The site I chose to write about is Wikipedia.com. I chose Wikipedia.com because many people use the site as a guide for new research avenues, which is at the heart of the internet’s origins. The duality of Wikipedia is that while it may aid users in their research projects the content on the site can be added and edited by almost anyone that views the page. This editing ability can lead to erroneous information being passed on to the researcher as if it were fact. While Wikipedia is a great resource for knowledge and ideas, this information must be taken with a grain of salt.
A) The purpose of Wikipedia is to act as a global, freely accessible internet based encyclopedia. Wikipedia attempts to bring large amounts of information from all over the world and many different subjects to once central, searchable place. While not all information
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There is no age requirement nor is there any bias towards any one group based on region or language. The site itself has a translate feature that allows it to be read in a vast amount of countries all over the world. It is intended to be used by everyone that is searching for knowledge about specific topics.
C) I completely believe that Wikipedia reaches its intended audience. When searching for a specific topic using a search engine, often there will be a link about the topic in question connected to a “wiki” page. Even though the editability of a wiki page usually disqualifies it from academic pages, Wikipedia tends to be a major starting point for most researchers.
D) I quite often use Wikipedia for quick research topics. If I ever have a question about something I may have seen on TV or in a movie, Wikipedia is the first place I start my search. When searching for information about school projects or a hobby, Wikipedia helps to point me in the right direction. Even though the content can be questionable, usually there are references that can help lead me to a creditable information
Wikipedia is a collaborative resource, which aims to be a compendium of all human knowledge. In a serious examination of Wikipedia as a credible and valid source of information we need to place our argument within a definable framework. As I will show information has many uses, for the purposes of this paper I will examine the use of Wikipedia for scholarly research, the kind, which I will be utilizing throughout the rest of my MBA program. I will be evaluating Wikipedia based on the parameters set forth by Brenda Spatt. The credentials, Impartiality, style/tone, and currency of Wikipedia will all be examined in this paper (Spatt 2011).
“As educators, we are in the business of reducing the dissemination of misinformation,” said Don Wyatt, chair of the department. “Even though Wikipedia may have some value, particularly from the value of leading students to citable sources, it is not itself an appropriate source for citation,” he said.
The ultimate reason Marshal Poe does this is to illustrate his views on information sharing and depict the communities role in it. Poe mentions, “Wikipedia has the potential to be the greatest effort in collaborative gathering the world has ever known, and it may well be the greatest effort in voluntary collaboration of any kind.”, in the very beginning of his article to present his view on collaboration within the community. He describes wikipedia as “the most comprehensive repository of human knowledge in human history.” (Poe 349) This serves to contribute to the idea that information sharing lies within both the community and technology, which was also shown by Marshall Poe upon his discussion of the usage of the bottom-up system and cathedral model. Marshall Poe is ultimately stating that when power is given to the public, they will use it to their own advantage and promote true knowledge, as exemplified through his new and improved biography on Wikipedia. Information sharing is contributing to the progress of human
When students are doing research on the internet, Wikipedia is usually one of the first site to appear. For students, the site is usually tempting to click, but they are quickly reminded by their teachers that Wikipedia should not be used as a site of knowledge. They label the site as inaccurate, unreliable, and uncreditable. In Boyd’s article she writes that teachers consistently tell students to stay clear of Wikipedia at all cost. Students should not have to see the site as tempting. They should be allowed to use it and embrace the site. Wikipedia has so much educational potential and should not be ignored by teachers. Boyd also writes that some analyses have shown that Wikipedia’s content is just as creditable as, if not more reliable than, more traditional resources.
Eventhough, the internet can be helpful with education, it can also be unreliable. However, “The Hive” by Marchall Poe, was the openness of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that anyone can use it. This might work for some people specially that ones who attend school or college. This is very helpful for them because in Wikipedia you can search or find anything you would like. Since anyone can write, or delete or use information off of Wikipedia, it makes it less controversial because anyone can put their input into the website. If don’t agree with something, that’s alright because you can add your own opinion. Poe describes how authors of certain wiki pages write with a bias to support their facts. Facts become opinions when feelings and emotions of bias get involved. “Instead of relying on experts to
Is Wikipedia credible or not credible? Wikipedia is commonly known for anyone to publish their own opinions and it may not be very reliable. However, Wikipedia can seem useful but with the info not being credible can mess up the students research if they only use Wikipedia. Casper Grathwohl thinks the opposite though based on his article “Wikipedia Comes of Age” a chronicle of the higher education. He states that students are using it as a pre information guide before they do further research. Students should use it as a personal information guide. This article makes some good points in mentioning such as research studies, and how Wikipedia should be used as a formal research tool. This type of argument is determined as a classical argument. This would be very helpful in books explaining why Wikipedia should be a formal research tool for students. This explains that anyone can use it to get brief knowledge but should rely on other and more reliable sources. The article “Wikipedia Comes of age” by Casper Grathwohl should be in a textbook because, he states how it can help with information on the topic you are researching but not to use it as a reliable one and only source.
