Disembodied Poetics

Information about Disembodied Poetics

About Me

Disembodied Poetics is a cartographic anomaly, a nomadic cheese, becoming new, every day. They hold a Ph.D. in Communication Studies--and started on Wikipedia as part of their commitment to "open pedagogy." Communication, as the method and practice of making meaning with others, is one of the most profound tools to allow us to responsible account for difference as a promise, rather than a threat, and find ways to build health strong, biodiverse communities. A believer in dissent, fascinated and scar(r)ed by democracy, Disembodied Poetics is committed to trying to achieve the ideals of the Wikipedia project--through providing a wide range of students with the tools and skills necessary to evaluate, bridge, and build knowledge.

Guiding Quotations & Beliefs

"It is not a crime to be seen learning in public." -Ritual Invocation

"That afternoon, I learned two new words. "Inscrutable." And "friend." Words were different when they lived inside of you." Benjamin Alire Saenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secret of the Universe.

"Nature is not a form, but rather the process of establishing relations." Deleuze, "Whitman," Essays: Critical and Clinical, Trans. Daniel W. Smith and Michael A. Greco, p. 59

"All that you touch, you change. All that you change, changes you. The only lasting truth is change." -Octavia Butler, The Parable of the Sower.

"[. . .] it's only by being shameless in risking the obvious, that we happen into the vicinity of the transformative." -Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, The Epistemology of the Closet, p. 22

"You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand." Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit.

Advice from Student Editors

AY2021-2022

One thing I wish I knew at the start of this class was that I can't get away with procrastination as I did before. I think the best way to stay afloat in this class would be to do your Wikipedia trainings, regardless of how easy it may seem. It'll all catch up to you and you may feel a bit overwhelmed. I think it's important to be responsible with your wiki work, especially because it's all done outside of class within your own time. That's probably one of the major strategies that I developed. I'm a pretty messy person but this class taught me to focus a little more on time management and getting things done. A major bonus skill is that I know how to conduct research and appropriately apply my own findings to a Wikipedia article that probably thousands of people have seen. This scared me in the beginning but it turned out to be pretty cool.

One thing I will say is to be responsible. Avoid postponing even the slightest little assignment that is worth 5points because the amount of work it requires won't just take you 5 minutes to complete it; learned the hard way when I had to pull an all-nighter just to find a credible source relating to my topic. Also, complete your trainings even if it seems easy. The sooner it gets done, the lesser the workload and the more time and dedication you can put into your main space and contribute to making Wikipedia more renowned and reliable. I knew how demanding this Wiki project was going to be but never actually dwelled or stressed on it until I started struggling with finding resources. I will advise you to wisely choose your articles. Pick an article that is of interest to you so that you feel enthusiastic and excited every time you work on it instead of feeling overwhelmed by how boring it would be.

My advice would be to start on your assignments sooner than later, especially when you have to find scholarly resources. Looking up articles that are relevant to your wikipedia edits are not always easy to come by. This takes time and effort to read and critically think how a certain article may apply to your topic. I would also advise that you choose a topic that you already know something about. That way you can be familiar with it which will speed up the process of research. Lastly, I would pay attention to due dates on stuff and plan out how you are going to complete your assignments so that you still have time for other classes. Some of the assignments take a decent amount of time, so planning ahead is a good idea.

While the assignment seems a lot at the beginning, it is important to do each piece as it comes along. Each piece of work builds onto the other, the more assignments that you miss, the more bothersome the assignment seems to become. I think that it is assignment that requires a student to come in motivated to do it. That will help the assignment feel a lot more doable and less easy to push forward. I found that finding an article that you actually enjoy is a good strategy in completing this assignment. by having an article that you enjoy reading, the easier it is to make edits that you feel would improve that article. One big obstacle I found was that whenever I did not understand something I would try to do a task without getting clarification on how to do it. It is easy to ask for help and had I been more open to help sooner, then I would have completed the assignment a lot quicker and with better quality. Asking for help is not a crime especially with Wikipedia being a platform not many of us have edited on before.

