Assignment 2

EAP

                                                                               CONSOLI CLAUDIA        

ACADEMIC SUMMARY

Writing for the World : A Summary

Turning digital natives into academic writers poses one of the most difficult tasks higher education teachers  face nowadays. In her article Tardy(2010) presents us with a way to tackle  such an accomplishment by reaching out to Wikipedia as a tool to introduce students into the world of academic and collaborative writing.

Despite its low credibility among some scholars, delving into Wikipedia's educational possibilities and opportunities may certainly be one solution to the task. Tardy’s (2010)article is mainly based in the use of Wikipedia as a collaborative writing tool. She defines the software and its advantages and  takes the digital plunge into a 8-steps - process approach to writing.

Her approach begins with an overview of the assignment where the rules  for length (500 words), the appropriate style (following Wikipedia’s stipulations and guidelines) and finally the publication stage.

Step number 1 requests the students to start examining the website, reading samples, drawing assumptions and conclusion from those samples. Step  2 takes students into the compiling of information and data collection journey. Step 3 asks them to create outlines to organize their work. Step 4  is the drafting stage. Drafts should include the necessary tags to later add the required references.

At Step 5 the revising stage has been reached. Reading, re-reading  and proofreading  are hard but necessary skills to perform. Step 6 goes directly into the formatting of the sources. Citation, footnotes and hyperlinks should be added at this stage. Steps 7deals with polishing .Finally, step 8 is the publishing of the piece of writing,.

            Accurate academic writing is a desirable literacy level for students to reach  although not necessarily an easy one to achieve. The Wikipedia writing and research  project could help bridge the gap from beginner writers to academic ones.

References

Tardy, C. M. , (2010). Writing for the world: Wikipedia as an introduction to academic writing. . English Teaching Forum. 1 , pp.12-27