Wikipedia talk:Education program archive/College of DuPage/ENGLI1102-055 (Summer 2015)/Course description

“Academic Writing & the Meaning of Knowledge”
Summer 2015 | 3 credit hours | 8-week session | June 8 - August 2 | Section 055: 1:00pm-3:50pm in SRC 3005

This class will teach the basics of academic writing and research -- while also promoting digital literacy -- through a rigorous inquiry of the world’s sixth most visited website. According to its own entry, Wikipedia is “a free-access, free content Internet encyclopedia, supported and hosted by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Anyone who can access the site can edit almost any of its articles…[it] constitutes the Internet’s largest and most popular general reference work.”

This class will require 2 major writing assignments: (1) a ~10-15 page academic research paper due at the end of the semester, and (2) a Wikipedia article written and edited by you. In order to successfully produce both, we will have to explore a variety of conventions related to writing, as well as some theoretical ideas related to epistemology. We will familiarize ourselves with the policies and procedures set forth by Wikipedia’s community of contributors. We will evaluate print and digital texts by conducting research in the library and online. We will hone your skills in academic writing, research, and discourse. We will practice summarizing, paraphrasing, quoting, analyzing, and synthesizing the views of other writers; in doing so, you will learn how to use those views to leverage an original argument of your own. Ultimately, you will begin to apprehend the fundamental role of rhetoric (i.e., persuasion) within the world of academic discourse, while also learning about knowledge creation, bias, credibility, objectivity, and community writing in the digital world. In sum, through classroom discussions, writing assignments, and your own online inquiries, this class promises to make you a better writer, reader, researcher, and thinker.

([ Click to return to your main course page and continue.])