First Year English Compostion Award
Kasey Elizabeth Moore, "The Computer Illiterate and Wikipedia"
Wikipedia, the encyclopedia of the people, has brought a world of knowledge usually only acquired in an Encyclopedia Britannica to anybody with access to the internet. I have used Wikipedia on many occasions, but I never expected to contribute to it. One day in my literature class, Dr. Theado walked in and said we would be doing a project centered around Wikipedia. My first thought was “Oh pooh! I do not have time for this, and I cannot contribute to Wikipedia. Who cares about that stuff anyway? It is only for experts who know what they are doing.”
The world of the internet has always been fairly illusive to my simplistic mind. My own grandmother knows more about operating computers than I do. I like things in print, things I can hold in my hands. Unlike many people my age, I have never been all that into the internet. I have only ever known enough to be able to do my school work. Call me an anomaly, but I do not care about the newest technology. My parents tried to get me a cell phone a long time ago. I was able to hold them off until I got a car, and they said it was necessary for me to have one. Even then, my friends would get frustrated with the fact that I left it off all the time. In fact, my friends were the ones who set up my facebook account and uploaded my profile pictures. It was because they wanted to be able to keep up with me after we graduated. I never really needed to be all that technologically savvy due to the fact I had plenty of people to do everything for me. At least, it was that way until I got to college.
In college, everything is driven by computers and the internet. I have to go online to find course information. I have to do quizzes online, turn in papers online. The internet seems to be a lifeline of campus living. Our entire composition class has been centered on culture and how new technologies such as the internet can be seen as “new” forms of literature. I have had a hard time adjusting to this lifestyle. My res-tech is scary, and she has made fun of me on many occasions (although I will admit it is not completely undeserved). Thankfully, I have made many friends on my hall who have helped me learn to handle myself with a computer. My roommate even taught me how to send an attachment on an email the other day. But, just because I was getting a handle on the ins and outs of basic computer skills, did not mean I would be able to post an entry on Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is an extensive online encyclopedia. According to Daniel H. Pink in his essay “The Book Stops Here,” Wikipedia’s repository of knowledge rivals the library of ancient Alexandria. And while the esteemed Britannica contains a good 80,000 articles, it seems miniscule compared to Wikipedia’s 1.3 million articles in seventy-five different languages. All a person has to do is go to http://en.wikipedia.org/ to find a plethora of information on almost any subject that he or she wishes to know more about. Wikipedia houses articles on anything from the history of pillows to scientific subjects such as osmosis and diffusion. It can be a very helpful and convenient sight for a student doing research on a project or a person wanting to know about the plot of a famous novel.
Even I, the computer illiterate, have used Wikipedia on more than one occasion. It was very helpful as a source of reference for research papers. This year, I have used it many times for anatomy definitions. It also enabled me to pass a few pop quizzes on books I had not read for English class. If I ever wanted to know the end of a movie before I went to see it with my friends, all I needed to do was type its title in the search bar. I would then be able to read about the plot, and I could continue on to read about each of the actors in the movie. From there, I could look at almost any other project they had been involved in. If I wanted it to, it could continue on for hours, days, weeks, maybe even a lifetime. Each article is linked to other articles, as well as having external links so that one can see what other sources have to say about the subject. Needless to say, Wikipedia is a myriad of information meant to be a helpful resource for a person in need of comprehension.
Even more amazing than the extensiveness of Wikipedia’s reach is the fact that it continues to grow. A major global event can take place, and minutes later, information is already posted on Wikipedia. The reason that this can occur is because Wikipedia uses state-of-the-art wiki technology that allows anyone to use and edit the encyclopedia at any time. Anybody can change or add content on almost any topic. According to Pink’s article, all Wikipedia articles were originally available for editing. But as the cite continued to grow, vandalism became more prevalent. For example, during the 2004 elections, both John Kerry and George W. Bush’s articles became closed due to people posting inappropriate content. The main page is also unavailable for editing. However, the majority of the articles are available for editing, and they can be edited by anyone. That means anyone…even me.
Through obvious reasoning, it can be assumed that I had no clue how to do more than look things up on Wikipedia. The fact I knew about it at all was rather incredible. When Dr. Theado introduced the project, he mentioned things like practicing in “the sandbox,” whatever that is. (I still do not understand the sandbox thing. I went on to practice and ended up more confused than when I started.) I really did not think I could handle adding to anything. I went online to find out more about how to edit, and I noticed tabs on the top of the articles for the first time. They said things like “edit” or “history.” As I began to explore, I realized the vast amount of things I could do to the site. The whole world of Wikipedia began to open up to me. It was actually kind of overwhelming. Anything is possible, anything at all. While I did not find the instructions on how to edit or the “sandbox” very helpful, clicking on the “edit” tab showed the format of what people had done before on the article and allowed me to practice editing myself. Through trial and error, I discovered how to add to a page correctly.
