Wikipedia and Modern Day Sourcing

Part One:

After looking at the stub categories on Wikipedia, which say they need improving, I noticed a trend. A lot of the ones that need improving are topics of pop culture from an earlier time period (i.e. 1950s German film stubs) is something very specific about the pop culture during period in time. There are other topics like this that need improving as well. Wikipedia organizes their information numerically then alphabetically which makes it easier for a user to search through the website. 

I searched for the following words:

Editing

Wikipedia: How to Edit A Page

Public Discourse

Audience

Debate

Discourse

Communications

Nonverbal Communication

Style (manner of address)

Context (language use)

Interpersonal Communication

Message

I found that most words that I thought of that connected to public discourse on Wikipedia turned out to need improvement in some type of form or redirect the reader to a similar word. The word editor redirects to editing, which I found to be a natural connection because the page describes editing in various types of mediums and what the people who work with those mediums are called. Within that entry there are other words that redirect to connected phrases. For example, “Technical Writing” is a part of the editing page and Wiki suggests you see “technical writing” and “technical communication.” I found it helpful that the pages suggest words that may be connected to or that embody a word that may be too broad to begin with. This can help aid in searching for users. Wikipedia: How to Edit a Page is the next word I looked into, which is also linked to the Wikipedia Editing Policy. The embedded links in these posts were extremely helpful. Then I thought I would Wikipedia “public discourse” in order to see what words or links Wikipedia would suggest. What was interesting there is that Wikipedia directed me to “public sphere” instead. This meant that the person who composed the page felt that the phrase public discourse focused more on the “area” than the “communication” aspects of the word.  This word had 42 references, however most of the article’s information came from Jurgen Habermas’ theory. There is a section on rhetorical public sphere but not until toward the bottom. Audience, debate, discourse, nonverbal communication, style and message are words that are under the list of articles that need improvement as cited by Wikipedia.  There is a box that says that this article needs improvement by adding citations to reliable sources, which may mean that the current pages are incomplete or not completely true.

Part Two:

I chose to analyze the Wikipedia article on Leo Igwe, who is a Nigerian human rights advocate who is known for his campaigns against and documentation of child witchcraft. As part of the reliable sources of Wikipedia, a scholarship source is considered reliable if it is a theses written as part of requirements for a PhD, and Igwe’s research on child witchcraft is for his PhD research. The article cites his work as a main portion of the article since his research is a big part of his life. In accordance with Wikipedia, that makes that portion of the article reliable. However, there are other parts of the article, such as the ‘early life’ section that may be questionable. The reliable sources page says that news reporting is considered reliable if it comes from well-established outlets. The first paragraph of the early life section states that Igwe said he was born in Nigeria in a Catholic and very “highly superstitious community.” 

The Gold Coast Bulletin is an unknown source to me, since it is published in Australia. As an investigator, I clicked on the Gold Coast Wikipedia page itself and it says in 2011 the paper was charged of falsely accusing a boy of child sex crimes, the same year it reported on Igwe’s life. Due to that highlight, it makes me question the reliability of the paper and thus the reliability on the early life of Igwe. However, just because I have not heard of the source does not make it unreliable. Another portion of the article, which cites that Igwe suffered a beating for criticizing a Pastor is attributed to a web source The Guardian which I had not heard of either. However, the link is provided to the exact story where I browsed the article itself and the website to check its legitimacy. The news service seems reliable to me. The difference is that the source was complete in the reference list allowing me to make this check whereas it was not fully complete for the Gold Coast article. The source itself does not link you to the paper where it cites that fact, merely to the Wikipedia page. Of the 29 sources, Igwe is prominent in more than a handful of them. Not only in using his research, but they also use the International Humanist and Ethical Union which he is part of, interviews of Igwe, and his manifestos. The least credible source I noticed in the resources is a YouTube video, since it can be a self-published work which Wikipedia says are questionable sources. The video is one of the least credible sources, but is balanced with other sources of particular “witch hunter” in Nigeria who committed heinous crimes that are cited from BBC documentaries and an HBO special. These other broadcast sources are highly credible compared to the YouTube video. Overall I believe this article is fairly reliable because of the mostly scholarship based citations they provide. The only concern a Wikipedia user might have is that most of this scholarship research comes from Igwe himself. However, this is balanced with interviews and other news reporting cites that seem to be mostly reliable and factual.