My advice to a future student is to work early on finding articles that you find interesting, shortlist a few of them and look for creative ways to add/edit the sub-topics listed in the articles. Try and use the scholarly articles to add recent data and information to the existing topics. The other tip is to be consistent in finishing the Wikipedia training, this helps in understanding the requirements and makes the assignment easier to work on. The obstacle I encountered was on deciding what edits I should post in the main article, this was easier once I checked on the Peer review comments.

One thing that I didn't know I should have paid more attention to is making sure you hit publish. I thought I had and was confused why my work for the biography and peer reviews were not in there until I had a visit with Cheese and went over my operator error. One of the most embarrassing things I have done in this class. I also recommend talking to Cheese sooner than later. I found if you get the work done earlier than later then it will be more helpful to you.

it taught men how to go through sources better than I used to. I used to just graze through sources when writing papers, but now I know I have to dig deep into them. Especially when adding information into a platform that people are using to learn.

Something that I think future students should know is that there are due dates for different assignments related to the Wikipedia editing, however these due dates are limited. If any future student needs to stay on top of their editing, I would advise that they consider dedicating a time for themselves to do editing on Wikipedia, instead of only relying on the due dates that are set on canvas. An obstacle that I encountered was picking an article which only had a lead section and no other sections. Although this type of article can benefit a lot from the editing assignment, I would advise future students to be aware that they if they edit a similar article, they will have to decide on the direction that the article should take if there was no clear structure in the article.

I think the most important tip that I would give to incoming students is to immerse yourself in Wikipedia. Many of the tools, navigation, and eventual understanding of Wikipedia took quite a lot longer than I had expected. I think that if I had been able to put more of an early emphasis on understanding the framework and the expectations it would have helped me immensely in the long run. I was eventually able to come to understand how to add information to my Wiki page and what was considered useful information. In all, I would urge future students to grasp the information early on and make sure they do not fall behind on any work.

My advice is to make sure you know your material. If you don't know what is going on you can always ask for help. I started asking questions more and then I started getting the hang of it. I also would like to say is to stay on top of your work. You don't want to procrastinate it will only get worse. You don't want to start falling behind.

I definitely wish I had known that there is zero room for procrastination in this class. Every assignment required at least a little bit of research in order to complete it. There are no strategies that I have fully developed yet but one big one that I am starting to figure out is that perfection is bullshit. I am a huge perfectionist which makes it very difficult for me to move one from anything without it being perfect whether it be a whole assignment or just a small aspect of it. My best piece of advice for future students, aside from the basic "don't procrastinate", is that if you are spending a long time after completing assignments to nit pick small details of something. Turn it in! It's most likely never going to be perfect and it's not worth stressing yourself out more.

The first thing that I would recommend to incoming students would be to read all of the wiki assignments twice. It tells you step by step on how to do the assignment and even tells you where to go if you have questions. The next thing would be to bookmark all of your wiki assignments and articles you are working on in a folder so you have quick access. This helped me tremendously so I could access everything really fast. I would recommend making good titles for these bookmarks because there will be quite a few, and in turn this will help with organization. Everything takes longer than you think so stay on top of it. Maybe set reminders on your phone or whatever you do to remember commitments or responsibilities. Staying ahead of deadlines will keep your stress down about these assignments because it is a lot to handle, especially on top of all the other work for the class.

Personally, the things that I would have liked to know when I initially started this project was how truly important the topic was in terms of finding verified outside information.  Even though I still complete the project I felt like I would have had an easier time with it if I put more thought into an article that allowed me to research information that was supported on a more broad-based rather than having to shift through pages of research in order to find an accurate and up-to-date article. The strategy that set me up for success with simply staying on time with my science and making sure that I was reading through the directions as carefully as I could be since Wikipedia is very precise in the way that it analyzes the information posted on its site alongside how you post it. Lastly, the biggest obstacle that I encountered was pushing through towards the end with other work that begin to pile on so having an idea of what your final contribution would look like is essential.  So I would avoid trying to think you can do it all in one night and have a rough road map of what you would like your Wikipedia article to look like.

