As you may or may not have seen, earlier today I took part in my first Wikipedia edit-a-thon alongside my fellow English MA students in UCC. This was a class assessment where we had to edit a Wikipedia page related to our personal study interests, adding information, citations and generally clarifying what already exists on this valuable (but not often trusted) online resource. We also had to live tweet the events under the hashtag #WikiEditLit. This whole situation was a new and entertaining experience for me as I am not much of a tweeter (today in fact was my first time ever tweeting a sentence) nor have I even given back to this pool of knowledge what I (ashamedly) use so often for sources and synopsised information.
For this assignment I chose to edit the Wikipedia page of Cædmon’s Hymn, an Old English poem that is quickly becoming my hobby horse. After compiling a Mini edition of this text as my final assignment for my MA Book History module (EN6052), I realised this poem’s Wikipedia page lacked many crucial elements in the poem’s transmission process.
The pre-edited page claimed there was only fourteen verified manuscript witnesses to the text and did not list any of them. This claim was also not supported with a citation but a note saying ‘Citation needed’ (see Fig. 1 and 2). From my previous research I learned that there are twenty-one witnesses to the manuscript and one transcription of a lost manuscript. Nineteen original manuscripts exist today.
To overcome this lack of information on the page, I created a new heading titled ‘Manuscript witnesses‘ and listed all known sources for the poem by their full library archive name. I also included a short paragraph detailing which texts have been lost any why (see Fig. 3 and 4).
I rewrote a contextual line referring to the translation of the poem the page offered as I felt the previous version was vague and did not give enough information regarding the texts manuscript sources (see Fig. 5 and 6).
I also enhanced the ‘Further reading‘ section of the page to help all those interested in this Old English poem to find useful academic sources that I myself found invaluable in my own study of the text (see Fig. 7 and 8). I am sure that many undergraduate students will be thankful for this if they ever choose to incorporate this poem into one of their essays.
I would have loved to add more information but unfortunately time constraints and the fear of adding superfluous information to the page hindered that possibility… for now anyway.
As mentioned earlier, we also had to live tweet the event and interact with others through social media. This was entertaining as I could see the event unfold in real time through the eyes of my class mates but lead to me struggling to strike a balance between editing and tweeting. I found myself getting so engaged with tweeting that it hindered my editing and vice versa. This balance is something I will need a bit more practice.
![Fig. 1.png](https://shieldwallsandlyres.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/fig-12.png?w=529)
Fig. 1: False information lacking citation found on original
![image001.png](https://shieldwallsandlyres.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/image0011.png?w=529)
Fig. 2: Information corrected with supporting citation
![Fig. 3](https://shieldwallsandlyres.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/fig-32.png?w=529)
Fig. 3: Part one of the newly added ‘Manuscript witnesses’ section
![Fig. 4](https://shieldwallsandlyres.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/fig-44.png?w=529)
Fig. 4: Part two of the newly added ‘Manuscript witnesses’ section
![Fig. 5](https://shieldwallsandlyres.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/fig-51.png?w=529)
Fig. 5: Detailing lacking introduction to the poem’s translation text
![Fig. 6.png](https://shieldwallsandlyres.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/fig-63.png?w=529)
Fig. 6: Rephrased introduction to the poem’s translation text featuring more manuscript information
![Fig. 7.png](https://shieldwallsandlyres.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/fig-72.png?w=529)
Fig. 7 ‘Further reading’ before additional texts were added
![Fig. 8.png](https://shieldwallsandlyres.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/fig-81.png?w=529)
Fig. 8: ‘Further reading’ after additional texts were added