Attendance Question

I recently got into an argument with my older brother that classifies into Kaufer’s third level of cause. This cause says the people involved give decisive weight to different evidence.  The fight arose because my brother had been asking me to visit him in Orlando for a weekend. He had been asking me to do this for about a month, not listening when I explained how busy my schedule was. He got off of work one weekend and told me that was the weekend I had to come. I agreed tentatively but during the week things came up that I had to attend to that weekend, and I had to cancel. In this situation the local value was that he did not think I was too busy to come whereas I firmly believed I did. I could have shown him evidence of my school assignments to dissolve the situation, but both of our prides are too big to be tested in the situation so it was left decidedly unresolved. 

IAMNA: I AM Not An Editor

Although I am not an editor per trade, I am student studying the foundations and practices of editing. I have chosen to exert this practice on the document “IANAL: I Am Not A Lawyer” (DigiRhet, 2008). This text is written by a group of actively involved internet activists who promote the involvement of academic institutions in the debates of intellectual property in our digital age. They embody and support the idea of copyleftism, the idea of “open sourcing, fair use, and file-sharing are working to protect the digital commons” (DigiRhet, 2008).  With their goals and values in mind, I have edited this text to organize their ideas and claims into a easier-to-read order for their audience to understand.

This text functions in Fahnestock and Sector’s stases of definition and value. At the introduction, the text works solely in the stases of definition in order to define to the public who they are and define the rhetorical situation. The text successfully does this if the audience reads it via their website. The multimodal components of the web page provide the audience with the context that the text alone does not. The masthead of the website promotes DigiRhet and their logo, however in the introduction of the text the authors immediately jump into “We are not lawyers…” without telling the audience who the “we” is (DigiRhet, 2008). This begins the text with a sense of obscurity and may confuse the audience if the text is shared printed. Changing the opening to “At DigiRhet, we are not lawyers…” provides an explanation that the text is coming from a group or organization. After that, the following paragraphs explain exactly who DigiRhet is in tune with the stases of definition. This is also in tune with Joseph M. Williams and Gregory G. Colomb’s principle of character in Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace. They emphasize the importance of clarifying the subject in a sentence and before the edit; it was unclear whom they were referring to.

After the introduction the remaining paragraphs explain who the group is and what their goals are. However, in the organization scheme these paragraphs do not transition smoothly or present the audience with a clear order of the importance of the group’s goals. The authors provide too much information in a disorganized manner that can confuse the readers and cause them to lose interest in the topic at hand. There is no original  “flow” of the text and that is why as a student editor I chose to delete some of the introductory pieces where they list a handful of issues they are concerned with (Williams & Gregory, 2012). For the rest of the article, the group focuses on the debate of intellectual property and its relevance toward academics, not the other topics discussed. These wordy topics included “computer-mediated communication (CMC), human-computer interaction (HCI), digital literacy, information and communication technologies (ICTs), and digital rhetoric” which is verbose language in its nature and not aesthetically appealing for a reader either. Once the introduction was simplified, it was important to move a paragraph that introduced the relevancy the group has in today’s age from the middle of the article toward the top. The paragraph “We write this at a time…” was brought to the top to introduce to the reader why the group’s goals are important in today’s digital environment. This juxtapositions helps the reader understand the situation that the author’s are trying to define, allowing them to digest the rest of the information more easily.  By rearranging these pieces of the text, the text provides more cohesion and clarity for the reader (Williams & Gregory, 2012).

Some other issues that were addressed follow the guidelines of punctuation outlined in When Worlds Collide, written by Lauren Kessler and Duncan McDonald. When the authors list the four issues of copyright that they focus in, they encounter some trouble with the proper use of a period, or lack thereof. In the second point, the authors create a run-on sentence due to the lack of punctuation. By turning a run-on sentence into three shorter sentences the point is easier to read and allows the audience to digest each bit of information without being overwhelmed with it. Other than a few missing commas the rest of the text was not edited heavily for punctuation. However, in this particular instance I believe the use of proper punctuation helped restore balance to the list by adding graceful stops in the lists. 

Biotech Big Three

Think of the three main players of the Biotech industry like your 

favorite trio from the Miami Heat that you just love to hate.