The Internet is an uncensored place, where knowledge flows freely, and uninterrupted. The site en.wikipedia.org, is an online wikipedia freely editable by anyone. Therefore, ideas and knowledge can be exchanged freely, if they are accurate, that is another question. Since it is editable by anyone, information can be false, but in most cases, the information found there is highly accurate and updated frequently. You can find knowledge on a range of topics, from WW2, to Philosophy, even to the Bolshevik Uprising. This is an example of what can happen when the free exchange of ideas and knowledge, is both not limited, and uncensored. “There must be something in books, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.”(Bradbury, 1953) This quote from Montag relates to a world where knowledge isn’t limited. He ponders why a woman, would stay in a burning house, just for her books, just for the potential knowledge in them.
The impacts of online education is evolving as I write. My paper was about current impacts of online education. One reference I found was from 1994. A lot of has changed about online education in the past 21 years. In 1994, I would of never imagined completing high school online yet it is a reality of 2015. Therefore, reading about the impacts of online education in 1994 would be vastly different than reading an article written in 2010 or later. Other options were rejected for lack of credability. Since Wikipedia can be edited by any user I immediately rejected the idea of conducting research there. Sifting through websites was just one of the many steps in the research paper assembly
Wikipedia was the jumping off point for our topic. When it came to finding out who Jane Addams was we learned did about how she opens the hull house to help others and how it was helping many children. This site was also helping us get the basis of a research that we could use to find more credible sites and books. It also let us know about the hull house because we didn't even know that it existed so it gave us this whole new thing to research about
As a source of information a person might consider performing additional research to verify that the information is accurate or trustworthy on Wikipedia. Some of Wikipedia’s editors and contributors do not use their real name or provide any information about who they are or if they are expertise in field. Although, Wikipedia is not a reliable source for academic research does not mean that it is wrong to use basic reference materials when an individual is trying to research a
The advantages of having information so obtainable is that we can get information that we would like to know at the tip of our hands. Now that we have smartphones it is nice that we can look up addresses to certain places and be able to get the navigation application direct you to the location. It is nice to be able to get information that we need so easily I enjoy that it is so accessible. I constantly use the internet to look for information that I need. It can be to look up what certain person have contributed to history and how it has changed us. I also use it to find out side effects on medication or what is the medication is used to treat. This has helped me a lot at my job.
Certainly, creating a Wikipedia page does wonders for those in politics and in the business world. Here is one prediction that is difficult to ignore. Those that place a page on Wikipedia about their business or some other interest, notice a rise in brand recognition along with an increase in traffic to their site. Was it a coincidence? Was it a great predictor of amazing results because of using Wikipedia to introduce the world to a company's brand, service, or products? Thousands of online marketers discovered that
In the article “A Brief History of Wikipedia” the author Dan Fletcher explains how Wikipedia was founded and the complications they fixed. In the first paragraph, he was explaining how Wikipedia started with its first article on a Norwegian actress Beate Eriksen. That the article reached 3 million entries from other people, and how impressive it was. Then he talks about how Wikipedia.com went live on Jan. 15, 2001 and how fast it made its self-popular on the Ethernet. During the proses of popularity since Wikipedia had an issue with the Church of Scientology messing with articles so they blocked their IP from the website, and people volunteered to monetize and fix articles that were messed with bad intentions. Later in the article, Wikipedia
Badke (2008) begins his article reminding us that Wikipedia although controversial is still the online encyclopedia of choice by 36% of the United States population according to Pew Internet & American Life Project’s findings. (As quoted by Badke, para. 1)
The Wikipedia is a free, online encyclopedia that lets every individual with Internet connection write and edits its articles. Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger launched their creation in 2001 giving an opportunity to all willing people to work together to develop a common resource of knowledge. Many people have different believes and ideas about Wikipedia, therefore, some tend to think of it as a credible and valid source of information, others strongly disagree. “Since all the books and articles have been chosen for publication, each one has presumably undergone some form of selection and review” (Spatt, 2011, “p.”339-340). Unfortunately, this statement is simply not enough to