I would advise really being thorough with the sources that you intend to use on the first time that you look for them. Otherwise you'll end up choosing some sources that have a title that fits what you article topic is but the content within it ends up adding nothing to your article and you will just end up where you started looking for an effective source and it will actually cost you way more time because you have to go back and essentially do the same source finding assignment twice. I would also consider the fact that it is not only you who is contributing to this page but people across the world so adding something that people can expand upon and add to is something that may have more of a long term impact than adding to some large already pretty completed work. It is also way easier to add to an article in which you are more familiar with the topic. It is not a good idea to try and become an expert on your topic in a two hour span and then try to write a good meaningful contribution on those ideas that you just learned two hours ago.

The biggest thing that I can offer is to be on your work and not to let it pile up. If you are constantly keeping up, it is manageable, but if not then best of luck to you. The hardest thing for me was finding sources that would work. I had to scour Taylor and Francis to even find five let alone ten. You have to be creative sometimes when finding these sources, and that means changing your wording or the order of your search. Make sure that when you find articles you can actually take pieces from them to add to your article. Looking back, it was cool to see your own edits on an article that others can view. It makes it all worth it in the end. Choosing a topic that is actually interesting is huge also. If you are not interested then you will not do it.

I definitely wish I had gotten more in front of this assignment it can get away from you very easily especially once the in class stuff begins to separate and it becomes more of an independent thing.  I would definitely suggest that future students plan out a good amount of time to pick their topic and make sure it’s something they are not just interested in, but hopefully they can find one they are excited about.  There’s a lot of research and reading involved and if it’s not something that you might want to learn about beyond the scope of this project it will be difficult to stay on task.

I would have liked to know the amount of time that I would have to spend doing this assignment. Either looking for articles, analyzing articles, or putting multiple articles statements together to add to another article took longer than I expected. One piece of advice I would give is try to learn how to skim and analyze articles fast. I’m a slow reader who sometimes forgets what I just read so that was the major thing I had a problem with. But over time I did create a better way to skim and quick read articles. One last piece of advice I would add is do not procrastinate the Wikipedia assignment, it is a lot and if you work on it every week you will be in good shape.

I would offer the advice to just stay on top of everything. The due dates seem to add up and honestly can become a lot if you fall behind, but that is kind of obvious the one thing I really do recomend is just to make sure you communicate with Cheese during the process. Some of the big work can be confusing but if you find time and just make sure to talk to Cheese then everything will make so much more sense and you will find everything a lot easier than you thought. Lastly, get familiar with the tools on wikipedia. Some of them are so useful and I didn't take advantage of them when I really wish I did.

The one thing I wish I knew before this class, was that I would need to be on time with my assignment, and don't procrastinate because the Wikipedia work was more than demanding. I also think that if I kept in touch with my Wikipedia training it would have been easy to go through the assignments.  One big thing I would advice to a future student in this class is to start looking for scholarly articles because when it's done at the last minute we end up choosing the wrong ones. I for example chose a topic that I wasn't really interested in.

My advice would be if you want your journey of Wikipedia assignments to be challenging but valuable, you might want to focus on topics that you feel are underrepresented. Of course it should be something you are passionate about. Focus on topics that have contents gaps and try to be that minority voices. And Don't give up in the middle!

The advice I would have to anybody starting up with Wikipedia or to the next students who will have to be doing this project is to not fall behind and to not be intimidated by Wikipedia itself. The reason why I say don't fall behind is that I did so myself due to out-of-school reasons, and this really messed me up with Wikipedia and the assignments that were due within Wikipedia. Having to go all the way back to the beginning and restart was hard and took a lot of work/patience. Even if you keep up a little that is way better for you in the long run than doing nothing at all like myself. To speak on my second piece of advice, I think most if not all of us were intimidated by Wikipedia due to the format of the site and the bad things we have heard about Wikipedia. While doing the training on how to add things, create segments to articles, etc. it is almost like coding in a way. But if you just try and take a step back you will find out it is actually a lot easier than what it may seem to be.

The biggest advice that I have for future students about the Wikipedia project is to make sure you stay on top of the work. It can be easy to forget and fall behind on the work since it is not done on canvas, so make sure you are constantly checking in on the class page to see what's due. Also, one thing that I learned to value was the training exercises. They are always available to you at any point and they can really help you if you get stuck at any point during the project.