I had a hard time picking a topic to edit. Like I have stated before, almost anything is available for further development. I began to explore Wikipedia in search of my awe-inspiring topic. One day, I happened across an article about a series of books I used to love when I was younger. The article was severely lacking in content, and I had found a topic that I was actually capable of improving (unlike those anatomy articles that I have found so helpful for A&P—I could have only massacred them). I changed some of the poor grammar in the main paragraph, and I added a plot summary section to the article. It was pretty awesome if I do say so myself. I have never done anything like it before, and there was this great feeling that came with pressing the “submit” button which can only be described as mischievousness. When I added to the article, I really felt like a child doing something very, very wrong. It was really fun. The Christy Miller Seriesarticle on Wikipedia is now the partial product of Kasey Elizabeth Moore. Pretty cool, huh?
I, Kasey Elizabeth Moore, have added to the great encyclopedia known as Wikipedia. Me, a poor, eighteen year old college student with nothing to my name but the clothes on my back…wait…nope, my parents own them too. Maybe this is why many of my teachers have decided not to allow students to use Wikipedia as an applicable resource on their papers. People with no credentials and no experience can add things to topics they know nothing about. This can lead to articles full of erroneous content that is completely inapplicable to the topic. A person could look up celery and find an article defining it as a plushy, purple pen with a fuzzy orange dinosaur attached to the top of it with a spring. The information on Wikipedia can be unreliable. This is why the founders of the site have set up a self check system. When one person uploads false information, another person is able to reverse what the other has done. Many experts and volunteers patrol Wikipedia watching for false information and vandals. When someone messes up, the system corrects itself, many times fairly quickly. According to the article “Using Wikipedia” that can be found at http://apps.carleton.edu/campus/library/for_faculty/faculty_find/wikipedia/, even James Wales, founder of Wikipedia, says that one has to be careful with the information they find. Just because a source is extensive and easy to access does not mean it gives you the most correct information. Things on Wikipedia can easily be tainted with bias, and it is important to realize this before one uses it as a source.
Overall, I have found Wikipedia to be a very helpful site. I can understand why professors do not allow their students to use it, but I also do not see that big of a difference between Wikipedia and print sources. Anything one reads will have some kind of bias, and I have read many books full of content that is completely wrong. Any source will have some kind of flaw in it. Even firsthand sources only see things from the author’s perspective. If I were a professor, I would probably allow my students to use Wikipedia as a reference as long as they had other evidence backing up their research.
It was pretty amazing, however, being able to edit Wikipedia for myself. And while I do not believe I will be doing it again anytime soon, I think everyone should be able to have the experience of participating in such an enormous project at some point in their life. Maybe one of these days I will actually know what I am doing when it comes to the computer, but for now projects like this one will continue to spark my interest and keep me from giving up completely. You never know… maybe, one day, I’ll invent the next Microsoft all because I became hooked on technology through Dr. Theado’s composition class.
Wikipedia, the encyclopedia of the people, has brought a world of knowledge usually only acquired in an Encyclopedia Britannica to anybody with access to the internet. I have used Wikipedia on many occasions, but I never expected to contribute to it. One day in my literature class, Dr. Theado walked in and said we would be doing a project centered around Wikipedia. My first thought was “Oh pooh! I do not have time for this, and I cannot contribute to Wikipedia. Who cares about that stuff anyway? It is only for experts who know what they are doing.”
The world of the internet has always been fairly illusive to my simplistic mind. My own grandmother knows more about operating computers than I do. I like things in print, things I can hold in my hands. Unlike many people my age, I have never been all that into the internet. I have only ever known enough to be able to do my school work. Call me an anomaly, but I do not care about the newest technology. My parents tried to get me a cell phone a long time ago. I was able to hold them off until I got a car, and they said it was necessary for me to have one. Even then, my friends would get frustrated with the fact that I left it off all the time. In fact, my friends were the ones who set up my facebook account and uploaded my profile pictures. It was because they wanted to be able to keep up with me after we graduated. I never really needed to be all that technologically savvy due to the fact I had plenty of people to do everything for me. At least, it was that way until I got to college.
In college, everything is driven by computers and the internet. I have to go online to find course information. I have to do quizzes online, turn in papers online. The internet seems to be a lifeline of campus living. Our entire composition class has been centered on culture and how new technologies such as the internet can be seen as “new” forms of literature. I have had a hard time adjusting to this lifestyle. My res-tech is scary, and she has made fun of me on many occasions (although I will admit it is not completely undeserved). Thankfully, I have made many friends on my hall who have helped me learn to handle myself with a computer. My roommate even taught me how to send an attachment on an email the other day. But, just because I was getting a handle on the ins and outs of basic computer skills, did not mean I would be able to post an entry on Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is an extensive online encyclopedia. According to Daniel H. Pink in his essay “The Book Stops Here,” Wikipedia’s repository of knowledge rivals the library of ancient Alexandria. And while the esteemed Britannica contains a good 80,000 articles, it seems miniscule compared to Wikipedia’s 1.3 million articles in seventy-five different languages. All a person has to do is go to http://en.wikipedia.org/ to find a plethora of information on almost any subject that he or she wishes to know more about. Wikipedia houses articles on anything from the history of pillows to scientific subjects such as osmosis and diffusion. It can be a very helpful and convenient sight for a student doing research on a project or a person wanting to know about the plot of a famous novel.
