History Writing and Wikipedia

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This articles tells about the relationship between writing and Wikipedia which make a controversy between them. The relation between them means when a history happened and absolutely you need to write it down right? So the history does not just past away. Although many readers would readily accept the contentiousness and complexity of history writing, briefly touching on some ancient historical writing commentary as well as contemporary issues can help readers historicize this topic. While Wikipedia becomes a platform to help you keep the history with being it as Articles, it does not mean that the articles on Wikipedia are not without controversy. To solve the controversy, Wikipedia develops a page which is Criticism of Wikipedia, the table of contents lists “Accuracy of information,” “Quality of the presentation,” and “Systemic bias in coverage” as specific areas of concern. 

The writer of this article describes the significant features of the 6 Wikipedia article introductions, highlight noticeable similarities and differences between them whom made the controversy of the article “Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki” as it has been composed in 6 different languages: English, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese, which are; 

1) Some information is found in all or nearly all of the introductions. Much of this information was “numbers” based, such as the dates of the bombings, the fact it was the first attack of its type, and the casualty numbers (found in all but the Japanese introduction). The surrender dates of Japan were also common in most of the articles. 

2) The way some events were worded appear to subtly deflect or promote agency, and it’s uncertain whether they still meet Wikipedia’s “Neutral Point of View” policy. 

3) Other details discussed in the introduction besides the information listed in my first point were typically arbitrary (e.g., Operation Downfall, specifics about the bombs, names of the plane and the pilot, Potsdam Declaration, Three Non-Nuclear Principles).

4) while I didn’t talk about citation in the introductions, the type of information cited or uncited is largely random. The Russian article had two citations regarding the date of surrender of Japan, which most would consider common knowledge. 

When writing about historical events and people, it’s important to understand that these were indeed real people who experienced incredible and often terrible events. Then in sight of the writer about Wikipedia should be made explicit whereas make a collaboration among multilingual students, international students, and students of other languages and  from different cultural backgrounds. This type of collaboration would not just lead to “more complete” Wikipedia articles, but could also lead to a better understanding of narrative, discourse, and information representation across different cultures and lead to undergraduate research projects between students and professors. 

by Dini Dwintika Karuniati

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Article Sciences