The first piece of advice I would give to any student is to be patient with themselves and the work that they do. I have seen from many other responses that indicate the same message. It is essentially to fight through the intimidation that comes with beginning anything new and trying to do things well. Being nervous, I have been told, means that one cares about that which they are doing and one would want to make the best of that which they engage with. I think this advice holds very true for all endeavors and especially this class. It is important to enter the world of Communication and Wikipedia editing as this is an area that is not as mainstream for wider society. Even though many of us use the site on a daily basis for information access, we often do not change that which we engage with. It is therefore more than daunting to be tasked to add to works that we usually only take from and to surpass this daunting task one must give themselves the patience. Some more advice would be for students to engage actively with the content of Wikipedia editing and doing the readings for class as they hold such valuable gems of knowledge that will be impactful on a students ability to only speak to others about various conversation topics on race, class, gender, and many others. There is a need for students, especially in this liberal arts education that we have cultivated here and this means we ought to be able to speak with each other about the big topics which can only be achieved by gaining knowledge and contributing to these conversations.

This Wikipedia project takes up a lot of time and once you start to procrastinate, you will quickly start to fall behind. One of the things i didn't take serious at first were the weekly modules where i would skip through them until i realized that some of the steps/assignments in the project were explained through those so i began to actually do them and each took about 15 minutes to complete. Another tip i would give to future students taking this class or doing this project would be to bookmark every tab related to Wikipedia so it is easier to locate and stay organized, because i found my self getting lost and confused from having to go back and forth from page to page. I also recommend students make one big folder and incorporate anything relate to the Wikipedia within this file including the sources you plan on citing.

I would just read other articles. Something that helped me was sort of link surfing to help get a feel for what a wikipedia page should be. I think there are a lot of different ways to present information on wikipedia, but there is this same basic feel to a lot of the articles. I know the main thing I struggled with was determining what to add and where. By understanding the kind of sections a page has you can get a better idea of what to add. Possibly looking at popular pages or locked pages that get a lot of traffic could be good. You know that the pages have had a lot of editing and people looking over them which I think boils the page down into the necessities and into a more neutral presentation. For smaller pages with less oversight I think personal voice can show up which isn't ideal on wikipedia. The last thing I would say is that on smaller pages I wouldn't worry too much though. What's important is that you are expanding the information that otherwise wouldn't have been there or are upgrading subpar pages. It's wikipedia, it's designed to have a lot of trial and error.

The biggest piece of advice that I would give to upcoming students is to set time aside away from the actual assignments to explore Wikipedia. At first, it feels like everything is going very fast and can be quite confusing fairly quickly. It was overwhelming for me at first, but once I spent a couple hours exploring the Wikipedia dashboard and webpage, I started to get the hang of it. I figured out the contributions page, talk page, sandboxes, and how to edit articles. This allowed me to get a full understanding of each and every assignment. Now, I am able to confidently go on Wikipedia and edit an article. This is a new skill that I have developed that I feel is a great tool for me to have in the future. I would also advise upcoming students to enjoy it. It is a very free, laid-back project where you are able to pick which article you want to edit and what you want to edit within that article. Have fun and do not be afraid

Some advice I would give to upcoming students would be to make sure you make time. Wikipedia takes up a lot of time if you want to produce good content. Especially if you are an athlete, make sure you create time for wikipedia assignments whether it's doing it before you leave for away games or doing it on the road. Another tip I would like to mention is doing work on an article that peaks your interest. This has helped me tremendously because I am doing work on an article that I really enjoy, it motivates me to actually do work. If I wasn't interested in the article, I would have no motivation to do any work and my content would be rather bad or boring. With this, having strong sources is very vital. Strong sources can create a very believable and strong article, it also just makes everything easier when you are writing. In the end, there are the things that helped me get through wikipedia, my work has only got changed once and hasn't got changed ever since, so i take pride in that because it took me a lot of time and effort to get everything right and the way I wanted.

I felt like I should've planed sooner. I should've created more of an outline and more of a direction for my page. I felt like I was going into this so blindly that I wasn't as confident. So I would say plan and have an outline. I would also say don't be afraid to put material on the pages. I get that it's intimidating to put it out there and possibly get deleted but, it is good for the page to have new changes or new additions. I would also say be ready to talk to other random people about agreeing to material on the page. Overall, I would say be ready for a big communication source that you are dedicating your time to. That's why I would do your research and just go for it!

