Thursday, April 25, 2013

Wikipedia Analytic Reflection


          The creation of this Wikipedia article has proven to be more meticulous than I could have ever imagined. As a college student I have been creating scholarly based arguments for quite some time, but the task of transposing content onto a digital platform was something new to me. As intriguing as the open environment of Wikipedia is it yields a sense of anxiety and immediacy as the information published should be the most current and accurate content available. I found that Ridolfo and DeVoss’ piece on “Rhetorical Velocity” to be very helpful in that composing was to be seen as a “strategic approach” rather than the systematic approach of turning in an assignment to a professor.
            “Rhetorical Velocity” made me notice how important the order of content and facts within the content are. I found my information floodgates to be overwhelmed during the writing of the definition sections for medium and mode. I had so much information available! As Wikipedia authors we need to judge what should be included as it is a direct reflection on the assumptions that will be made by the viewers.
            Earlier in the semester I created a “sci-tech” blog where a claim is supported by a scientific study. This was the closest to any sort of experience I had with this style of writing considering I had never written for Wikipedia in the past. I had to take into consideration that the audience of this content was unclear hence could not use jargon or any enthymemes that confused viewers. As a transformer of information I tried making sure that information was clear and unbiased. “Blogging as a Social Action” talks about how “the weblog phenomenon raises a number of rhetorical issues including the intersection of the public and private that weblogs seem to invite.” This helped guide me through the writing process. I knew that my section would be closer to the beginning of the article hence I stayed away from diving too deep into the information. I knew the article would efficiently give users an understanding by the end.

Works Cited
Devoss, Nicole, and Jim Ridolfo. "Composing for Recomposition: Rhetorical Velocity and          
Delivery." (2009): n. page. Web. 7 Mar.        2013.             <http://www.technorhetoric.net/13.2/topoi/ridolfo_devoss/index.html>.

Badger, Meredith. "Visual Blogs." Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community, and Culture of Weblogs." Ed. Laura J. Gurak, Smiljana Antonijevic, Laurie Johnson, Clancy Ratliff, and Jessica Reyman. June 2004. 10 April 2005 <http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/visual_blogs.html>.

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