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

WIKI + PEDIA

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