The first things that I would like to offer is to understand it before you get into it. Obviously there are some things that you would learn along the way but there are somethings, like the main page, that you need to get familiar with. Another piece of advice I would give is to get ahead if you can. Staying ahead in this class is the best way to understand. It allows you to be able to ask questions and explore what you have been doing in depth. The last piece of advice I have is to choose a topic you like and are interested in. I enjoyed this project a lot, but I would not have if it was an article that I did not enjoy.

When it comes to Wikipedia, there are a few things that I wish that I would have done, and if I could have would have led to more success and an easier process for myself. If a future student can do these things, then I believe that success in this project will ensue for them. First, I would advise them to take the wikitraiings seriously and engage with the activities on any page that interests them. This will help them understand the general form of Wikipedia, as well as provide a source of motivation and a jumping off point for the larger project and understanding of Wikipedia to follow. I would also advise students to just begin the process of editing in combination with a mass reading and mass consumption of all sorts of writing on Wikipedia in order to understand the style of writing that is acceptable on Wikipedia. Finally, as many students have stated in this thread, I would advise students to dedicate more time than they believe that they need for this project. Editing, even just a sentence or a few lines, takes much, much, much more time than normal editing, with considerations for talk pages, neutrality, and all the other tenants involved with the style of writing featured on Wikipedia.

This assignment takes up a lot of time and is done throughout the whole semester so make sure to chose a topic that you like. My biggest thing was that I didn't chose something that really interested me so I had a hard time motivating myself to complete the assignments surrounding wiki. I'd also make sure to research as much as you can. When I first added to wiki I thought that I had done enough research to add my own ideas but in reality I was only able to add a sentence or two. If I would have done more research to begin with, completing all the assignments would have been much easier and taken up less time. Another big thing is to pay attention to the lessons offered on wiki. Sometimes if I didn't have much time, I'd skip through the lessons quickly which ended up backfiring when it came down to the real assignment. I always had to go back through and go through the lessons again. If you devote good time into learning how to navigate wikipedia it will be much easier and you could even have some fun with it. Ask questions as needed and don't put everything off until the end!

The biggest advice I would have to offer would be to get comfortable quickly and not to take shortcuts. Things can get pretty overwhelming at times especially when you don't quite have a grasp on what exactly you are doing. It wasn't until I sat down and experimented with Wikipedia that I felt confident in moving forward with the assignments. Getting there can be intimidating but remember you can't break Wikipedia so it's okay to experiment. With that being said, reaching a point of clarity early in the semester would be extremely beneficial to future students. An effect of not getting comfortable early is you will be tempted to take shortcuts. In Wikipedia, the assignments build upon each other so when you take a shortcut it sets yourself up for failure later.

Some Detailed Pieces of Advice

 The first piece of advice I would give for future students, is not get intimidated. It can be intimidating editing a huge platform like Wikipedia, but this project can be fun! Just do not let those negative thoughts creep in. Also, do not get discouraged if someone changes or deletes one of your edits. That is the whole point of Wikipedia. It is a bunch of volunteers just editing and making changes just to improve an article. You all have the same goal, so think of yourself as a teammate working towards that goal instead of you against other Wikipedia editors.

     Some more advice I would give, is to do a little at a time. It can be overwhelming trying to edit so much at one time. Plus, you can start to get confused on what you did. Doing a little at a time allows for you to make the most meaningful edits. For example, you are more focused on what you put in the article rather than how much you put in the article. Doing more meaningful edits can allow for the possibility of your edits "sticking" to the page. This then can possibly lower your chance of becoming sad since your edits were taken off of the article page.

     One more piece of advice, have fun! Pick a topic that you’re interested in. It is a lot easier to give your full attention to something when you are interested in that topic instead hating every second while working on the project. Picking a topic, you are interested in, will make this assignment feel like less work and you'll have more fun completing it.

