Reading #2

"Can Wikipedia Ever Make The Grade?," by Brock Read, discusses the accuracy of the popular online encyclopedia, which can virtually be edited by anyone, and if academics should embrace it or ignore it. Read begins the article with an anecdote about a skeptical assistant professor from Quinnipiac College, who intentionally placed false, credible-looking information into 13 obscure articles. Fortunately, the Wikipedia editors constantly check over recently updated articles, so they fact-checked and reversed the assistant professor's misinformation. As a matter of fact, several scholars are wary of the Internet's new hottest information site, but are slowly becoming less hostile because of it's general appeal. Of course, their wariness is not unwarranted; the website is consistently in flux, mistakes sometimes linger in the lesser-trafficked subjects, and misinformation sometimes reaches other (reputable) websites. Leaders of Wikipedia have acknowledged this problem, as they hold an annual three-day meeting at Harvard where they discuss the policies to prevent editorial vandalism and erasing seedy entries. Nature journal recently published a study comparing the accuracy of scientific articles from Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia Britannica, which found that while the average Britannica article usually had three errors, while Wikipedia usually had four. A history professor from George Mason University did the same, except with historic articles, and found they were almost as factually accurate as one another. Scholars have found that art and law are usually the weaker articles in Wikipedia, compared to history or science. Among its' 40, 000 active contributors (1, 100 of them being graduate students) professors and scholars are writing articles on their expertise, only to have them immediately deleted by Wikipedia. This probably contributes to the hostility I mentioned earlier, as professors think it is disrespectful, but the real reason is that their lengthy articles are not concise - which is pretty much the charm of Wikipedia.

Although I'm aware of the taboo of praising Wikipedia, I personally enjoy it very much and will sometimes use it up to 10 times a day - but usually it is not for anything scholarly, mainly just looking up things to ease my curiosity (countries, foods, authors, etc.) I feel that it is so appealing, regardless of it's lack of factual credibility, it probably just due to its accessible layout and vast knowledge. I think the reason that makes it so popular amongst college students is the fact that it is open to any one's input and is not as concrete or rigid as opening up an Encyclopedia. Like the professor that Brock Read mentioned, I also tried to put false information in an article which lasted for probably five seconds before it was deleted/corrected by the Wikipedia editors - something that has comforted me, as I have used Wikipedia for powerpoints, note cards, and brushing up on topics for college courses. To me, Wikipedia is nearly on the same level as Google, as a source for information, but should really be absorbed with a grain of salt (as should any result from any search engine, really)- if you can do this, you can definitely benefit from the website.