WIKIPEDIA: THE SCHOLAR’S
PERSPECTIVE
Dr. Adrianne WadewitzMellon Digital Scholarship Postdoctoral FellowOccidental College11 March 2014
WIKI + PEDIA
GENDER GAP RESEARCH
• Women interact with a more positive tone on Wikipedia
• Women disproportionately edit arts topics
• Women participate on more community pages
• Women’s edits are reverted more often
• Of highly active Wikipedians, women tend to make more substantial additions
HISTORY RESEARCH
• Wikipedia’s biographies are as accurate as Britannica’s
• Wikipedia’s writing style lacks persuasiveness and coherence
• Wikipedia covers more historical figures than traditional encyclopedias
JOURNALISM
Tow Center for Digital Journalism
ARTS AND CULTURE
• Profitability of a movie can be predicted based on how active its Wikipedia article is before the movie’s release
• Postcolonial critiques - #dhpoco and Rewriting Wikipedia
TEACHING WITH WIKIPEDIA: WHY?
Wikipedia is the most popular reference work in the world.
Ever.
Wikipedia has 3,000 active editors.
TEACHING WITH WIKIPEDIA: WHAT?
VISUAL LITERACY
CRITICAL THINKING
“Let's call this a matter of perspective. I am a woman. If anyone ever shows up in a delivery room where I am giving birth and attempts to use "she's lying down" as a pretext to take photographs without my permission, I will leap from the gurney, tackle the SOB, and eat the camera.” – User:Durova
CONSTRUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE
xkcd
RESEARCH AND WRITING SKILLS
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