User:白霞罸/Preparatory Assignment

Three entries that are under the scope of modern Chinese Philosophy that can be improved.

Entry 1: Gongyang Zhuan

The scope of the entry includes the history of Gongyang Zhuan and various readings and commentaries of it. However, the commentaries mostly focused on Han dynasty, especially Dong Zhongshu's reading. It almost never talk about Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, as well as the Gongyang school in the 19th to 20th century. Jiangqing's reading is mentioned. I think without talking about the Gongyang School, the political significance of Gongyang Zhuan is largely diminished. Another problem with this entry is that it has insufficient reference or citation. There are some very opinionated sentence in the text but no referencing stating who the argument belongs to. So I want to add thing concerning it political significance in the 19th and 20th century and the commentaries of more recent scholars.

Entry 2: Hu Shih

This entry is well-developed and well-organised. It first presents Hu Shi's biography and then mentioned his philosophy of "Pragmatism" and his writings. The entry is mostly about his life rather than his thought, though his thought is mentioned along with his writings. I think there should be an independent section for his philosophy. The writing section should be a list of his major works. The section about his translation of pragmatism needs citation and definitely needs more explanation, because right now, it only tells the reader that he translated the work and the word, but not his philosophical contribution to it. In addition, the citation for his writing is lacking, needing updates.

Entry 3: Great Unity

The entry has minimal information about the different interpretations of the term Datong, but the description is only a sentence long for each. Since the entry is very short, there are many possible changes can be made for the entry. One modification can be a more detailed intellectual history of Datong following Swain's writing. The entry can be linked to other pre-existing entries for different interpretations and it historical context.

Writing about Modern Chinese Philosophy on Wikipedia

Writing on Wikipedia requires the editor to be objective. Comparing to common philosophical writings, wikipedia entries don't make arguments. Rather, they present other people's argument without a clear positionally. Presenting only one side of the argument is also consider biased. Wikipedia in this sense is similar to academic writings, because philosophy papers need to examine potential oppositions. However, since we are writing about philosophy, especially modern Chinese philosophy which is dynamic and complex, providing comprehensive contexts and all sides of the argument can be very challenging. Also the writing style of Wikipedia requires clarity. Shorter and simpler sentences are encouraged. Sometimes, bullet points are preferable comparing to paragraphs. But I find that Wikipedia prefer to use jargon, even when the jargons are difficult and uncommon. In this case, there is always a link to another entry explaining the jargon. So sometimes, instead of making the entry easy to read, accuracy of the language is much more important. Other thing we need to consider is the balance of the entry that we are editing. Take the entry of Hu Shi for example: Hu Shi is not only a philosopher, he is also a prominent poet and scholar of Chinese language. Although we are approaching the entry from a philosophical point of view, there are other people interested in him for different reasons. So we should be extra mindful of other aspects of the entry that we are editing.