The Editing of Articles

Wikipedia was created to be edited. It’s core features all revolve around it’s ‘never-ending’ nature, and most work to facilitate edits from a myriad of sources… Professional and nonprofessional, alike. Growing up on online sources such as Wikipedia, I had grown used to the idea of non-static information. I almost expected anything written on Wikipedia to change at a moment’s notice. In fact, the information changed to rapidly that I often found myself turning to Wikipedia as a source of news; I knew I could turn to Wikipedia when I was unsure about bias I heard on television news stations, because there would be a multitude of people editing the same online article, fighting to have their own voices and point of view heard. 

I felt as though it was about time that I give back to the online source that had given me so much. My first introduction into editing an article on Wikipedia came in the topic “First Love (1977 movie). I had never seen the movie before, but I chose this article solely on the fact that it needed to be copy edited- which I believe I excel at. Upon first glancing over the article, I noticed that it was relatively short. It contained only plot information, and lacked any information on critiques, reception, filming, etc. Since the article was flagged for copy editing rather than extending a short article (coupled with the fact that I knew nothing of the film), I chose to ignore the parts previous authors had left out. There must have been a reason to leave such information out, and who was I to say otherwise?

Focusing on the bulk of text which comprised ‘First Love’s plot, I noticed many things which needed to be fixed. The original author had an apparent love for semicolons, but had not a clue how to use them. Rather than seeing my beloved semicolon endure this abuse, I deleted them entirely. The semicolons were used to fashion unrelated sentences together, and I saw this occur throughout the article: there were ‘ands’ where there should have been ‘buts,’ and the paragraphs were long-winded and exhausting. I proceeded to separate the paragraphs into what I believed to be scenes, rather than having them break at random intervals. Finally, the text was replete with pronouns (rather than names of characters) which made it confusing and hard to follow. I replaced the pronoun with their name in the appropriate places.

The next article I looked at required more the simple copy editing. The ‘Fast Food Advertising’ article was flagged for original research- meaning that some information may have been forwarding some agenda of the author, rather than being unbiased. I had some expertise in the area of advertising, but I looked at the article with objectivity. I evaluated the article for which stases it was in- for a Wikipedia article, I was looking for a strictly factual or defining stases. I did notice the article shifting into a stases of value and policy towards the end, when they spoke of which countries had outlawed fast food advertisements and why. It was obvious that the author had a negative opinion on the health concerns of fast food, and that concern was well placed when speaking about a healthful advertising focus. Otherwise, the author cast a negative light on what should have been an objective piece about advertising. I did my part of removing any ‘original research’ but removing any pieces of text that were obviously serving an agenda, and were without a legitimate source.  I also moved around pieces of information to make the sections feel more cohesive, rather than a bunch of information in random order.

Finally, the last change I made was to the ‘see also’ section, which listed articles for McDonalds and Burger King only. I felt it was important to recognize the other fast food chains, and give the audience a chance to learn that some fast food restaurants actually advertise their healthful food. This is an interesting take on Bazerman’s “intertext,” because we want our audience to continue learning, and fully know the context that our references were made in. 

I did not know much about America’s advertising laws, so I did not add anything. I left the article with the hope that an author, much more well versed in advertising history and law than I am, would notice the information provided about the UK (unbiased information, that is) and would feel moved to write more on the subject. By editing these two documents, I have begun to realize that I excel greatly in the area of organization. I have a keen eye for what information goes where to make the most sense. However, I was not an expert on either topic, which severely limited the amount of detail I was able to go into.