Today I spent a great few hours learning how to write and edit a Wikipedia entry.

entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Burney. My entry of choice was, predictably, Frances Burney.

Wikipedia is the first port of call for anybody interested in a quick look at a topic or person. Therefore, I think that working on an author’s entry has an educational function and can really make a difference, also in terms of the public facing component of my project.

The surname ‘d’Arblay’ was consistently misspelt; Hester Thrale had no Lynch; I added a bibliographic detail to a caption; inserted a line about the memorial plaque in Westminster Abbey, with links to @BurneySocietyUK and the North America Society, plus other bits & pieces to update the reference section.

The Journals and Letters section is quite short and I plan to make it complete at the next opportunity: today I added the Charlotte Barrett edition, with a link to Susan Civale’s essential essay, and the two recent outputs of the wonderful McGill team of researchers, The Court Journals and Letters and The Additional Journals and Letters. Each entry was referenced and linked.

Obviously, there is quite a lot to do as far as the plays are concerned. I hope that by the end of this academic year I shall have completed most sections, so that any curious reader and Wikipedia user may get a taste of the real, and the updated, Frances Burney. Opening the canon to non scholarly audiences, whilst maintaining scholarly standards.

Please, send in your comments and suggestions to improve the entry. Looking forward to reading them all.

Editing Frances Burney’s Wikipedia entry / The Lady with the Balloon Hat by Francesca Saggini is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0

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