Like many others have said, I would say, first, make sure you pick the right article for your project and, second, make sure that you're setting a little time aside consistently throughout your week and the course to work on the project. In picking the right article, make sure it's on a topic that interests you for sure so that you stay engaged and invested in the article. But also make sure that it is an article that needs improvement in the first place and make sure its an article that has published research on it. I spent a lot of time trying to find a good article to work on because a lot of the things I was interested in were already well-written, fully developed articles because a lot of other people were interested in them and invested in them too. So, I recommend finding an article where you're contribution can actually make a difference and add to the wealth of knowledge on Wikipedia. It was nice because a lot of the Wiki subcategories have specific pages where they just have charts/lists of articles that need work and they're organized by importance as well. I was honestly surprised how many articles were on things that everybody knows about but just not explained well on Wiki simply because the page doesn't get a lot of traffic. So that might be a resource you could utilize in finding a good article. In doing that, you also might have to find an article that's a bit more specific and contextualized than just general articles on things, if that makes sense. When it is a bit more specific, it makes your possible contributions more manageable because it's easy to see what can be improved and what you specifically can do to improve it. Before picking your article, also do a little preliminary search through some journal databases and make sure that there even is research on the topic and information that you can access and translate to Wiki. If it's too niche or specific, you're gonna have difficulty finding relevant support material and waste a lot of time just researching and reading through tons of articles that seem like they might relate, but ultimately don't.

       Second, I would definitely say that if you aren't good at time management (me), now would be the time to learn how to be better in order to complete all the trainings and in order to have good contributions to your article. I tend to work in periodic chunks or bursts of productivity followed by longer periods of frustrating unproductivity so it's a little harder to stay caught up with things like this where consistent, regular work is required, but if you can find just like 15-30 minutes of time to set aside each day or a few times a week to work on this, chipping away at it and building up your contributions, then you're golden. It doesn't even always have to be a lot of work, but as long as you keep thinking about it in the back of your head and make little edits here and there, maybe while you're waiting for your next class or at lunch, then that effort adds up to some well-developed work. I also like to remind myself that consistent smaller edits are more likely to stay up and be productive than large radical changes to the article sometimes which become easy to notice and scrutinize. So, overall, don't make it a big deal in your head, and don't wait until it becomes one huge assignment. If you make it a regular, casual, everyday thing for that semester then it becomes a lot easier to manage and you become more confident in your contributions, regardless if they stay up or not.

An advice I would give to future students is to ensure that you pick a topic that some what interests you especially if you are someone who sometimes struggles to get motivation to do school work. I say this because this project requires you to do a great amount of research so that you can add meaningful content to whatever page/ topic your are working on. Majority of this work is done outside of class, which means you need to set some time off to do the work. What motivated me to do research was that I was generally interested in my topic. I would also advice students to do the trainings. They may seem long and unnecessary at first, but once you actually start working on your articles it will pay off. Doing the trainings makes it easier to navigate around Wikipedia and I personally got more confident in doing the project as I continued to do the trainings.

This project may seem overwhelming at first, but it should not be. I think that it is important to start with small edits such as fixing the grammar or sentence structures. Add a couple of citations or links in areas where you think it is appropriate to do so. Once you start to get a hang of it, you can start adding more content and information to the article.

Lastly, DO NOT leave it to the end! Start working on it as soon as possible

First advice I have for future students is to be on top of all the tasks that need to be completed. That includes being aware of the set deadlines and workload that is required. I left a lot of work to do last minute which exhausted me. So don't get addicted to produce quality work under pressure like me.

Second advice is to understand Wikipedia. Take a moment to go through it, get lost and find your way out. That way most of the assignments will not be very confusing as you go.

Thirdly, for the main project that we do throughout the term, pick out a topic you are interested in. Communication is a vast subject with a wide scope, out of the many things you like in the world, there will definitely be a Wikipedia article with a topic you like that relates enough to communications. Don't shake your brain if there is nothing coming up, just chill and get inspired out of the blue. I like marketing and the article I'm did mine on is ✨False Advertising ✨

Fourthly, while finding academic articles for the assignment, search for specific terms on the library page. I was stuck for a while when trying to find citable content within the articles I found after searching the title of the Wikipedia article itself. Instead, you should find academic articles titled after the subheadings or key terms within the article, or what you think should be within the article.

Finally, by the time you will write your advice to the students that will take the course after you, you will probably still be taking the class with a few weeks left. So read through the advice you just wrote and, for each advice, question if you are working according to it like I am supposed to or if you are being a hypocrite like me.