Wikipedia Editing

Contemporary Editing Skills and Interaction with Wikipedia

Welcome back to the home of unoriginal thinking. For all those who have read the About Me Section of the blog (read it, please), this blog is not just for further exploration of my own literary interests. It is also a requirement for a module I am taking as part of my MA in Modernities. Since this blog is partly an assessment for my course, I am going to have to directly discuss my course work. Shock, horror. Please, remain calm.

This post is to reflect on my experiences with my last in-class assignment; Wikithon 2023. For those outside of UCC, Wikithon is an annual event in the English postgraduate courses. If you’d like to look at some of my work on this assignment or anyone else in the English Department, hop onto Twitter and type in #EditWikiLit. The task itself is to find a Wikipedia article or a couple of articles and make edits to the content. These edits can be as simple as improving the language within the text, to make it more accessible and clearer for the readers. In other cases, it could be adding further information on either an author or the material being discussed in the article. Ultimately the assignment allows for participants like myself to work on their own editing, research skills, and to apply these to an online platform. Before I begin my self-evaluation of my approaches as an online academic, I would like to discuss the article I worked on as well as my changes to the previous entry. For the assignment, I opted to work on the Wikipedia entry for The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. One of the reasons I selected this entry was because it is a novella that I am particularly fond of. In fact, it will be one of the fundamental texts I will be discussing in my master’s dissertation. For this reason, I felt that I had done a decent amount of research into the novella itself and felt confident in re-examining some of the previous entries on Wikipedia.

In my opinion, some sections of the Wikipedia entry page seemed to be vague and even lacking in relevant information. I would like to comment on the strengths of the original entry in highlighting the different interpretations of the novella itself. For example, the comments of Edmund Wilson in 1934, speak towards the growing awareness of psychoanalytic readings of literature. This allowed for a greater questioning of literature, mainly by allowing for the questioning of the mental state of the narrator or protagonist within the text. While the original editor did not comment on their own personal opinion towards this reading, I felt that it could be misleading. It is important to note previous literary critics' findings on the text, especially on the interpretation of the novella. However, this can often give the false impression that there is a correct reading of the novella. Thus, ignoring the possibility that the author himself had no correct interpretation in mind, and that it was his intention that the novella remains ambiguous. The novella itself though cannot be truly categorised as ambiguous, if a possibility remains that there is a “correct reading”.

For this reason, I decided to add a section to the original Wikipedia entry which specifically deals with the element of Ambiguity within the novella. In order to remain objective, I felt that it was important for me to cite the work of a literary critic. By doing so, I would avoid having the information I provided being seen as subjective and lacking in evidence. The literary critic I chose to cite as my reference point was Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan who is a Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1977, Rimmon-Kenan published a case study on The Turn of the Screw by Henry James as well as several other of his works. In this study, she laid out her theories on concepts such as ambiguity and critically applied them to each of his published works. While I avoided reiterating the work of Rimmon-Kenan verbatim, I did use it as a framework for the section on Ambiguity.

In structuring the section on Ambiguity, I thought it would be important to give examples, proving the consistent attempts by James to create an ambiguous atmosphere within the text. The first piece of evidence I provided was based on the narration of the novella itself; the narration framework within the novella tends to get confusing and overlaps at times. In the opening of the novella it is clear that Douglas, the narrator of the tale was not present at Bly Manor, and rather than explaining his own experiences at the Manor, relies heavily on the manuscript of the Governess. As mentioned within the Wikipedia entry, this manuscript may be a primary source of the events witnessed by the Governess. Without a strong sense of first-person narration within the novella, James is allowing for the events described within the novella to be left open to speculation, without any true indication of the validity of the claims. The second piece of proof added to this section was the lack of transparency within the dialogue. Dialogue, rather than providing clarity within the novella, seems to further complicate the understanding of the readers. In the case of Mrs. Grose, the housemaid in particular, a lot of her dialogue seems open to interpretation. James’s formulaic approach to dialogue and language allowed for most of the conversations to be seen as misleading. I would argue that a lot of the commentary made by other characters within the novella seems to always hold a possible secondary meaning.

After discussing the editorial changes I have made within the entry itself, I would like to take the opportunity to reflect on my experience with this assignment. Initially, I was a little skeptical about the actual process, especially the element of live tweeting the event itself. However, upon reflection, I can admit I was a little too quick to dismiss the relevance of this assignment in future academic careers.

A greater part of academia is learning transferable skills and being able to adapt to online platforms. As social media become more and more prominent within our own everyday interactions, academics are having to be more embracive of this culture for the growth and sharing of information. In my module “EN6009: Contemporary Research: Skills, Methods, and Strategies”, we are being taught more current research skills in order to better prepare ourselves for the ever-changing face of academia. The live tweeting element, which was perhaps the area I was most skeptical was very enjoyable. It was interesting to be taking part in the assignment and describing it online at the same time. Furthermore, it was great to see the interesting tweets and work my classmates were making at the same time. In an odd way, it made the experience itself seem more inter-connective and communal. This perhaps again reflects on the future of academia itself: research and literary criticism do not have to be viewed as an entirely individual practice anymore. Rather social media provides a community of like-minded people and this further allows the promotion and exploration of research for not just academics but for the wider public. In general, I am pleased with the work I provided for the Wikipedia entry. I felt that I was consistent as well as careful with my choice of language. As this was my first experience as an editor of a Wikipedia entry, I was cautious to avoid being too informal with my wording. I was even more worried about the prospect of approaching the entry in a subjective manner. I aimed to keep the language objective and neutral as I would for any other research-based assignment. I was also happy that I was able to develop my argument with the aid of examples to give a better understanding to readers. As I would treat any other assignment, I wanted to make it clear that I not only understood the points I was making fully but that I was able to make the information accessible to an audience. It would be hard to say the entry was improved by my edits if no one could understand the changes. If I had to criticise an element of my work, I would perhaps have introduced a secondary literary critic besides Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan. Although I stand by my choice to make her findings a focal point to the framing of my argument, I can see that a further opinion would have strengthened my argument. It would have shown that I had researched literary critics outside Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan, which would have added a greater weight to my edits. Furthermore, a secondary literary critic would have also shown the validity of the work of Rimmon-Kenan. Her findings are not uncommon; there are many other literary critics who have similar opinions about the work of Henry James. However, for those who are unfamiliar with scholarly work on Henry James, this is not common knowledge. It could be seen as assumptive that Rimmon-Kenan is not in the minority of literary critics. Rather I opted to cite her as a reference point as a representative for those who share a similar school of thought. As her original publication was in 1977, it might have been useful to have cited a secondary referee from a more recent time period. Wowwww that post really got away from me. Once, again I am not original, but I have a lot to say. To end this blog on a high note, I will definitely continue to take part in more similar research endeavours and be more embracive of the modern approaches of academia. Until next time, Stay unoriginal

Secondary Reading:

James, Henry. The Turn of the Screw. Penguin Classics, 2011.

Rimmon- Kenan, Shlommith. The Concept of Ambiguity- The Examples of James. University of Chicago Press, 1977.

Wilson, Edmund. "The Ambiguity of Henry James". Hound and Horn, vol.7, 1933/1934, pp.385-406.