Even I, the computer illiterate, have used Wikipedia on more than one occasion. It was very helpful as a source of reference for research papers. This year, I have used it many times for anatomy definitions. It also enabled me to pass a few pop quizzes on books I had not read for English class. If I ever wanted to know the end of a movie before I went to see it with my friends, all I needed to do was type its title in the search bar. I would then be able to read about the plot, and I could continue on to read about each of the actors in the movie. From there, I could look at almost any other project they had been involved in. If I wanted it to, it could continue on for hours, days, weeks, maybe even a lifetime. Each article is linked to other articles, as well as having external links so that one can see what other sources have to say about the subject. Needless to say, Wikipedia is a myriad of information meant to be a helpful resource for a person in need of comprehension.
Even more amazing than the extensiveness of Wikipedia’s reach is the fact that it continues to grow. A major global event can take place, and minutes later, information is already posted on Wikipedia. The reason that this can occur is because Wikipedia uses state-of-the-art wiki technology that allows anyone to use and edit the encyclopedia at any time. Anybody can change or add content on almost any topic. According to Pink’s article, all Wikipedia articles were originally available for editing. But as the cite continued to grow, vandalism became more prevalent. For example, during the 2004 elections, both John Kerry and George W. Bush’s articles became closed due to people posting inappropriate content. The main page is also unavailable for editing. However, the majority of the articles are available for editing, and they can be edited by anyone. That means anyone…even me.
Through obvious reasoning, it can be assumed that I had no clue how to do more than look things up on Wikipedia. The fact I knew about it at all was rather incredible. When Dr. Theado introduced the project, he mentioned things like practicing in “the sandbox,” whatever that is. (I still do not understand the sandbox thing. I went on to practice and ended up more confused than when I started.) I really did not think I could handle adding to anything. I went online to find out more about how to edit, and I noticed tabs on the top of the articles for the first time. They said things like “edit” or “history.” As I began to explore, I realized the vast amount of things I could do to the site. The whole world of Wikipedia began to open up to me. It was actually kind of overwhelming. Anything is possible, anything at all. While I did not find the instructions on how to edit or the “sandbox” very helpful, clicking on the “edit” tab showed the format of what people had done before on the article and allowed me to practice editing myself. Through trial and error, I discovered how to add to a page correctly.
I had a hard time picking a topic to edit. Like I have stated before, almost anything is available for further development. I began to explore Wikipedia in search of my awe-inspiring topic. One day, I happened across an article about a series of books I used to love when I was younger. The article was severely lacking in content, and I had found a topic that I was actually capable of improving (unlike those anatomy articles that I have found so helpful for A&P—I could have only massacred them). I changed some of the poor grammar in the main paragraph, and I added a plot summary section to the article. It was pretty awesome if I do say so myself. I have never done anything like it before, and there was this great feeling that came with pressing the “submit” button which can only be described as mischievousness. When I added to the article, I really felt like a child doing something very, very wrong. It was really fun. The Christy Miller Seriesarticle on Wikipedia is now the partial product of Kasey Elizabeth Moore. Pretty cool, huh?
I, Kasey Elizabeth Moore, have added to the great encyclopedia known as Wikipedia. Me, a poor, eighteen year old college student with nothing to my name but the clothes on my back…wait…nope, my parents own them too. Maybe this is why many of my teachers have decided not to allow students to use Wikipedia as an applicable resource on their papers. People with no credentials and no experience can add things to topics they know nothing about. This can lead to articles full of erroneous content that is completely inapplicable to the topic. A person could look up celery and find an article defining it as a plushy, purple pen with a fuzzy orange dinosaur attached to the top of it with a spring. The information on Wikipedia can be unreliable. This is why the founders of the site have set up a self check system. When one person uploads false information, another person is able to reverse what the other has done. Many experts and volunteers patrol Wikipedia watching for false information and vandals. When someone messes up, the system corrects itself, many times fairly quickly. According to the article “Using Wikipedia” that can be found at http://apps.carleton.edu/campus/library/for_faculty/faculty_find/wikipedia/, even James Wales, founder of Wikipedia, says that one has to be careful with the information they find. Just because a source is extensive and easy to access does not mean it gives you the most correct information. Things on Wikipedia can easily be tainted with bias, and it is important to realize this before one uses it as a source.
Overall, I have found Wikipedia to be a very helpful site. I can understand why professors do not allow their students to use it, but I also do not see that big of a difference between Wikipedia and print sources. Anything one reads will have some kind of bias, and I have read many books full of content that is completely wrong. Any source will have some kind of flaw in it. Even firsthand sources only see things from the author’s perspective. If I were a professor, I would probably allow my students to use Wikipedia as a reference as long as they had other evidence backing up their research.
It was pretty amazing, however, being able to edit Wikipedia for myself. And while I do not believe I will be doing it again anytime soon, I think everyone should be able to have the experience of participating in such an enormous project at some point in their life. Maybe one of these days I will actually know what I am doing when it comes to the computer, but for now projects like this one will continue to spark my interest and keep me from giving up completely. You never know… maybe, one day, I’ll invent the next Microsoft all because I became hooked on technology through Dr. Theado’s composition class.