User:Queenala/sandbox

ENGL 470D

3/23/2017

Reflection – Team Lee

Team Members:

Queena Lau

Mikayla Erceg

Sam Du Bois

Joon Rho

Topic and Rationale:

Team Lee chose to create a new article for Nancy Lee’s Dead Girls (novel). This topic was chosen because there was no existing page for the book, despite it having been in publication since 2002. Since the book was Nancy Lee’s debut novel, had received numerous awards, was overall well-received by critics, is available in several languages, and has been published overseas, we felt that by creating a Wikipedia page for the collection we would be actively engaging with the establishment and reception of CanLit. In addition, the book is reportedly inspired by the missing and murdered women in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside between the 1980’s to 2000’s; by bringing this book to light, we would also be bringing to light the largely ignored topic, and context, of the marginalized in Canadian literature, the general media, and Vancouver’s literary culture.

Group Reflection:

Overall, we surprised at the interactive and immediate nature of the Wikipedia community. Our original topic received feedback almost as soon as it was posted on our sandbox; the reply was very insightful, if somewhat discouraging. Stating that they had already attempted to edit the same article, the wiki-user said that there was no available information for the outline we had made. After conducting some additional research, we found that the user was indeed correct. This ultimately allowed us to save a lot of time and effort that would otherwise have been spent on further research, and allowed us to make an informed decision to develop an entirely different topic and plan.

The assignment also helped many of us develop new technical and transferable skills. We learned how to edit an article via technical platform, how to edit an article based on Wikipedia’s regulations and specifications, some basic programming skills, and how to work around copyright laws. Since we were developing a new article, it was difficult for us to learn how to set the correct “tone” for the page; we were aware that Wikipedia had constraints on opinions being written as facts. As a result, developing plot summaries, without inputting judgement or opinion, for the short stories in Dead Girls was a challenge. Given Wikipedia’s genre as a non-biased source of information, we had to learn to use the correct language when describing a character—for instance, “sex worker” instead of “prostitute”. This portion of our article, which necessitated the avoidance of descriptive language when describing a series of events, stood out from other parts of the page like “reception” or “media adaptation” where using journalistic, non-biased language was easier to utilize because facts were just being reiterated. Another aspect we learned from this genre was the format, or “template” of the information. We frequently had to check with other (similar) pages on novels and short stories in to know how the information was supposed to be laid out. This included the correct titles for subheadings, the general order of subheadings, whether certain subheadings looked better bolded, and what information is typically deemed necessary to include in the article.

Overall, the group felt like we had addressed the exigency of lesser-known, but significant, Canadian literature, which was our intention from the start. Working on this article made us realize just how many other exigencies of the more marginalized have not yet been addressed. It is interesting to note, for instance, that our article on Dead Girls is now much longer, thorough, and has many more sources than the author herself. The other book listed on Nancy Lee’s Wikipedia page still has no page. Nonetheless, the group largely accomplished what we had set out to achieve. While we did not start out with any one defined goal, we did want to cover as many areas of the book as possible, both primary and secondary. We were able to locate almost hidden and/or lesser-known information about topics as a film adaptation, awards, and old newspaper reviews. Some of this information had not been publicized, and some had been taken down from the creditor’s website; this made finding certain information difficult. For instance, we were unable to find proper information on international releases, a sub-topic that was made more difficult by This sub-topic by language barriers. Also, since our project was to create a new article, we think that we may not have learned as much on how to engage with other wiki-users via the Talk function when editing an article, as some of the other groups in the class.

Our team functioned very well as a group; we met deadlines and divided tasks equally, which allowed us to develop a high quality article, with numerous sources. Each member picked up tasks that needed to be done, and all members were open to constructive criticism and edits from/by the other members. All members were also comfortable enough with each other and the project to ask questions and ask for help, when needed.

If we were to do this project again, we would try to read all of the stories in the novel in advance. The article took longer to create because we had to take time out to read the stories, and watch the film. Alternatively, we would also try to create an article on a novel or topic that the majority of members were already familiar with. In this scenario, only one of our group member had prior knowledge.

Finally, our experience with this project really taught us more about the interactivity of Web 2.0, but in a more scholarly sense. While most of us may have experience with more personal platforms such as Facebook, or Reddit, or Twitter, this project taught us how to contribute to platforms like Wikipedia, where the majority of us have only read and used as a source of information. This project allowed us to become an intermediary source and author for specific, general, and global communities. It also taught us more about how different Web 2.0’s function, which allows us to make more informed comparisons. For instance, we were not aware that Wikipedians had talk pages for discussion, nor did we know that there was a very specific protocol for edits and interactions. We learned how Wikipedia defines “reliability”, and we learned of an entirely new Web 2.0 community “behind the scenes”. We found it interesting that this production structure existed. It was almost a little daunting to enter this community at first, because everyone appeared already well versed in these scholarly and social dynamics. However, once we started to post on talks and compare articles, it became easier to let go of our own work and allow it to be edited by the community, which is the point of collaborative work in the age of Web 2.0.

Works Cited

Lee, Nancy. Dead Girls. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart. Ltd, 2002. Print