In Andrew Dalby's "The World and Wikipedia", Dalby tells us about the people who contribute to Wikipedia, (Wikipedians) who invented Wikipedia, why it was invented, and the pros and cons of Wikipedia. A brief overview of why it first came into existed: Gaius Plinius Secundus, referred to as Pliny in the book, spent everyday getting books read to him as well as always had a notebook in his hand. He uses the word encyclopaedia which meant "full circle of knowledge", "He is the first known author to have used the word encyclopaedia, 'full circle of knowledge'" (pg 20). There was simply too much information to be put on paper. As well as the problem of updating the material, "One annual issue looked very much like another, and people soon discovered that a slightly used set of Britannicas was very nearly as good as a new set while costing a small fraction of the price" (pg.29). So then encyclopedia enthusiasts moved on to CD-ROMs. This was a good idea at the time but then it was too much a hassle for users to switch between CDs if they needed information from another CD, "Encyclopaedia Britannica itself appeared in a CD-ROM version, in 1994, it would not fit comfortably on one disc; a big nuisance to any home user..." (pg. 30). Wikipedia came about from the initial idea of an online encyclopedia, Nupedia- started with Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales. Later Sanger thought of an idea of adding software that allowed “anyone” to alter the information. That is how Wikipedia got its name from the Hawaiian adverb ‘wikiwiki’ which meant ‘fast’. Wikipedia started on January 15, 2001. Since then it has grown exponentially. Some problems that come with Wikipedia is that people can conduct vandalism and put information that completely false and it will be able to stay on the website until someone else changes it, “The best feature of the site is that anyone can edit virtually anything contained on it. The worst feature of the site is that anyone can edit virtually anything contained on it” (pg. 50). There was an incident that someone falsely wrote a biography about a certain person, John Seigenthaler Sr., the guy who did it was named Brian Chase and after he was found had a Wikipedia article titled Brian Chase (Wikipedia hoaxer) named after him.
To state the truth, I use Wikipedia for my classes to find information about subjects I am not educated in. Is that a problem? Some teachers believe that Wikipedia is a way of cheating if used to research topics in class. Others do not mind at all, in fact teachers use articles from Wikipedia in their lectures and teachings, “Ever more often, students find themselves using Wikipedia because their treat it as a teaching aid” (pg 104). I feel as though we are in a day and age of technology and if all this information is given to us at our fingertips, why not use it to its advantages? If the material that one researches is incorrect then that student should pay the consequences and get a bad grade for not looking up other sources other than Wikipedia to make sure the information is liable.
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I agree with you here. Students have the responsibility to obtain sound and accurate information from their research. For me personally, wikipedia is more of a jumping off point that that sort of breaks down the topic, and from there I use other sources of information. To use wikipedia as the sole source of your research is a bit risky, just like using any other single source on its own.
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