Wikipedia,
a website with pages upon pages of information on anything from amino acids to the anatomy of a cat to anything you would want to know about Snooki. The list is endless. I could
imagine that if I were to go and ask my friends, family, and even random
strangers if they had ever used Wikipedia, heck even heard of it, I would be
bold enough to venture a guess that almost every one of them would say yes. It
has become such a huge part of the internet world as a place to get information
– it is the internet’s version of an encyclopedia. I know I myself have used it
to get quick answers to questions and even used it as a source to settle a
debate among my friends. Could I go to an actual encyclopedia and find what I
was looking for? Sure, but why would I when I can take out my smartphone and
look it up instantly on Wikipedia. It is also generally the first place I start
looking when I am given a research project. Now with that said, how reliable
and accurate is Wikipedia truly?
Well, to
answer this question I attempted to edit a Wikipedia stub, an entry that has
not gained the status of an article because it lacks information and citations.
The challenge began with choosing a stub and a challenge it was. The number of
stubs on Wikipedia is seemingly limitless so it would seem relatively simple to
choose something that I would have knowledge about; however this assumption
proved incorrect. While there were many entries where I had a very general knowledge
of, nothing really seemed like something I have enough knowledge on that I
could write a good article about or could even find enough correct information
on. Going through animal stubs and biology stubs, I found nothing. Finally, I
stumbled across horse stubs and found Coffin Bone, which is a bone in the hoof of a horse. Perfect! Last semester I took
a course on horses so it would seem I have a fair bit of knowledge in this
subject area.
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| Screen shot of the original Coffin Bone stub |
Next came
actually writing the article. I looked at past lecture notes given by my
professor and looked up more references on the web. Mix this in with the
knowledge I already have and I was able to come up with some good paragraphs
about the coffin bone, including its location and some health complications
that could occur with it. Although I didn’t come up with a nice long article
with everything known about the coffin bone, my entry embellished the stub to
give a better overview and more general information about it. When it came to
actually putting my words into the wiki software to format it, I struggled. I
am rather good with computer programs and navigating the internet but, as I
found out, when it comes to website codes and all that, I am simply not that
great at it. So what did I do? I looked at a Wikipedia article on referencing
when writing a Wikipedia article (yes, there is a Wikipedia page for that too).
I eventually worked my way through the codes and finally finished my stub,
proper referencing and all.
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| Screen shot of my Coffin Bone article |
Needless to
say, I was pretty proud of myself with this process. I got exposure to wiki’s, websites
users can add to, edit, and delete the information posted, which Wikipedia is. I
learned a bit about website codes and editing articles but learned even more
about the coffin bone. When I think about this, it obviously shows I am no
expert when it comes to this subject area and, being a student, what I know may
not be entirely correct or accurate. Going back to that previous question I
posed, how reliable Wikipedia is, I think I just answered my own question. I
was able to go in, edit and add to an article about the coffin bone, an area I thought I knew enough about. If I can do
this so can everybody else, so how can we know if the information stated is
accurate? Simple answer is we can’t. Even with Wikipedia staffers and other
experts patrolling the pages looking for proper, unbiased information, sometimes
things slip through. Fellow classmate and blogger Nicole also shares ideas on the benefits of Wikipedia as well as its disadvantages, as she agrees there is a problem with reliability. I believe Wikipedia to be a good first place to start to
get an overview of a topic and a general understanding, but not for using it as
final say for something because there is no way to know if the information came
from a scholarly source. It is good keeping up with news and pop culture but
academically speaking, Wikipedia is not reliable enough to use as a reference
of information. Is this going to stop me from using Wikipedia? Definitely not.
However, when it comes to my academics, the most I will be using this site for
is to get a broad overview of the topic and perhaps following the references
listed on the Wikipedia page to find actual scholarly information.
