’, and so one of cinema’s milestones. If its importance has been impossible to ignore, the picture has been subjected to frequent, wide-ranging criticism that has tended to fall into three different but ultimately related categories. First, there has been a long-standing criticism of the film due to its excessive appeal to emotions, its sentimentality and its lack of obvious seriousness. … Second, commentators have often condemned the film for the way it depicts the Jewish immigrant community in the United States. …

“Third, and perhaps most forcefully, as Americans have continued to struggle with their fraught history of race relations, the film has come to be demonized as a racist text.”

Musser is clearly announcing he is challenging widespread criticism that The Jazz Singer is too sentimental, that it distorts the Jewish experience in the United States and that it is racist—a challenge reinforced by the title of his article. The rest of the piece is devoted to presenting his arguments to back up his thesis.

While this seems rather simple, my experience is that many students find it hard to break the habit of writing term papers and start thinking outside the box. This is especially so when they realize they also have to create a theoretical framework for their thesis or dissertation, which will be the topic for a future blog post.

— Harvey Deneroff