Warning: Undefined array key "file" in /home/kristyro/public_html/wp-includes/media.php on line 1749
I won’t lie, I was not too fond of this assignment from the very beginning. I had a really tough time figuring out which article I wanted to work on. I have never done something like this and I felt a bit of weight on my shoulders since Wikipedia is a public forum and lots of people turn to it for credible information.
My main issue when it came to picking an article was that I did not want to step over someones previous work, especially if it looked like they put a lot of time and effort into it. Still, there was a bit of me that was looking forward to collaborating with people that share the same interests as me.
Finally, I was listening to my favorite podcast, My Favorite Murder and I thought, this is it. It is a true crime comedy podcast -which sounds like they should not go together, but the comedic relief is much needed with some of these stories. I also owe it to them for teaching me to stop running alone at night and making sure I lock my doors.
So, I went on their main article and it did not seem to have too much, but it was still very developed. There are also people who keep up with it frequently to update the episodes list. Here they write brief summaries for each just incase listeners wanted to go back and listen to a certain episode. Since there was not much room for editing, I was stuck once again. Then, I came across the article about their book, Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered and noticed that there was lots of room for development.
I do not recall ever seeing a Wikipedia article for a book before, so I looked some up just to get a sense of what it could look like. I searched two books I had laying around, The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, and Coming of Age in Mississippi . Both of these are very developed and did give me some ideas on what I could add to my article.
I noticed the last time this article was edited was least year in June, so I was not too surprised when I did not get a reply to my first comment about what I would be editing. This made me less nervous since I felt more free to make the edits I wanted. Although, I felt this still had a downside, since it would have been nice to experience a collaboration or have someone to correct my mistakes and give me feedback. Up until I finished editing, I still did not get a reply.
The first thing I added was a “chapters” section since I noticed the articles I used for reference had either a plot summary or summary of parts/chapters of the book. Still, this book is very different from the ones I used as references because it is a double memoir of the hosts and has touches of self help, so I chose to not summarize each chapter as I felt it would give too much away.
Next, I added that there is an audiobook where the hosts narrate along with actor and comedian Paul Giamatti. Here I added a hyperlink to Giamatti’s name that led to a Wikipedia article about him and I also cited the audiobook. Then, I noticed that the right side section with the cover of the book and lists of author, publisher, and other information was missing some information that I found. So, I went along and added the language since My Favorite Murder has fans world wide, I thought I could just add in the main language. The genre also only had that it was a memoir, but this book is very humurous and the authors are comedians so I added humor under it.
There was also an option to add the audiobook narrators so I plugged that in again. I did not see the hyperlink options there so I decided to keep what I initially wrote about the audiobook in the first section since I was able to hyperlink Giamatti and the reference. Then I went ahead and added more to the “chapters” section and actually switched it from “chapters” to “structure”. Here, I added the intro and conclusion titles as well as a sentence explaining how both authors split each chapter into two to give their own memoirs (since double memoirs are not too popular).
Lastly, since a lot of people are into their podcast and book because of their interest in true crime, I felt it important to add the true crime stories, and serial killers that are mentioned. I listed all of them and hyperlinked them to their corresponding Wikipedia article. I liked how all of these articles were well developed, this way people who may not have listened to the podcast can search up the stories and information on their own. I actually think this was my favorite edit because it was unique to the book as well as most informative in the article.
After these edits and additions I did not feel as negatively about this assignment. It did take me a long time to actually get started since I was having trouble choosing and did not like the idea of editing an article; once I started, I felt my confidence go up the more I edited it. I also had fun with the article I chose, because I was able to add two sections. Still, I would have liked it if someone had edited it along with me and commented on the sections I added. I highly doubt I will ever do this again, I honestly still find it scary but I appreciate the experience and think it is pretty cool to say I have edited a Wikipedia page.
