by Laira Martin
When approaching this assignment, I decided to think about feminist ideas that felt close to home because often, with any radical movement, I don’t always know how I feel about bigger ideas. Last quarter I had the pleasure of taking TDAC 101 an acting class in which I studied a scene from “The Heidi Chronicles” by Wendy Wasserstein for the quarter to perform it with my partner for the final. After spending 10 intense weeks reading the play and repetitively rehearsing the scene, I became closer to the character and the ideas presented in this Nobel Prize winning play which focuses on heavy feminist ideals. This also got me thinking about female underrepresentation in the arts and on the internet so I decided to check out the Wikipedia page for the play and the author which, not too surprisingly, were not very thorough or lengthy. I decided to type in “Nobel Prize Winning Play” into wikipedia and clicked the first male name “Harold Pinter,” and of course his Wikipedia page is the length of a novella. After playing Heidi, I was able to create a clearer view of my own feminist ideals and so it just seemed right to contribute to “The Heidi Chornicles” Wikipedia page.
I decided to lengthen the synopsis since that was the best way for me to apply my knowledge of the play to the Wikipedia community and conversation online about the play. If anything, having a longer synopsis with just a few more key details could make the difference between someone deciding it sounds interesting enough to read the whole or play or not read it at all. Although it would quite the task to complete this Wikipedia page to it’s maximum potential, by improving it even marginally, I hope I can improve the representation of this feminist play and author.
In the attached screenshot, I highlighted in purple the text which I added primarily based on my personal knowledge of the play and references from the text itself. The play itself was already cited on the wikipedia page so I did not edit or add anything there. The process of creating the account and editing was quite simple and streamlined. I haven’t interacted with moderators quite yet so I’m interested in seeing how that part of the Wiki editing process works.
Good addition, Laira. Can you add or engage in something about the critical reception of the play? Have you found a source of sources that could be added to enrich the critical discussion about it? I think you got "been" where you meant another word, maybe through auto-correct.
ReplyDeleteGood work choosing to target an entry that is already part of the WikiProject Theatre initiative. It also looks like most of your edits are "sticking" a few weeks later, although a copyeditor took another pass for grammar and syntax. Synopses tend to be an important part of Wikipedia's coverage of cultural products -- such as novels, plays, or movies. However, as Professor Cartwright points out, adding sources that can be cited is one of the best strategies for strengthening an article rather than just relying on personal knowledge, and critical reception is almost always an important category for demonstrating that an article's subject meets the notability standard.
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