When I was little, I always asked 'what about me?' Now that I'm older, I realize I do the same thing when I write.

Donald M Murray (or as his friends hail him, ‘The Don’) in “All Writing is Autobiography” contends that written work contains elements from the writer’s life experience - no matter what the subject or style of the piece may be. This idea flies in the face of a certain ‘standard’ for writing: that at times, writing should be objective, exclusively entertaining concepts or ideas that have nothing to do with the writer him/herself. The Don even references this concept in the very first sentence, when he asserts that “it’s very likely that at least one teacher has told you not to use “I” in your school papers”. I’ve been told this enough times to remember this ‘rule’. I also learned later in my English-student career that blacklisting “I” was not enough; all personal pronouns should be denied citizenship, and I should deport any alien pronouns that happened to slip into the population of words comprising my papers.

Our perspective is limited to a single consciousness, unless you’re blessed/cursed with MPD. In light of this handicap, it makes sense that writers will ‘write themselves’ into a piece, at least subconsciously. Granted, every written piece will fall on a certain spot in the continuum between objectivity and subjectivity, but the ends of this scale aren’t real. There is no purely objective statement. Even if someone were granted the powers of absolute objectivity, they would still have to communicate in words that carry connotative baggage around, skewing meaning for different listeners.

Seeing as there are no objective statements, Wikipedia becomes an interesting model. I’ve often thought that the internet is a digital manifestation of the transcendental, collective conscious of people who use it; Wikipedia is no different. If this be the case, I can see how a new standard for ‘objectivity’ can arise from Wikipedia. When I read a Wikipedia article, I know that anyone can edit or otherwise modify it’s content. As a reader, this forces me to be more critical of the articles as I read. However, paradoxically, I also tend to lend more credence to the articles, knowing that it is a product of a large group; statistically speaking, I feel that error (including subjectivity, bias and ‘spin’) is better controlled with a larger group.