Breakfast at Tiffany’s and the UCC Wiki-session

The Wiki-session, truthfully, initially intimidated me. I had never edited a Wikipedia page before, I was very unsure what I wanted to edit, and I was afraid I wouldn’t get my edits done in the time frame allotted. With the day slowly creeping up, I decided to edit the Wikipedia page for the novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote. I tossed around the idea of possibly incorporating this text within my thesis, so I figured it would be a good text to use for this assignment. Though I’ve decided against using it in my thesis, it was still a very fun experience to edit the Wikipedia page for the novella.

What surprised me the most was how little was written about the text. Recognized as a fairly popular work of fiction and an even more popular movie, the page was devoid of information about plot, character, and setting. I had decided to reread the novella a few days before the Wiki-session to refresh my memory a bit, which proved helpful when making my edits. I decided to add a section that gave a more detailed description of the setting, and I added a more structured breakdown of the plot. I was very happy to find out that the Wiki-session was a bit flexible in that we did not need to finish all of our edits during class time. I spent most of the class session adding information to the setting section, and began the section for the plot later on that day.

Above is a video that breaks down key differences between the book and the movie adaptation. Though both are quite popular, the movie seems to be more well known by a wider audience. What many don't know are the huge differences that appear in the movie adaptation when compared to Truman's original novella. The movie occurs in a completely different decade, creates a love story between Holly and narrator that never existed in the novella, and attempts to make the storyline more "audience friendly".

I also enjoyed the Twitter aspect of this assignment as well. I’m not very well-versed in the realm of Twitter, so I was a bit nervous about this element, but I actually enjoyed learning about the space that Twitter provides for academics. I’ve checked the Wikipedia page since the session, and it seems there weren’t any additional edits made by other Wikipedia users. What I think I enjoyed most about this assignment was how it forced me to really re-examine this text; while it was one I had considered including in my thesis, like I stated above, the session helped me to realize that I actually don’t want to incorporate this text into my thesis. I still enjoy it, as well as many other texts by Capote, but I think I have deeper passions that lie elsewhere. All in all, I think the Wiki-session was a success. I'll dive into more detail about where this led me in regards to my thesis in my next post. Stay tuned! I’ll include the link to the Wikipedia page below, as well as the link to my Twitter where I posted updates about my editing process. Please feel free to take a look!

Works Cited:

Capote, Truman. Breakfast at Tiffany's. Penguin Books, 2022.

Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakfast_at_Tiffany%27s_(novella)

Twitter handle: KaitlynMcNulty4