Becoming a Wikipedian

 I have been working on improving my science communication skills, an increasingly desirable trait within the science community. Not only have I been blogging and tweeting (follow my twitter! @MirandaFerrant3), but I have been Wikipedia editing.

Before I get into becoming a wikipedian, I want to quickly discuss the benefits of blogging and tweeting if you are trying to advance your science communication skills. Blogging has improved my writing skills as it allows me to develop clear, concise writing habits, and it allows me to write in plain language, something you don’t get much practice in as a science undergraduate. It also refreshed my skills on effective, quick researching. Twitter has improved my science communication by being an open platform for networking, collaborating and learning. It’s an easy form of quick communication to peers, colleagues, or potential opportunities.

Wikipedia is a known all around the world for its fast and mostly accurate information on a number of topics. It’s an online encyclopedia and you can search anything you’re interested in learning. But have you ever stopped to think how these Wikipedia pages come to be? Well, in simple terms, it’s people like you and me who all contribute and edit pages of their choice!

To help better my science communication (and for some awesome additions to my CV/resume) I have become a Wikipedia editor, or Wikipedian, myself. It is very easy to do, just make an account, pick a page/topic, do some research, and put everything you learned into Wikipedia! The platform is very user friendly, which makes everything that much easier.

The two pages I will be editing are: Phenology and Jane Colden. Phenology has always been one of my main interests in school, and I would love to put my own touch on a Wikipedia page I have read many times over. I will add into the page a category for climate change and write a blurb on a warming climates effects on invasive species in many countries in North America. Warming climates are causing invasive plant species to bud, bloom, and grow earlier in the season, allowing these plants to out compete and harm native plant species. This can cause changes in the animal-plant relationships that are phenologically sensitive.

Jane Colden was the first female botanist in the new world. She inspired many botanists, both men and women, despite not being recognized as a professional botanist during her life. She had many famous allies and described many new plant species in America, however she was not honoured until many years after her death.

I am excited to continue my work in bettering myself and to begin to contribute the information found on the internet. I will be back to edit this blog with updated information on where to find my contributions to the two pages above.

I am back with my update on wikipedia editing and becoming a wikipedian!

A simple summary about my experiences is that I enjoyed the process of editing articles. I chose articles I have a genuine interest in as I got to learn more about each topic, share the knowledge I found only became more exciting. The wikipedia platform is fairly easy to use and the visual editor really allows for beginners to have easy access to editing. I am also pleased to share I not only edited two articles, I have also uploaded two images to Wikicommons. By doing this, I furthered my understanding on copyright laws and metadata. Pro-tip: Screen capturing your original pictures removes your name from the metadata!

I truly felt like a wikipedian after I completed the training modules on Wiki Edu. Registering with this platform within wikipedia was as easy as clicking 1 button, and this platform opened up a world of wikipedia training opportunities. Training modules included training on wikipedia policies, finding sources, which sources should be referenced, how to edit an article, the best ways to create your own article, and plagiarism. These modules did take some time to complete, but overall they were effective. They help users better understand how wikipedia works and why it is such a unique open access database. a few things I learned through these modules are how wikipedias plagiarism rules differ from plagiarism rules students are normally used to, how sources must be vetted before they are cited and used, and how to properly share images.

The modules would have been more effective if we completed them before editing pages, especially the module about images as I had to upload some myself. Despite this, I see the value in these training modules and will use what I learned for future edits and to better the edits I have already done.

I loved editing wikipedia pages and will continue to do so in the near future.