Evaluating Wikipedia

Wikipedia, I never really knew much about it before the lecture last week, although from what I gathered it seems to be one of the most often used resources around the world. After reading a few of the links Adam posted I became a little weary of Wikipedia and using it as a resource. The idea that anyone can just go and change another persons work or even delete the entire thing seems very odd. I guess it's good that others able to correct information or add it but how do we know if its correct? The task today was to pick two articles that I am an expert one which is quite difficult as I dont really believe myself to be an expert on anything.

The first article I chose was about the greyhound. Owning a greyhound myself was what promted me to choose this topic as I know quite alot about them. I found the information in the article to be very true and relevant to the topic. It covered all the general facts you would need or want to know about greyhounds from their size, appearance and personality. It stuck to the Wikipedia guidelines fairly well, referenceing all the statements, breaking up the information into seperate pages, the grammar was correct and well punctuated and it avoided the not-to-do content. I would have to say that it seemed to be a very informative and correct article.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyhounds)

The second article that I decided to look up was about bi-polar disorder which I chose because a member of my family suffers from it. After reading the article I learnt some new fact myself and found everything I knew on the subject was in the article. Again it was a very accurate article using relevant facts and references. It covered all the basic facts needed to understand the topic also adding extra indepth information. I believe it followed the Wikipedia guidelines I mentioned in the above paragrpah. The article was not really debating an issue but rather explaining it so it was not really biased in anyway but it did seem fair and accurate.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi-polar_disorder)

Perhaps I was just lucky to choose two articles that were factual. I also found this task a little hard not knowing enough about the articles I chose. I agree that there is probably many articles out there in Wikipedia that are incorrect or not entirely true. I don't think I will be using in the future for any assignments but it does seem to have some reliable information.

Well, I think thats all I've got for today now I'm off to fill up my 4 hour gap with much procrastination about the two paragrpahs I have due in tomorrow!

Farewell bloggers :)