Homework 4 - Find and discuss an internet resource.

Christopher Chirdon
DIL 2749
HW #4
Internet Resource Review

Introduction
Wikipedia is an enormous dynamic online repository of information.  As the content is designed by those who use it, the content’s voice varies.  It is aimed at everyone and it is this fact that makes it difficult to predict the voice of any one passage.  You quickly find that each entry in wikipedia typically has a cursory paragraph that summarizes the main concepts of the topic.  Those looking to simply find out what something “is” will likely be satisfied by this.  But under that skin-deep treatment are typically 3-8 sections detailing the how’s why’s and examples.  Students would find this section appealing because that’s where a lot of the answers are.  But instructors will find the sections after this most appealing because connections between the concept are listed and historical treatment are there as well.

Utility
To start, I think it is unfair to categorize it as an encyclopedia.  In my experience, resources bearing the name “encyclopedia” tend to be ponderous, unwieldy tomes of information.  They are rarely accessed but for the needs of the occasional research paper hastenly scribbled the night before.  Does this sound like the brown book you grew up with?  Cast away those presuppositions and breathe a sigh of relief.

Wikipedia, is very much unlike like “the book you grew up with”.  Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that is the cumulative work of everyone and anyone who wants to contribute to it.  It is designed not only to be read and searched but also to be edited by those using it to correct errors and fill in omissions.  It holds a vast array of scientific and historical information as well as all that is popular and cultural.  You may find out about the Louisiana Purchase, Alexander Graham Bell, the Law of Universal Gravitation, and also the film Armageddon.  Unlike many encyclopedias, the knowledge in Wikipedia is without bounds.  Anything that is a “thing”, from concepts to concerts, will be found in wikipedia.

The danger with Wikipedia, as is present with most information on the internet, is that of reliability.  Because the pages can all be edited by anyone there is ever present a danger that incorrect, and sometimes inappropriate, information may make its way on to the site.  For a time around Tookie Williams execution the page was locked for editing because of vandalism.  This is one of the mechanism by which the integrity of the information is ensured.  That and the continually revising masses that enlessly refine and preen the "pages" of Wikipedia.

 Citation
Wikipedia
http://www.wikipedia.org