Modern biotechnology is becoming increasingly useful for multiple reasons in food production in the United States. Scientists attribute plant biotechnology with the ability to better fight diseases that contaminate plants, increase production more efficiently and limit soil erosion (CropLife Canada, 2013). Concerns from consumer critics range from safety to stewardship, to the fear of the unknown.  The basis of concerns stem from the fact that the food that is being altered is the food that ends up on your plate. The food you think is giving you the natural protein you need to train harder, might have been cooked up in the lab instead. This broad category encompasses two different types of processes: genetic engineering and mutagenesis. The nature of biotechnology is to create new traits that will be beneficial to plants and for farmers to use to improve efficiency, reduce harm and increase yields of their crops. Current biotechnology projects include creating seeds with traits to withstand common malfunctions such as drought conditions, excessively salinity in soil and viral diseases (CropLife Canada, 2013).

“I think they [agricultural biotechnology industry] holds incredible promise to cure malnutrition, end the need for pesticides and deliver medicine to impoverished countries,” said Stacia Dudley, Senior Biology Major at Florida State University. “But humans don’t have a good track when trying to play God and the bigger we go, the bigger the backfire.”

Young adults are not the only ones concerned about the consequences of purchasing genetically engineered food. “My biggest concerns are the safety implications of the use on our food supply,” said Martha Contreras, registered nurse and mother of two. “I want to make sure I am not poisoning my family at dinner every night.”

You heard it from the doctors, but they are not the only ones concerned about this new trend. Trainers are becoming more adamant about using products that are only natural in order to achieve the best results. Sweat Life Fitness, a popular blog dedicated to training healthy, states, "It is very important for us to know that the companies we are buying from produce products that are natural, GMO free, pesticide and chemical free, hormone free, minimally processed, and organic when possible."

But the modern biotech industry states that they are dedicated to relaying the transparency of their practices to calm this type of consumer reluctance. CropLife, an association that represents the beneficiaries of plant biotechnology in Canada, published a report dedicated to promoting the use of this technology for industry stakeholders. They report that there is a recent shift in the industry to developing traits that benefit processors and consumers, not just the top companies (CropLife Canada, p. 4).

“Regulatory officials have full access to the processes and data generated by companies in their research- processes that are dictated by the government itself in consultation with other regulatory bodies around the world,” said the CropLife Canada report.

But you may ask, what about America eh?  

Three agencies are responsible for regulating this industry in our country and are cohesively dedicated to educating the public on the safety of these practices. Together the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), U.S Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) unite to form our very own Biotech Big Three.

As similarly established in Canada, the "Biotech Big Three" are responsible for regulating the health and environmental considerations while companies focus on the development of the products. Companies can start with anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000 potential traits to consider for creation before beginning the process (CropLife Canada, p. 10). The length of time and money spent to create these types of traits are expensive, but CropLife says plant biotechnology benefits a variety of people including: farmers, private companies, researchers and the public as a whole (CropLife Canada, p. 11). 

The USDA is the Lebron James of the trio, playing the powerhouse role and laying down the foundation of the team, which the others build and add upon. Their Animal and Plant Health Inspection program is responsible for inspecting and regulating all products of the biotechnology industry (United States Department of Agriculture). 

Then there’s Dwyane Wade, or in this case, the FDA who plays a clutch role in regards to food safety, one of consumer’s top concerns. As with all other foods produced in the U.S, the FDA ensures that any genetically engineered foods produced through biotechnology meet the same standards as other naturally grown foods in regards to safety and standards (United States Department of Agriculture).

Think of the EPA as Chris Bosch, supporting the team with an important role. Specifically, the EPA regulates the use of pesticides created through this technology (U.S Environmental Protection Agency, 2012).  In accordance with the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) the EPA must evaluate the pesticide before it is approved in order to determine if it will pose risks to humans the environment. They are also responsible for setting limits, known as “tolerances,” on what the safe amount of pesticide is to be used on producing a new trait or on food (U.S Environmental Protection Agency, 2012). This means that before a pesticide is approved for potential use on crops that will eventually land on your dinner plate, there is a thorough system of evaluation to ensure its safety. This process can last between 10-15 years from inception to being available to market (CropLife Canada, p. 10). The consumer concern that the regulation process of biotechnology is behind the scenes is one that the EPA wants to address directly. As part of their Five Principles for the EPA’s Biotechnology Regulatory Program, their second goal states “ensuring transparency of the decision process” (U.S Environmental Protection Agency, 2012). 

Photo Credit: Catalina Quintana. Information: CropLife Canada

The "Biotech Big Three" collaborate to cover all aspects of the industry in order to ensure the safety for the public. The websites for all three of these agencies navigate a consumer through the steps of the plant biotechnology legislation, regulation and enforcement to increase the transparency for the public.  Though it may not be a slam-dunk for all consumers, the plant biotechnology industry is here to stay.