Does The Neutral Point Of View Make Wikipedia Boring?
A couple of weeks ago, Mark Bauerlein wrote an interesting piece about Wikipedia’s stylistic mediocrity, and the way this mediocrity is bleeding into his students’ writing. Using the example of articles about Moby Dick, Bauerlein suggests that traditional professionally-authored encyclopedias tend to be written in a punchier, more engaging style. The JOHO blog responds with a couple of interesting points. It suggests that Wikipedia’s policy of describing things from a neutral point of view might wind up making them less compelling reading. Indeed, a crucial part of good writing is knowing what to leave out, and that’s hard to accomplish when you’re trying to present all sides of a subject in a neutral manner. Still, the JOHO blog points out that when you look at the Wikipedia article’s section on Captain Ahab — as opposed to the introductory passage — the difference with professionally-edited works isn’t as stark as Bauerlein suggests. It’s uneven and could certainly use some help fr
